From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From March 25, 2016 to March 31, 2016:

• Negative Interest Rates: Causes, Consequences and Ramifications
  Central Banks are under the mistaken belief that negative interest rates could be the magic kiss which turns their toad economics into Prince Charmings.  Why exactly do they think this? What makes Draghi, Kuroda, and others think imposing negative interest rates will stimulate credit and lending in their respective economies? It is important to understand the logic behind this historic moment in global monetary history. Negative interest rates are unprecedented and show how far we have gone off course in terms of policy related to money and credit markets. They are already having a tremendous effect in several European countries and Japan, and they may eventually be coming to the US. Negative rates hold significant future implications for gold as well.
• SunEdison shares tumble 55% on bankruptcy filing fears
  Shares of renewable power firm SunEdison plummeted 55% Tuesday as it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy amid slumping oil prices and swirling questions over the company's accounting practices. SunEdison faces a “substantial risk” of bankruptcy, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing by a subsidiary, TerraForm Global. SunEdison develops, installs and operates alternative energy projects.
• 23 Percent Of Americans In Their Prime Working Years Are Unemployed
  Did you know that when you take the number of working age Americans that are officially unemployed (8.2 million) and add that number to the number of working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force” (94.3 million), that gives us a grand total of 102.5 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now?  I have written about this before, but today I want to focus just on Americans that are in their prime working years.  When you look at only Americans that are from age 25 to age 54, 23.2 percent of them are unemployed right now.  The following analysis and chart come from the Weekly Standard…
• Dallas Fed Respondent Sums It Up: “Anyone Saying We're Not In Recession Is Peddling Fiction”
  Headlines will crow of the seasonally-adjusted ‘beat' of expectations for the Dallas Fed survey (-13.6 vs -25.8 exp) but this is the 15th month in contraction (below 0) – something only seen in recession. Scratching below the surface we see employees, workweek, and capex all in contraction and forward expectations for new orders and employment tumbled. Perhaps that reality is what drove one respondent to rage, “anyone who says the economy is not in recession is peddling fiction.”
• Q1 GDP Crashes To 0.6%: Latest Atlanta Fed Estimate
  Earlier today we said that following the abysmal January spending data revision that “the Atlanta Fed will have no choice but to revise its Q1 “nowcast” to 1.0% or even lower, which would make the first quarter the lowest quarter since the “polar vortex” impacted Q1 of 2015, and the third worst GDP quarter since Q4 2012. It means one-third of already low Q1 GDP growth has just been wiped away.” It was “even lower.”
• US Goods Trade Balance: Exports Stabilise at Low Levels
  There was a small recovery in exports for February, which offers some hope that the sector has bottomed out. The latest US trade deficit for goods increased slightly to US$62.9bn for February, from a revised US$62.2bn the previous month and was slightly above the consensus US$62.4bn. Compared with February 2015, there was a widening of over US$7bn in the deficit.
• Chinese Seizing Golden Opportunity; Gold Demand Surging
  Generally speaking, rising prices tend to temper demand, but when it comes to gold in China, the recent price rally has created the opposite effect. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Chinese investors see a golden opportunity.” Demand for gold has surged in China over the last several weeks, during a period generally considered out of season. And it’s not typical Chinese jewelry purchases driving the demand. Chinese investors are buying gold coins and bars.
• Seven years after the Great Recession, some Chicago suburbs may never recover
  Mitchell and Loria Versher say they were looking for one thing when they bought their first home in South suburban Markham: “Stability.” They might have been better off buying swampland in Florida. In retrospect, July 31, 2007, was a bad day to go shopping for property anywhere. But the modest 900-square-foot Cape Cod-style home the Vershers bought that day for $137,000, on the eve of the worldwide credit crunch, has fared especially badly, by any standard.
• How They Brainwash Us — Paul Craig Roberts
  Anyone who pays attention to American “news” can see how “news” is used to control our perceptions in order to ensure public acceptance of the Oligarchy’s agendas. For example, Bernie Sanders just won six of seven primaries, in some cases by as much as 70 and 82 percent of the vote, but Sanders’ victories went largely unreported. The reason is obvious. The Oligarchy doesn’t want any sign of Sanders gaining momentum that could threaten Hillary’s lead for the Democratic nomination.
• Heidi Cruz: Her Evil Past Is Now Being Revealed
  While I am aware that Heidi Nelson Cruz apparently does suffer from deep depression, just after Hillary Rodham Clinton, she is the next person to be feared the most in this presidential race for 2016. Yes, I believe in common decency, but I also stand for the dignity of women, which means that they must be respected and treated equally even if it requires the truth. In an article written by Jesse Byrnes for The Hill that was released today on March 25, 2016, under the title “Trump aide fulfills threat to ‘spill the beans' on Heidi Cruz,” he reports on the recent interview on MSNBC that Steve Kornacki had with Katrina Pierson who is an aide for Donald Trump.
• Chemtrail Flu: Have You Got It Yet?
  Pastor Williams: ‘There is a near epidemic going on in America.' ‘You’re sick. Your nose is stuffy. Your body aches, You’re sweaty, coughing, sneezing and you don’t have enough energy to get out of bed. It’s not the flu. It’s a conspiracy, according to Dr. Len Horowitz. His opinion is not based on conspiracy theory but on conspiracy fact. Over the past 10 years, Horowitz has become America’s most controversial medical authority. A university-trained medical researcher, Horowitz, 48, charges that elements of the United States government are conspiring with major pharmaceutical companies to make large segments of the population sick. The mainstream media is reporting that hospital emergency rooms are jammed with patients suffering from a bizarre upper respiratory infection that doesn't quite seem like a virus. They are reporting that it’s a “mystery” flu and that the flu vaccines are ineffective against it. “That’s all hogwash, bogus nonsense”, says Dr. Leonard Horowitz.
