Ron Paul: The US is Broke and Already Over Fiscal Cliff

Ron Paul is interviewed on Bloomberg about the US presidential elections.

He explains that the US is broke, it already passed the fiscal cliff, and we reached a point of no return. I completely agree with this statement, and this has nothing to do with politics, it's just Maths, which most voters in the US and other "developed" economics do not seem very good at. That's actually frightening that only 1% of US voters seem to get it.

He carries on to say the problem is with the people, who just want more bailouts (and that's true both for poor, the middle class and the richest 1% of the US population). He gave the auto industry bailout as an example, and said the people in the Midwest did not vote for Mitt Romney because he had opposed the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. In that respect, the US is just the same as Greece as people do not wan  to cut anything, yet Greece is criticized and laughed at in the US.

GEAB 65: Global Systemic Crisis / H2 2012 – Convergence of 4 Explosive Factors: Banks-Stock Markets-Pensions-Debts

Here are the highlights of GEAB 65 (May 2012) entitled "Global Systemic Crisis / H2 2012 – Convergence of 4 Explosive Factors: Banks-Stock Markets-Pensions-Debts":

• Global Systemic Crisis:Convergence of 4 Explosive Factors: Banks-Stock Markets-Pensions-Debts - Basically the SHTF for Western economies in the second semester of 2012 with bank failure, stock market crashes, pension funds and debt crisis.
• Which languages should your child learn so that they are useful to him in 20 years? Forecast of the main languages used within Europe and in the World by 2030.
• Strategic and operational recommendations. Gold will prevail in the long run, preservation of capital for retirees, time to exit the stock markets before complete chaos, don't blindly trust the banks and don't be trapped in sovereign bonds.
• The GlobalEurometre - Results & Analyses. The majority of respondents think that large banks in their country may go bankrupt by the end of 2012 increases to 66% this month against 61% last month.

The full GEAB 65 report (PDF format) is available to LEAP 2020 subscribers for 200 Euros per year for 10 new issues + the 6 issues published before registration.

Eric Sprott: The Financial System is a Farce

Sprott Asset Management published their monthly newsletter Market at Glance (January 2012) entitled "The Financial System is a Farce: Part Three".

This month, the newsletter is shorter than usual with 3 pages. Eric Sprott and David Baker explain that 2011 was a year with more bailouts, more kicking the can down the road and more denial.

Eurozone is not fixable,  there’s too much debt and the politicians don’t know what’s going on. Nothing has structurally changed. There’s more global debt than there was a year ago, and it’s the same old song: extend
and pretend, extend and pretend,…

After October 2007 and September 2008, its' the 3rd time Sprott Management says the Financial System is a Farce (hence the title) and they re-affirmed their bearish views on the economy and markets.

In 2011, they found four farcical (but not funny) events:

• MF Global bankruptcy with  US$1.2 billion of missing customer funds and the CME did not act as a backstop.
• Dodd-Frank financial reform aka "Too Big to Fail" regulations signed in 2010 has barely been implemented in 2011 (e.g. CFTC positions limits)
• Europe and the European Central Bank (ECB) with another bailout (LTRO) and the states who lend to banks with the banks lending back to states.
• National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), not directly a financial issue, but when you make investments 'Political risk’ should also apply  in the US (and other developed countries)  and not only in developing or third world countries.

The full version of the newsletters is available at http://www.sprott.com/Docs/MarketsataGlance/2012/January-2012.pdf

Marc Faber Warns of Major Financial Catastrophe

Marc Faber is interviewed live from Hong Kong by Fox Business on the 21st of September 2011.

Marc Faber says he can't predict when the crash will happen but the stock market is going down because it's discounting a very bad event. However he does not know what the event is yet.

Amazingly he also praised Bernanke. But that was because he did not expand the balance sheet.

Faber says government intervention has gone so far that reducing intervention and lowering the deficit will cause temporary pain. He predicts President Obama will do anything to get the votes including providing handouts.