Free Republic

Senior portfolio manager at NML Capital Jay Newman said that “Argentina is capable of paying all of its creditors” given its “vast natural ressources.” He blamed the government for not reaching a deal with the holdouts.

A wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. This is what Obama, with his fiscal cliff plan, threatens us with. For many years now we have heard chilling tales about that elusive, powerful and manipulative entity conspiracy theorists have called “The New World Order”. Not only have the members of this group managed for the most part to remain anonymous, but their agenda has remained mysterious and obscure. So much so that many good people have been perfectly fine with ignoring its existence or viability. Whether or not this New World Order is in lockstep with World Communism...

Get the hot deals while they last! Whatever’s on your holiday shopping list—buy now, it may never be this cheap again! In a single day this past week, the ruble exchange rate dropped from 59 to 80 to the dollar, further eroding confidence in the Russian economy and ensuring a deep recession next year—but also briefly turning Moscow into the shopping capital of the world. Although this past week’s currency crisis marked the worst fall for the ruble since Russia defaulted on its debt in 1998, no one was waiting in bread lines or starting a run on the bank....

Sam Ro December 23, 2014America is just killing it. Q3 GDP growth was just revised up to 5.0% from last month's estimate of 3.9%. This is the fastest pace of growth since Q3 2003. This was also much stronger than the 4.3% expected by economists. "The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from PCE, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending, exports, state and local government spending, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased," the BEA said. Personal consumption growth was revised up to 3.2% from 2.2%....

Diocletian became emperor in 284. Early in his reign, he took a decidedly non-peaceful turn, purging the empire of any perceived threats to his power. He enlarged both the Empire’s military and civil forces, creating a greater threat to foreign leaders and a greater police state at home...

Russians are saying “ooh yeh” to the collapse of their currency, but it’s not as positive as it might sound to Western ears. As the value of the ruble goes into free fall, Russians are preparing for a return to the economic chaos of the ’90s. At a retail level, it means that store managers across Russia are rewriting their price tags in a currency Russians call a “conventional currency unit.” In Russian, the phrase for “conventional currency unit” is uslovnaya yedinitsa—abbreviated to an acronym pronounced ooh yeh.

Tyler Durden 12/17/2014Great news: The prices consumers pay dropped 0.3% MoM in November - the biggest deflation since Dec 2008. Of course, The Fed will be in "considerable" panic mode at this data and may choose to crush the hope of so many that rate hikes are coming in mid-2015 as definitive evidence that the US economy is well on the road to recovery. Ex-Food-and-Energy, prices rose 1.7% YoY - slightly missing expectations of +1.8%. Of course, a big driver of this 'transitory' disinflation is a 10.5% YoY drop in Gasoline and 6.6% MoM drop in November. Despite this huge...

Sub-Headlines: CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living. CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures. With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc. Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations [in 2013], through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document). Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees,...

Merryn Somerset WebbDecember 1, 2014 Russell Napier is a financial historian and the founder of ERIC, an online research firm that aims at connecting analysts and investors. Here he talks to Merryn Somerset Webb about the next deflationary bust – why it’s coming, what it means for you, and how you can survive it. Merryn Somerset Webb: Let’s start at the beginning. You are a firm believer, as I understand it, in the idea that we live in a deflationary environment and there’s almost nothing that central banks can do to change that. So, maybe talk a little bit about...

Mike Bird November 28, 2014 Eurozone inflation figures just released put the rate at 0.3% in November, down from October's 0.4% and in line with estimates. With the recent impact of oil prices, that means deflation isn't just a possibility for the eurozone: markets are now suggesting it's the most likely outcome in a few months' time. Analysts had forecast that that the rate would come in at 0.3% again, though some suggested it could fall as low as 02% The ECB currently targets 2% inflation, but that target was last reached in the summer of 2012. These numbers increase...

(Reuters) - European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has moved closer to launching sovereign debt purchases and data this week will show just how dangerously low inflation has fallen in the $13 trillion euro zone economy. A sickly Europe has held back global economic growth for years, and now it is contributing significantly to powerful forces already dragging down inflation across the globe. A spectacular drop in crude oil prices over the past month will be the center of discussion when ministers from the world's top oil exporters meets in Vienna on Friday.