• HARRY DENT: Civil unrest is coming to America
  I made a confession to our Boom & Bust subscribers last month. While I generally advise against owning most real estate, I have a secluded property in the Caribbean. It's the only property I own (I rent my home in Tampa), and I know for a fact that its value will probably depreciate in the great real-estate shakeout I see ahead, though most likely by half as much as a high-end property in Florida. I own this property because I see rising chances for civil unrest in the inevitable downturn ahead, especially in the US. I want a place to go if things get really bad, and it looks increasingly likely that they will. The evidence for that is piling up in this year's presidential race.
• Is This The Debt Jubilee?
  Not so long ago the financial world viewed certain numbers as limits beyond which lay trouble. Interest rates near zero, for instance, were thought to risk destabilizing the banking system. And government fiscal deficits above 3% were considered so dangerous that exceeding this level was prohibited by the Maastricht treaty that all eurozone members were required to sign. Those numbers — 0% and 3% — are still considered bad. But now for the opposite reason: They’re insufficiently aggressive. A big part of the world, as everyone now knows, operates with negative interest rates. And prominent economists are urging even greater negativity as a way to make government debt profitable and get people borrowing and spending again.
• Empty Buildings and Wasted Debt: The Chinese Economic “Miracle”
  There’s no doubt that the Chinese economic miracle is real. When you move 500 million people from rural to urban settings, taking them from small farms and putting them in a specialized labor force, the economic dividend is massive. That’s how you keep GDP growing more than 7% for 25 years. But along the way, they wanted more. Beyond building factories and housing for new arrivals, local politicians started building massive, wasteful projects. Political meeting halls… Unused apartment buildings… Empty shopping malls… Part of it might have been poor economic planning, but a bigger, and more common, problem was at work.
• Global Economy Dying Pig-No More Rate Hikes-Rob Kirby
  Macroeconomic researcher Rob Kirby predicted the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increase late last year “would be one and done.” Kirby explains, “They had no business raising rates in the first place because the economy was not exhibiting enough strength to warrant any rate raises whatsoever, and there won’t be any more interest rate raises because the economy continues to roll over.  Doctored economic data cannot make the sick pig that the global economy really is look any better.  It doesn’t matter how much lipstick you put on that dying pig. It’s still a dying pig.”
• Mitsui Sees First Loss Since 1947 Amid $2 Billion Writedown
  Mitsui & Co., Japan’s second biggest trading house, forecast its first net loss since it was founded in its modern form in 1947 due to impairment charges on mining and energy projects from South America to Australia. The Tokyo-based trading house expects a net loss of 70 billion yen ($623 million) in the fiscal year ending March after booking impairment charges of 225 billion yen on assets including the Browse LNG project in Australia and the Caserones copper development in Chile, according to a statement Wednesday. Mitsui previously forecast net income of 190 billion yen.
• This Game’s Almost Over: Central Banks Are Running Out Of Options
  Going into last week’s Fed meeting, the general consensus was that they would not raise rates. When they hiked rates by a quarter point in December, they projected there would be four additional quarter-point raises in 2016. That’s starting to look fishy as we’re almost a quarter of the way through the year and there’s still no hike. Sure enough, the Fed left rates unchanged as expected last week, and revised their rate expectations lower through 2016. Now, they anticipate only hiking another half point by the end of the year.
• The reserve currency curse
  Is reserve currency status a blessing or a curse? The answer might seem obvious, as reserve currencies have been shown to confer lower borrowing costs on their issuers. But what of the borrower who, enticed by low interest rates, borrows more than they can pay back? Naturally the result will be a default. However, for the issuer of a reserve currency that is unbacked by a marketable commodity, such as gold, in the event that they borrow too much, they can just print more reserves. While this avoids default indefinitely, it also hollows out the economy, erodes the capital stock, reduces the potential growth rate and, eventually, leads to a dramatic devaluation of the currency and loss of reserve status. History has not been kind to countries that have followed this path, nor to their financial markets. In my view, the grave investment risks associated with the possible eventual loss of the dollar’s reserve status are not priced into financial markets.
• Well That Didn’t Work
  The Bank of Japan and European Central Bank eased recently, which is to say they stepped up their bond buying and/or pushed interest rates further into negative territory. These kinds of things are proxies for currency devaluation in the sense that money printing and lower interest rates generally cause the offending country’s currency to be seen as less valuable by traders and savers, sending its exchange rate down versus those of its trading partners. This was what the BoJ and ECB were hoping for — weaker currencies to boost their export industries and make their insanely-large debt burdens more manageable.
• Belgium Terror Just the Beginning of Insecure World-Egon von Greyerz
  Financial expert Egon von Greyerz (EvG) says terror attacks, like the one that just happened in Brussels, can destabilize the entire world. EvG, who lives in Switzerland, explains, “This is obviously a very sad day for our friends in Belgium, but at the same time, we know this is just the beginning, not only in Europe, but with the whole world. We are going to see a much more insecure world.  It is worldwide.  We know that the refugee problem has included a number of potential terrorists. . . . The problems that will be in the west were created by the U.S. and Europe.  The problems that were created in the Middle East and North Africa will lead to more of this.  There is anarchy in Libya.  There is anarchy in Iraq, and the West has created this.  So, they are paying us back, and I don’t think this is finished.  We will see a less secure world, and it is not just Europe.  The U.S. will see similar problems.”
• Central Banks Move Into Crypto-Currencies As Part Of Cashless Society Hustle
  Top UK Telegraph journo Ambrose Evans-Pritchard just wrote about this planned crypto-currency in what is either an incredibly stupid and uneducated article or pure propaganda… it was titled “Central banks beat Bitcoin at own game with rival supercurrency.” The article is horrible central bank happy-talk that reads like the Bank of England wrote it for him and starts off with a blatant lie only three words in… this new RScoin, put out by the central bank of England, has not BEAT bitcoin.  It is worse in every imaginable way than bitcoin… right down to the name.  RScoin… central banker types aren’t exactly the most creative.  We’ll call it FiatCoin around here.
