The Economics of the Drug War | Mark Thornton

Debt is Destroying Everything : Martin Armstrong

Debt is Destroying Everything

Where is Common Sense When We Need it Most?


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Catherine Austin Fitts – $2500 Gold Means War

from FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com:

Catherine Austin Fitts is in a unique position to understand the machinations and inner workings of the matrix that controls our world. Her extensive experience in Washington and on Wall Street gives her a unique perspective. She’s quite concerned about the loss of freedoms we’re all suffering and the elite’s ruthlessness to keep and maintain power. She believes that freedom seekers need to hit a critical mass of fiver percent of the population or more, for real change to occur. She thinks that you need to tune out the mainstream media to end their influence over you. And she believes that genetically modified food is their effort to lower the world’s population. Some of her views are extremely controversial, but no one can argue with her experience or depth of knowledge. Listening to this interview will be time well spent.

CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO INTERVIEW

Doug Casey Uncovers the Real Price of Peak Oil

Doug Casey, chairman of Casey Research and expert on crisis investing, is on the search for real wealth – not investments in companies that push around paper. In this exclusive interview with The Energy Report, Casey shares his pragmatic take on what's next for oil, gas, and nuclear power.

The Energy Report: There will be a Casey Research Summit on Navigating the Politicized Economy in Carlsbad, California, in September. At the last conference, Porter Stansberry caused some excitement with his argument that oil could go to $40/barrel (bbl). What's your view?

Doug Casey: We like to have a range of defensible views represented at our conferences. But personally, I don't think it's realistic to suggest oil prices will drop as low as $40/bbl.

I am of the opinion that the Hubbert peak-oil theory is correct. In the 1950s, M. King Hubbert projected that US oil production would start declining in the 1970s, and he was accurate. Then he projected that in the mid-2000s, the world's production of light, sweet crude would start declining. He was quite correct about that, too.

There will always be plenty of oil at some given price, but to produce oil – even conventional, shallow, light sweet crude – now costs close to $40/bbl in many places. (more)

Everything you need to know about the September 12 German court decision that could rock the entire world

The eurozone is running out of bailout cash, and the German Constitutional Court now holds the fate of Europe in its hands.

The European Financial Stability Facility, the original euro area bailout fund established in the summer of 2010, is down to about €248 billion of lending capacity left after existing bailouts for Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are accounted for.

Spain and Italy – the next two countries expected to be in line for a bailout – could have combined financing needs as large as €703bn over the next two years, according to Citi estimates, dwarfing the existing capacity of the EFSF.

Those huge numbers underscore the need for the additional firepower of the European Stability Mechanism, the new bailout fund expected to replace the EFSF and make available hundreds of billions of euros in additional lending capacity to struggling member states.

However, the ESM has still yet to be ratified, which has many counting chickens before the eggs have hatched, so to speak.

The 16 judges that sit on the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany need to sign off on the fund's constitutionality in order to make the fund operational – and the Court is widely expected to do just that when they deliver a ruling on ESM ratification on September 12. (more)

The Math Behind Italy's 28,000 "Cash For Gold" Outlets

Via Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the Portuguese citizenry was being forced to sell its gold in order to eat. It seems that the Italians have now joined this illustrious club. I mean what do you expect when you allow Goldman Sachs to impose technocrat dictator Mario “Three Card” Monti as your political leader? Here are some excerpts from an article in The Globe and Mail:

Times are now so tough that Valerio Novelli, a ticket inspector on Rome’s buses, is planning to sell his old gold teeth.

“I can’t get to the end of the month without running up debts,” said Mr. Novelli, 56, who has to support an ex-wife and daughter. “I know I won’t get much, but I need the money.”

In a country suffering from economic crisis, buying gold off desperate people has become one of the few boom industries.

“Since I was a child I remember that gold was given as a gift on various occasions and people used to say: ‘Put it aside’,” said Ivana Ciabatti, who represents gold– and silversmiths at employers’ lobby Confindustria.

“We used to laugh at it, but they turned out to be right. Many families are surviving thanks to this gold.”

So people are barely surviving based on the gold passed down from generation to generation, yet the mainstream media here in the U.S. continues to mock gold constantly. Got it. How about this last line from the article:

The pawnbrokers, by contrast, can hardly keep up with business. They normally have the gold quickly melted down and sent abroad, making it one of Italy’s fastest growing exports. Official gold sales to Switzerland leaped 65 per cent last year to 120 tonnes, up from 73 tonnes in 2010 and 64 tonnes in 2009.

That’s not just gold being exported, that is wealth being exported. China says thanks. At least you protected your bankster class from taking a hit on their bond portfolios.

Meanwhile, this whole theme fits in perfectly with an article from The Telegraph yesterday with the fitting title “Unilever Sees ‘Return to Poverty’ in Europe.” That article begins with:

Aug. 27 (Telegraph) – Unilever will adopt marketing strategies used in developing countries in order to drive future growth in Europe.

Then we find out that Unilever will market to Europeans like they do to Indonesians:

“In Indonesia, we sell individual packs of shampoo for 2 to 3 cents and still make decent money,” said Mr Zijderveld. “We know how to do that, but in Europe we have forgotten in the years before the crisis.”

Once again, at least the banksters got bailed out at 100 cents on the dollar. No wonder the elites laugh at the sheeple.

Read The Globe and Mail article here.

Read The Telegraph article here.

Commodity Prices Could Get Halved In The Next Two Years

For the past two years, as regular readers know, I have been bearish on hard commodities. Prices may have dropped substantially from their peaks during this time, but I don’t think the bear market is over. I think we still have a very long way to go.

There are four reasons why I expect prices to drop a lot more. First, during the last decade commodity producers were caught by surprise by the surge in demand. Their belated response was to ramp up production dramatically, but since there is a long lead-time between intention and supply, for the next several years we will continue to experience rapid growth in supply. As an aside, in my many talks to different groups of investors and boards of directors it has been my impression that commodity producers have been the slowest at understanding the full implications of a Chinese rebalancing, and I would suggest that in many cases they still have not caught on. (more)

Why Warren Buffett is Betting Big on Real Estate

What does Warren Buffett see that no one else does? He just made an outsize bid on ResCap loans, the latest example of his bet that the housing market represents a great investment opportunity. Joe Light has details on The News Hub.

Pharma Stocks Remain Strong

…and I would be a buyer on a pullback on the daily RSI 40 level. This has been a very strong sector and the 2 stocks I like the best to buy are ABT and JNJ. They’ve mirrored the benchmark Pharma Index quite closely and I believe they will do well over the coming weeks to months.

If we hold above the bullish falling wedge we won’t likely test the support I’ve highlighted below and then one would have to chase a little to establish a position here. Should the markets pull back next week this is a sector I’ll be targeting. If we just continue to rise I’ll just let them go and take them off my watchlist but at a minimum they should head back to previous highs.