DRAGHI: Inflation Must Rise Without Delay Mike Bird   European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi is speaking today at a banking conference in Frankfurt, and he has one central message: we have to bring inflation back up, now. It’s one of Draghi’s most forthright speeches, with one exceptional snippet: “It is essential to bring back inflation to target and without delay.” Draghi added: “We have to be very watchful that low inflation does not start percolating through the economy in ways that further worsen the economic situation.” You can take a look at the full text of the speech...

WASHINGTON - U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in October as a fourth straight decline in gasoline costs helped to keep inflation at bay. The steady reading for inflation last month followed a tiny 0.1 percent increase in September and a 0.2 percent drop in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. Energy prices fell 1.9 percent last month, while food costs edged up a slim 0.1 percent. Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food, rose 0.2 percent in October. For the past 12 months, overall inflation is up 1.7 percent, and core inflation is up a similarly modest 1.8 percent....

Every day, 170 Minnesotans turn 65. It's supposed to be the beginning of retirement. But for many, 65 is just another birthday. Although they're old enough to retire, they can't afford to. So every year in the fall, thousands come to work in Minnesota. For them, the sugar beet harvest is a lifesaver. Although it's seasonal and short-term work, it's a paycheck. The sugar beet harvest starts at the end of September and runs for a few weeks. The work involves a lot of heavy lifting and the pay is pretty good. The starting wage is $12 an hour. The...

The Cultural Economist Nov 13, 2014 TCE ( The Cultural Economist) writes: Like other Central Banks, the U. S. Federal Reserve has “printed” copious quantities of money. Despite better GDP numbers and positive media commentary, much of the American economy continues to be lethargic. The Eurozone appears increasingly vulnerable to recession. Financial and geopolitical risks could derail economic growth. What are the long term trends that will shape the outcome? The Case for Inflation Oil As I have documented several times, the rate of inflation is sensitive to the price we pay for a barrel of oil. Political turmoil in...

A Canadian's letter to the editor of the Detroit Free Press is generating buzz across the United States. In the letter, published on Monday, Richard Brunt – who claims to be from Victoria, B.C. – says that Canadians are confused by the outcome of last week’s U.S. mid-term elections, which saw the Republicans retake control of Congress. "Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country’s adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6 per cent, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries," he...

"[If] the monetary authorities are intent on depreciating the currency, then I think that in the fullness of time they will succeed all too well. …The important thing about QE [quantitative easing] is this idea, this radical precedent is now on the books — the virus as it were is in the monetary bloodstream. ...all of this is…in the books as precedent, and the monetarists and Keynesians are rather preening about the evident success of these interventions, and we can be sure I think that they will not forebear to do more still next time. There will come a time...

If modern physics is to be believed, we shouldn’t be here. The meager dose of energy infusing empty space, which at higher levels would rip the cosmos apart, is a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times tinier than theory predicts. And the minuscule mass of the Higgs boson, whose relative smallness allows big structures such as galaxies and humans to form, falls roughly 100 quadrillion times short of expectations. Dialing up either of these constants even a little would render the universe unlivable. To account for our incredible luck, leading cosmologists like Alan Guth and...

Gold Core October 31, 2014 Stocks globally surged, while gold fell sharply today despite renewed hopes that the Bank of Japan’s vastly increasing money printing will fill some of the gaps left by the apparent end of Federal Reserve bond buying. The BOJ decided to increase the pace at which it expands base money to a whopping 80 trillion yen ($726 billion) per year. Previously, the BOJ targeted an annual increase of 60 to 70 trillion yen. The BOJ sailed into deeper uncharted monetary territory with the announcement that they would triple annual purchases of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Japanese...

The graph above shows that after years of holding back inflation rates, the rate of housing inflation is boosting the rate of inflation. Month-to-month housing inflation was up 0.3% compared with the overall inflation rate of 0.1%. It's not just a one-month phenomenon, either, as year-over-year shelter price increases were up 3.0% versus 1.7% for the overall rate of inflation. Unfortunately, shelter is the single biggest component of the CPI calculation, so big moves here are magnified. For some perspective, gasoline is 5% and food is 14% of the CPI calculation. The good news is that consumers, with locked-in mortgages,...