• Lloyd's of London Takes `Massive Hit' From Low Returns
  Lloyd’s of London reported a 30 percent drop of full-year profit as the world’s largest insurance market was hurt by continued pressure on pricing and the lowest investment returns since at least 2001. Earnings declined to 2.1 billion pounds ($3 billion) for 2015 as income from investments, primarily in fixed income, sank 60 percent to 400 million pounds with the majority earned in the first half of the year, according to the company’s annual report Wednesday. Weaker insurance pricing in 2015 is expected to continue this year, hurting profitability. “We’ve taken a double hit from reduced margins in underwriting and lower investment yield,” Chief Executive Officer Inga Beale said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Wednesday. “On the investment side we saw a dramatic reduction in 2015 that was a massive hit” to earnings.
• Economic Collapse: Marc Faber Issues Dire Warning for America
  U.S. on Verge of Economic Collapse, Says Marc Faber. Adding more emphasis on his belief that the U.S. is on the verge of an economic collapse, perma-bear investor Marc Faber advised retail investors not to put money in U.S. stocks; instead, according to Faber, investors should pour their funds into emerging market equities. The publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report newsletter told Bloomberg that U.S. stocks are highly priced by several measures, including price-to-sales, price-to-earnings, and market cap-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratios, whereas emerging markets have corrected significantly since 2006 and 2011.
• U.S. Mining Losses Last Year Wipe Out Profits From Past Eight Years
  The U.S. mining industry—a sector that includes oil drillers—lost more money last year than it made in the previous eight. Mining corporations with assets of $50 million or more recorded a collective $227 billion after-tax loss last year, according to Commerce Department data released Monday. That loss essentially wipes out all the profits the industry had made since 2007.
• Here We Go Again: Government Ramps Up Borrowing As Private Sector Slows
  This morning, US existing home sales plunged and the Chicago Fed’s national activity index turned negative. Both are obvious signs of a slowing economy. Anticipating this kind of news, Credit Bubble Bulletin’s Doug Noland in his most recent column analyzed the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Z.1 Report for signs of changing financial trends, and found something potentially serious.
• Michael Hudson on Debt Deflation, the Rentier Economy, and the Coming Financial Cold War
  Michael Hudson has sent us the transcript of his newly-released interview with Justin Ritchie on
  February 26 with XE Podcast
• NIRP Is Absolutely Crushing Big Parts Of The Finance World
  Savers are the obvious victims of the past few years’ plunge in interest rates. But there are other casualties, including money market funds, which have no reason for existing if their yield is negative, and insurance companies, which price their policies on the assumption that they’ll earn good returns on their bond portfolios. As bond yields plunge, the returns insurance companies can expect are also plunging, forcing them into huge write-offs and, soon, steep premium increases that will scare away customers.
• US Military Increases South China Sea Presence; China Balks
  In response to China’s assertive moves in the South China Sea, the U.S. State Department struck a deal with the government of the Philippines to permit American military forces to operate from five Philippine bases. The Chinese seem more annoyed than intimidated by the increased American military presence in the region.
• Interest Rates Are Never Going Back to Normal
  Let’s see… U.S. corporate earnings have been going down for three quarters in a row. The median household income is lower than it was 10 years ago. And now JPMorgan Chase has increased its estimated risk of a recession to about one in three. These things might make sober investors wonder: Is this a good time to pay some of the highest prices in history for U.S. stocks? Apparently, they don’t think about it… Last week U.S. stocks rose again, after the Fed announced that it would go easy on “normalizing” interest rates. The Dow rose 156 points on Thursday, putting it in positive territory for 2016.
• The Government Wants to Give You Free Cash
  Could the government start handing out free cash? It sounds crazy. But believe it or not, it’s a real possibility. In fact, an Ivy league economist just predicted it will happen within five years… If you’ve been reading the Dispatch, you know the Federal Reserve has used crazy monetary policies to “stimulate” the economy since the 2008 financial crisis. These policies have been huge failures. After seven years, the U.S. economy is barely growing. Yet, instead of acknowledging its failure, the government is preparing to double down. And its friends in the lapdog media think it’s time for “helicopter money.”
• Gold and Gold Stocks – A Change in Market Character
  Similar to many others, we have been waiting for some sort of correction in gold and gold stocks, but obviously, not much has happened in this respect so far. We have written quite a lot about gold and gold stocks between August 2015 and February 2016, because we felt a good opportunity was at hand – a short term trading opportunity at the very least, but one with the potential to become more than that.
• NATO’s RAGE: Trump Questions America’s Role in ‘Nation-Building’ – Talks of Restoring Russian Ties
  GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump unveiled his noninterventionist platform to The Washington Post’s editorial board and in the process – questioned America’s relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization…
• China Sends Fed A Warning: Devalues Yuan By Most In 2 Months
  With the USD Index stretching to its longest winning streak of the year, jawboned by numerous Fed speakers explaining how April is ‘live' (and everyone misunderstood the dovishness of Yellen), it appears that The PBOC wanted to send a message to The Fed – Raise rates and we will unleash turmoil on your ‘wealth creation' plan. Large unexpected Yuan drops have rippled through markets in recent months spoiling the party for many and tonight, by devaluing the Yuan fix by the most since January 7th, China made it clear that it really does not want The Fed to hike rates and cause a liquidity suck-out again.
• This map shows every country's major export
  Bank of America Merrill Lynch is out with its “Transforming World Atlas” research note, which examines global economic trends through a series of maps. One particular map that stood out showed each country's major export, using data from the CIA World Factbook. Notably, many countries heavily rely on commodities as their primary source of foreign income. Consequently, one can use this as a map to see which country gets hit the hardest when commodities drop. For example, those in navy were hardest hit by the oil crash.
• These are the fastest growing and shrinking counties in America
  The American population is always changing in various ways. The Census Bureau recently released their annual estimates of population change in the 3,142 counties and county equivalents of the US, showing how populations grew and shrank between July 1, 2014, and July 1, 2015. Using those estimates, we made a map showing the total population change in each county. Red counties had a loss of population, and blue counties saw increases. As has been the overall trend for decades, the Northeast and Midwest tended to see a loss in population, while the big cities of the South and West, along with oil-rich regions in west Texas and North Dakota, saw big increases.
• HEDGE FUND MANAGER: This is ‘no longer an investment market but a battlefield'
  London-based hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, who runs $11 billion in assets, said this is “no longer an investment market but a battlefield.” In Odey's OEI Mac fund's February investment update, Odey slammed central banks for lowering or not raising interest rates. “Several years of watching central banks watching central banks responding to ever falling productivity numbers by reducing interest rates have shown that they can effect asset prices with their actions, but that not only do they have almost no effect on economic activity, but they positively damage it,” Odey said. This year has been brutal for Odey. The OEI Mac fund, which invests in Odey's flagship European fund, finished January up 8.3% before seeing all its gains wiped out after falling -10.6% in February.
• Swiss National Bank Admits It Spent $470 Billion On Currency Manipulation Since 2010
  By now it is common knowledge that when it comes to massive, taxpayer-backed hedge funds, few are quite as big as the Swiss National Bank, whose roughly $100 billion in equity holdings have been extensively profiled on these pages, including its woefully investments in Valeant and the spike in its buying of AAPL stock at its all time high. But while the SNB's stock holdings are updated every quarter courtesy of its informative SEC-filed 13F (we wish the Fed would also disclose the equities it holds courtesy of its Citadel proxy), getting a gllimpse of the flow is more problematic, and involves waiting for the hedge fund's, pardon central bank's annual report. Earlier today patience was rewarded when the SNB filed its 108th annual report, in which it disclosed that it spent CHF 86.1 billion or $88 billion, on current interventions last year, a measure of its efforts to shield the economy from deflation.
• This Is One Of The Most Important Silver Charts Of 2016!
  On the heels of gold and silver continuing to consolidate their gains from the early part of 2016, analyst David P. out of Europe sent King World News an extremely important chart of silver, along with a brief commentary. The following long-term silver chart and commentary was sent to KWN by analyst David P. out of Europe:  “The silver chart looks incredibly bullish.  The buy signal on the MACD has confirmed the upward move and just look at the setup.”
• Desperate Chinese Investors Flood US, Canadian Housing Markets, But Real Numbers Are Taboo
  Buying a home in the US or Canada has been an effective way for foreign residents to launder some money and get their wealth out of harm’s way. In the trophy markets on the US West Coast and in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto, rumors of a massive influx of Chinese money have swirled with growing intensity for years. The Chinese economic elite are worried about a devaluation of the yuan. They’re worried about getting rolled up by their own government. They’re worried about markets collapsing. They’re worried about pollution. They’re worried about a million things. They have one foot out the door. If push comes to shove, they’re ready to make the move. So capital flight from China has turned into a tsunami. And this money has to go somewhere.
• Oman Gas Projects Could Undermine U.S. LNG Market Ambitions
  Two separate projects in the sultanate of Oman are about to turn the tiny Gulf country into an important international liquefied natural gas (LNG) player that the U.S. will have to contend with in its ambition to become the leader of this market. The first one is an agreement with Iran for the construction of a 400-kilometer pipeline that will transport Iranian natural gas to be liquefied at the three-train processing facility of Oman LNG.
• What Is Happening With GLD And Emerging Markets?
  The following charts and commentary are from Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader:  ETF traders keep coming into gold. The GLD fund is seeing inflows even as the fund struggles to hold its gains.
• BERNANKE: Here are some of the exotic tools the Fed could use if we see another slowdown
  Although the U.S. economy appears to be on a positive trajectory, history suggests that at some time in the next few years we may again face a slowdown, with a weakening job market and possibly declining inflation. Given that the historically low level of short-term interest rates is likely to limit the scope for conventional rate cuts, how would the Federal Reserve respond?
• Bank Earnings Get Mauled by “Leveraged Loan” Time Bomb
  Banks have a few, let’s say, issues, among them: a source of big-fat investment banking fees is collapsing before their very eyes. S&P Capital IQ reported today that there was an improvement in the “distress ratio” of junk bonds, after nearly a year of brutal deterioration that had pushed it beyond where it had been right after Lehman’s bankruptcy. The recent surge in oil prices seems to have lifted all boats for a brief period. But not “leveraged loans.” Their distress ratio spiked to the highest levels since the Financial Crisis!
• “The Greatest Crash Of Your Life Is Just Ahead…” – Harry Dent Warns
  Harry Dent, best-selling author and economist, has warned that the stock bubble in the U.S. today is the biggest in history and that the “greatest crash of your life is just ahead…” Writing on his website EconomyandMarkets.com, Dent warned that ‘The story on Wall Street and CNBC continues to be that we’re in a correction and this is a buying opportunity. Even Warren Buffett joins the chorus of stock market cheerleaders for the skeptical public. Well, I agree with the skeptical public, not the experts here! The bull market from early 2009 into May 2015 looks just like every bubble in history, and I’m getting one sign after the next that we did indeed peak last May.
• Keiser Report: Warnings from Confucius
  In a double-Stacy episode, we look at the warnings from Confucius and Adam Smith. First, we look at the danger of those who think but do not learn; so ‘free trade’ deals are imposed because a ‘think tank’ believes it’s a great ideological idea but without looking at history to see what happens when wealth and hope are taken from an entire class of people. Then, in the second half, we look at the most important issue of 2016: creeping monopolization as oligopolies emerge in every major sector in America and across the world.
• Top Advisor To Largest Sovereign Wealth Funds Exposes Fed Manipulation And Intervention
  Michael Belkin on the Fed’s interventions and manipulations:  “I’m utterly convinced that the Federal Reserve manipulates the stock market.  I experienced this firsthand when I worked at a government securities dealer, Solomon Brothers, which was one of the top three investment banks back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  And in the 1987 stock market crash, they (the Federal Reserve) came in through us and intervened in the markets to make the markets bounce back.  Everybody on the desk knew that.  They (at Solomon’s trading desk) watched the (Solomon Brothers) Vice Chairman start bidding for multiple huge blocks of stock with money that we didn’t have.  At that point the trading desk was paralyzed and nobody knew what was going on.
• This Oil Sector Hasn’t Crashed Yet… But It’s About to
  Unlike the rest of the oil industry – which has been decimated by lower oil prices – U.S. oil refiners have marched on to new highs. But the five-year-long bull market for these companies is about to come crashing down. Let me explain… You can see the incredible uptrend in the following chart of refining giant Valero Energy (VLO). Its shares are trading near an all-time high…
• Oil Prices Fall Fast On Huge Inventory Build
  Two hundred and twenty-two years after Josiah G. Pierson patented the rivet machine, and the oil market remains as riveting as ever. (I’m here all week, folks). After yesterday’s API report gave a flourishing hat-tip towards a large build to crude stocks and a large draw to gasoline, oil is sliding amid a stronger dollar, while gasoline is pushing higher. Here are some things to consider today: Jumping straight into economic data, the most insights we’ve had overnight have come from Brazil. Its mid-month inflation print dropped into single digits (at +9.95 percent), but still close to a 12-year high. Meanwhile, its unemployment rate jumped to 8.2 percent, its highest level in nearly 7 years.
• There has been ‘a perfect storm' on Wall Street
  By now it should come as no surprise that first-quarter results will be pretty horrendous for Wall Street. Banks will begin reporting Q1 earnings in mid-April, and a chorus including Morgan Stanley's head of trading and the CEO of JPMorgan's investment bank has warned that it will be unusually weak. The data-analytics firm Dealogic's preliminary Q1 results for investment-banking fees show the worst first quarter since the dark post-financial-crisis days of 2009.
• Gold, Silver & The Final Currency War
  Andy Hoffman from Miles Franklin is back to help document the global economic collapse for the third week of March, 2016. Thanks for tuning in. And despite the horrific “terror attack” in Belgium today, March 22, 2016 [Google: 322 Skull and Bones], I hope you all have a great week.
• Peter Schiff on gold, the Fed and the world’s addiction to stimulus
  Peter Schiff is the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., and is an outspoken critic of the Fed’s stimulus and zero interest rate policies. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers including Crash Proof, and most recently, The Real Crash.
• More Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: This Time, They’re Coming for Your Democracy
  Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.
• Japan Goes Full Krugman: Plans Un-Depositable, Non-Cash “Gift-Certificate” Money Drop To Young People
  The Swiss, the Finns, and the Ontarians may get their ‘Universal Basic Income' but the Japanese are about to turn the Spinal Tap amplifier of extreme monetary experimentation to 11. Sankei reports, with no sourcing, that the Japanese government plans to unleash “vouchers” or “gift certificates” to low-income young people to stimulate the “conspicuous decline” in consumption among young people. The handouts may not be deposited, thus combining helicopter money (inflationary) and fully electronic currency (implicit capital controls and tracking of spending).
• Durable-Goods Orders Weaken Amid Global Headwinds
  A key measure of U.S. manufacturing health tipped back into decline last month, evidence that headwinds from weak global growth, low oil prices and financial volatility are weighing on company spending. New orders for durable goods—products designed to last at least three years, like dishwashers and aircraft—fell a seasonally adjusted 2.8% in February from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
• The Initial Jobless Claims Mystery Continues
  Still hovering near 43 year lows, initial jobless claims printed a better than expected 265k against expectations of 269k. Continuing claims also dropped from 2.218m to 2.179m – also back near 43 year lows. So, the mystery is – why is the ISM's composite manufacturing and services employment index collapsing to 6 year lows?
• The labor market just did something that hadn't happened since the 1970s
  Thursday's initial jobless claims came in stronger than expected, with 265,000 claims versus expectations of 269,000.  But the truly historic part of the report actually came three weeks ago. “Today's release also includes revisions of both initial and continuing claims dating back to 2011,” Thomas Simons, senior economist at Jefferies, wrote. “Most of the changes were relatively modest, but the most notable aspect of the revisions is that claims for the week of March 5th (3 weeks ago) were revised down to 253,000 which is, as far as we can tell, the lowest weekly claims figure since November 24, 1973.”

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From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From March 18, 2016 to March 24, 2016:

• Connecticut Credit Risk Spikes To Record High
  Amid cuts in aid and surging taxes, it appears the market remains less than impressed at Connecticut's debt sustainability. Following last week's disappointing bond auction, CT bond risk has spiked to 65bps over the benchmark – a record spread demanded by investors to take CT repayment risk. CT becomes the 4th riskiest US state after NJ, IL, and PA.
• Humans need not apply: RBS to replace 550 roles with robots
  Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) plans to replace 550 of its face-to-face investment advisers with so-called robo-advisers. 220 investment advice roles and 200 protection advice jobs will be cut while face-to-face investment advice will be available only to customers with at least £250,000 in investment assets.
• US Manufacturing PMI Misses By Most Since 2013, Presidential Election Blamed
  Given the extraordinary jumps in several regional Fed surveys, hope was rife that US Manufacturing PMI's flash print would jump… it didn't. Hovering near multi-year lows at 51.4, PMI missed expectations of 51.9 by the most since Aug 2013. With record highs in wholesale inventories, Markit claims that “pre-production inventories decline at the steepest pace in over 2 years.” The blame for this plunge: dollar strength, weak global demand, and Trump. Not recovering…
• Americans just had $176 million in wages garnished by the government due to unpaid student loans
  Despite more programs available to federal student loan borrowers to manage their loans, borrowers are still struggling. In fact, between October 1 and December 31, 2015, private debt collection companies hired by the Department of Education garnished more than $176 million in wages from defaulted student loan borrowers in order to pay back their debts, according to data released last week. Though the government provides a variety of options to help student loan borrowers manage their payments, it also has extraordinary powers — including wage garnishment — to collect on the debt if a borrower defaults.
• U.S. existing home sales tumble in warning sign for housing market
  U.S. home resales fell sharply in February in a potentially troubling sign for America's economy which has otherwise looked resilient to the global economic slowdown. The National Association of Realtors said on Monday existing home sales dropped 7.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.08 million units, the lowest level since November. Sales have been volatile and prone to big swings up and down in recent months following the introduction in October of new mortgage regulations, which are intended to help homebuyers understand their loan options and shop around for loans best suited to their financial circumstances.
• Fed's Lacker says he is confident inflation will return to 2 percent
  U.S. inflation is likely to accelerate in coming years and move toward the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said on Monday, flagging upside risks to price growth. Inflation has been unusually sluggish since the 2007-2009 recession. The Fed has kept interest rates low in part to foster faster price gains and said last week it was likely to raise interest rates more slowly than policymakers had expected in December.
• Share Buybacks Turn Toxic
  Companies are still borrowing and spending billions on buying back their own shares – one of the big drivers behind the blistering stock market rally of the past few years. It worked wonderfully and without fail. But suddenly, it’s doing the opposite, and now the shares of the biggest buyback queens are getting hammered. Something broke in the gears of this financially engineered market! During the November-January period, 378 of the S&P 500 companies bought back their own shares, according to FactSet. Total buybacks in the quarter rose 5.2% from a year ago, to $136.6 billion. Over the trailing 12 months (TTM), buybacks totaled $568.9 billion. That’s an enormous amount of corporate cash that was dumped on the market!
• It's Day 26 Of The Rally – Decision Time
  In September/October 2015, the S&P 500 miraculously rallied just over 13% in 25 days amid falling earnings expectations, before collapsing back to fresh cycle lows. It has now been 25 days (and just over 13%) since the Mid-Feb lows (and earnings expectations are plumbing new lows)… The same but different?
• Rich people are paying lawyers to get truthful stories deleted from the internet
  Last week, Bloomberg, The Independent, Business Insider and a handful of other news organisations all deleted from their websites a story that a rich family did not want published. I can't tell you why it was deleted or who the story was about, because of a court order from a judge in London ruling that the facts be kept under seal.
• January ‘Bounce' Dies As Fed's National Activity Index Tumbles Back Into Contraction Near 2-Year Lows
  After January's hopeful spike to 6 month highs, Chicago Fed's National Activity Index plunged back into contraction (at -0.29) near 2 year lows. A shockingly large 58 of the 85 individual indiators within the index made negative contributions to the overall index which printed notably below the lowest economist's expectations.
• Nanobot implants could give us ‘God-like' intelligence, but machines won't overtake us until they learn to love, scientist claims
  The human brain could be enhanced by tiny robotic implants that connect to cloud-based computer networks to give us ‘God-like' abilities, according to a leading computer scientist. Ray Kurzweil, an author and inventor who describes himself as a futurist who works on Google's machine learning project, said such technology could be the next step in human evolution. He predicts that by the 2030s, humans will be using nanobots capable of tapping into our neocortex and connecting us directly to the world around us. However, he admitted that computers won't take over us until they learn to love and laugh.
• Existing home sales plunge 7.1% to a 3-month low in February
  Existing-home sales plummeted 7.1% in February, pointing to ongoing rockiness in a housing market struggling to find its footing. Sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday, well below the 5.3 million rate forecast by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. February’s decline followed a strong two months. Sales surged by the most ever in December, and followed with a sturdy reading in January when most economists had expected some giveback.
• Federal Reserve Hot Air Pumped Up a Stock Market Bubble; 93% of Gains Due to Monetary Policy
  The mainstream financial media is like a stopped clock. Every once in a while, it stumbles into being right. Last week, we had a veteran trader on CNBC Futures Now telling everybody to buy gold as long as central banks continue their expansionary monetary policy, all the while swearing he isn’t a “gold-bug.”
• Legend Warns The Price Of Silver May Hit $660 As The World Financial System Melts Down
  On the heels of wild start to the 2016 trading year, today the man who has become legendary for his predictions on QE, historic moves in currencies, and major global events, just warned that the price of silver may be headed to the stratospheric price of $660 as the world financial system melts down. Egon von Greyerz:  “The Fed last Wednesday did what I had already forecast back in December and did not increase rates. They know that the real economic situation in the US and in the world is a lot worse than all the manipulated figures and propaganda. Therefore, we are now getting closer to Minsky Moment for the world economy…
• Gerald Celente On Why People Are Buying Gold And Why The Price Is Headed Higher
  Today the top trends forecaster in the world spoke with King World News about why the price of gold is going higher. Gerald Celente:  “Why are people going into gold and why are gold prices going up?  Listen to what former Fed president Richard Fischer said, ‘They (the central banks) are running out of ammunition.’  He also said, ‘We injected cocaine and heroin into the system,’ to basically keep the Ponzi scheme going.  So why are people buying gold?  Because it (the entire global financial system) is on a fake high.  So that’s why gold is going up — it’s a fraudulent game.  It’s not working.  It’s a fake high.  That’s why people are buying gold…
• Radical Leftists Unleash Anti-Trump Riots Starting On March 19th
  Many of the exact same groups that participated in Occupy Wall Street and helped organize protest rallies in Ferguson and Baltimore are now promising to bring us “the largest civil disobedience actions in a generation”.  I recently wrote about the trouble that radical leftists have caused by attempting to disrupt Trump campaign events, but now there is a very organized effort to turn this into a national movement.  On March 19th, thousands of angry protesters will descend on Trump Tower in New York City to denounce Donald Trump’s “fascist policies”, and on April 2nd dozens of leftist organizations will join together to launch “Democracy Spring” in Philadelphia.  From there, large numbers of liberal activists will march to Washington D.C. where they will “risk arrest” during a “peaceful” sit-in at the U.S. Capitol from April 11th to April 18th.  If the radical left is this freaked out about Donald Trump now, how bad will things get if he actually becomes the Republican nominee?
• Why Investing In Silver Is Vastly Superior To Investing In Gold Right Now
  When panic and fear dominate financial markets, gold and silver both tend to rapidly rise in price.  We witnessed this during the last financial crisis, and it is starting to happen again.  Because I am the publisher of a website called The Economic Collapse Blog, I am often asked about gold and silver when I do interviews.  In fact, just a few days ago I was sitting right next to Jim Rickards during the taping of a television show when this topic came up.  Jim expressed his belief that investing in gold is superior to investing in silver, but I had the exact opposite viewpoint.  In this article, I would like to elaborate on why I believe that silver represents a historic investment opportunity right now.
• Catalonia Nears Default, Threatens Spain’s Debt
  When Catalonia’s regional government announced a road map to independence from Spain in November last year, Madrid’s response was to threaten to cut off the financial supply lines to the region. It was the equivalent of a declaration of economic war, riddled with risks, especially with an acutely cash-strapped Catalonia facing over €4.6 billion of bond redemptions in 2016.
• China Hard Landing Hits Electricity Consumption
  OK, we’ve heard the official story. China is transitioning from a manufacturing economy to a consumption-based economy. Consumers are king. They’re going to buy stuff. And that’s going to heat up the economy. Imports and exports have been plunging for months, but no big deal, Chinese consumers – and there are a lot of them – are going to pull the economy forward. That’s the official story.
• A Strange Pattern Emerges When Trading The US Dollar In 2016
  One of the more surprising market developments of 2016 has been the violent obliteration of those who had taken part in the biggest consensus trade of 2015, namely long the USD. As the Fed finally admitted earlier this week, the US economy is sputtering and is woefully incapable of handling 4 rate hikes, or 3 for that matter. In fact, the Fed will be lucky to push through even one more rate hike without the Chinese Yuan collapsing and unleashing even more capital outflows (which precipitated the major market swoons in the summer of 2015 and early 2016) arguably the main topic during the alleged Shanghai G-20 “central bank accord.” The result: this week saw the biggest two-day USD collapse against a basked of foreign currencies in years, and currently the DXY is trading at a lower level than a year ago.
• January Mortgage Delinquencies up 6.6%; 98,000 Bad Mortgages Face Statute of Limitations in 3 States
  The Mortgage Monitor for January (pdf) from Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS, formerly LPS) reported that there were 659,237 home mortgages, or 1.30% of all mortgages outstanding, remaining in the foreclosure process at the end of January.  This was down from 688,672, or 1.37% of all active loans that were in foreclosure at the end of December, and down from 1.76% of all mortgages that were in foreclosure in January of last year.  These are homeowners who had a foreclosure notice served but whose homes had not yet been seized, and the January “foreclosure inventory” is now showing the lowest percentage of homes that were in the foreclosure process since the fall of 2007.   New foreclosure starts, which have been volatile from month to month, fell to 71,900 in January from 78,088 in December and from 93,280 in January a year ago, while they were still higher than the 66,626 foreclosure starts we saw in November, which had been the lowest since the crisis began.  Over the past year, new foreclosure starts have remained in a range about one-third higher than number of new foreclosures we we seeing in the precrisis year of 2005.
• “Don't Take The Public For Fools!”: China Hides Millions Of Layoffs, Jails Miners Protesting Unpaid Wages
  When you look out across markets and across the increasingly fraught geopolitical landscape, there are plenty of black swans waiting in the wings (no pun intended). And quite a few of them are Chinese. China has, among other problems: a massive debt overhang that, all told, amounts to more than 250% of GDP; a decelerating economy that Beijing swears will be able to pull off a miracle and move away from the smokestack and away from export-led growth without slipping into recession; a currency crisis; a new property bubble in Tier-1 cities; and a burgeoning NPL problem in the banking sector. All of those issues are of course inextricably bound up with one another. They are set like dominoes and once the first one tips, the rest will too as sure as night follows day.
• Life and Times During the Great Depression
  The economy of the United States was destroyed almost overnight. More than 5,000 banks collapsed, and there were 12 million people out of work in America as factories, banks, and other shops closed. Many reasons have been supplied by the different economic camps for the cause of the Great Depression, which we reviewed in the first part of this series. Regardless of the causes, the combination of deflationary pressures and a collapsing economy created one of the most desperate and miserable eras of American history. The resulting aftermath was so bad, that almost every future Central Bank policy would be designed primarily to combat such deflation.
• Goldman FX Head: “No Central Bank Conspiracy” To Crush The Dollar, “We Are Right, The Market Is Wrong”
  Anyone having listened, and traded according to the recommendations of Goldman chief FX strategist Robin Brooks in the past 4 months, is most likely broke.  First it was his call to go very short the EURUSD ahead of the December ECB meeting, which however led to the biggest EURUSD surge since the announcement of QE1.  Then, two weeks ago, ahead of the ECB meeting he “doubled down” on calls to short the EUR ahead of the ECB, the result again was a EUR super surge, the biggest since December. And then, as we previously reported, ahead of the FOMC's uber-dovish meeting, Brooks released a note titled the “The Dollar Rally Is Far From Over” in which he said the following: “today brings the latest FOMC meeting. We expect the Fed to signal that it wants to continue normalizing policy, which means three hikes this year and four in 2017, with the statement referring to the risks as “nearly balanced,” reverting to phraseology used in October, just before December lift-off. Overall, our sense is that the outcome will be more hawkish than market pricing, in particular given that the FOMC may leave open the option of tightening at the April meeting.”
• US Money Supply and Debt – Early Warning Signs Remain Operative
  Year-end distortions have begun to slowly come out of the data, and while broad true US money supply growth remains fairly brisk, it has begun to slow again relative to January’s y/y growth rate, to 7.8% from 8.32%. So far it remains in the sideways channel (indicated by the blue lines below) between approx. 7.4% and 8.6%, in which it has meandered since mid 2013. We believe the next break “below the shelf” is likely to be a significant event.
• The World Map of the U.S. Trade Deficit
  The United States has now run an annual trade deficit for 40 years in a row. Last year was no exception, and in 2015 the U.S. had over $1.5 trillion in exports while importing $2.2 trillion of goods. The resulting trade deficit was -$735 billion. Today’s map from HowMuch.net, a cost information site, helps put this most recent information into perspective. Keep in mind that a trade deficit also means an outflow of domestic currency to foreign markets, as the U.S. is spending more money abroad than it is bringing in.
• The Lego Movie Economy
  After the February jobs report, President Obama said “America’s pretty darn great right now.”  He then went on to disparage the “doomsday rhetoric” of the Republicans, which he said was pure “fantasy. I think that there is a good chance that this will enter the Hall of Fame of miss-timed statements, right up there with this jewel from Ben Bernanke in March 2007:  “At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the sub-prime market seems likely to be contained.”
• Munich Re Gives The ECB The Middle Finger, Owns Almost 300,000 Ounces Of Gold
  Last week, we reported on the ECB’s decision to cut the interest rates and how Mario Draghi said ‘helicopter money’ is ‘an interesting concept that is being studied’. In the accompanying Q&A session, Draghi also said he did not expect the ECB would have to reduce the (already negative) interest rates even further which disappointed the markets. In fact, the disappointment was so big, the ECB already sent one of its members into the trenches to walk back on that statement.
• Investors Buy Gold ETFs at Record Pace
  What were the three most popular investments over the last month? If we’re judging by ETF inflows, the three areas that investors piled into were precious metals, government bonds, and low-volatility equities. Notably, it was gold ETFs that set a new record with their highest monthly inflows in eight years, as investors bought $7.9 billion of securities in February. This is according to the latest from market data company Markit, that also noted that inflows relative to assets under management (AUM) were equally as impressive. More specifically, last month’s buying represented an increase of 14.6% in terms of AUM. This is a level only surpassed once before during the heat of the Financial Crisis, when inflows relative to AUM hit 17.7% in February 2009.
• World’s Second Largest Reinsurer Buys Gold, Hoards Cash To Counter Negative Interest Rates
  The world’s second-largest reinsurer, German Munich Re which is roughly twice the size of Berkshire Hathaway Re, is boosting its gold reserves and buying gold in the face of the punishing negative interest rates from the European Central Bank, it announced today. As caught by Mark O'Byrne at GoldCore and reported by Thomson Reuters this afternoon, the world’s largest reinsurer is far from alone in seeking alternative investment strategies to counter the near-zero or negative interest rates that reduce the income insurers require to pay out on policies. Munich Re has held gold in its coffers for some time and recently added a cash sum in the two-digit million euros, Chief Executive Nikolaus von Bomhard told a news conference.
• Your Money In The Bank Will Be Gone
  The world is now starting the final phase of the failed experiment in creating wealth and prosperity for a select few and massive debt and misery for the masses. It all started with the creation of the Fed in 1913. This led to a global credit creation and money printing extravaganza of a magnitude that the world has never seen before. We have now reached the point when it makes no difference who becomes US president or what the Fed or the IMF will do. No, now we are at the point that von Mises so succinctly defined.
• 12 Obamacare Insurance CO-OPs Fold After Getting $1.2 Bil from Govt.
  More than half of the government-funded nonprofit health insurers created by Obamacare have failed, sticking taxpayers with a $1.2 billion tab and leaving hundreds of thousands of people in more than a dozen states scrambling for medical coverage, a new federal audit reveals. The nonprofit insurers are known as Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan Program (CO-OP) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has pumped $2.4 billion into them under the president’s hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system.
• Is coercion ever justified?
  Last week’s editorial asked the question: Can the Constitution be improved? We said that the American Constitution represented an new concept in history. It declared that the sovereign power of the state rightfully is derived from the people instead of the divine right of kings. We concluded that it was an amazingly successful beta model but that it was not perfect, because it contained undefined phrases, such as “the general welfare” clause, that left holes through which political predators eventually were able to enter and undermine original intent.
• The Internet Of Things Will Be The World's Biggest Robot
  The Internet of Things is the name given to the computerization of everything in our lives. Already you can buy Internet-enabled thermostats, light bulbs, refrigerators, and cars. Soon everything will be on the Internet: the things we own, the things we interact with in public, autonomous things that interact with each other. These “things” will have two separate parts. One part will be sensors that collect data about us and our environment. Already our smartphones know our location and, with their onboard accelerometers, track our movements. Things like our thermostats and light bulbs will know who is in the room. Internet-enabled street and highway sensors will know how many people are out and about—and eventually who they are. Sensors will collect environmental data from all over the world.
• Smartphones to replace cards at bank machines
  Here's another use for the smartphone as it invades daily life: in place of your debit card at your bank cash machine. The “cardless” automatic teller machine (ATM) is gaining ground in the US and around the world, with smartphone technology allowing for speedier and more secure transactions. Dozens of US banks are installing new ATMs or updating existing ones to allow customers to order cash on a mobile application and then scan a code to get their money without having to insert a bank card. US banking giants Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase are in the process of deploying the new ATMs, as are a number of regional banks and financial groups around the world. Makers of ATMs and financial software groups are ramping up to meet this demand.
• The New New ‘Deal' – “Markets Are Too Important To Be Left To Investors”
  Our story so far… In the second half of 2014, export volumes in every major economy on Earth began to decline, the result of divergent monetary policies that crystallized with the Fed’s announced tightening bias in the summer of 2014. This decline in trade activity – which is far more impactful than a decline in trade value, because it means that the global growth pie is structurally shrinking – accelerated in 2015 and 2016 as Europe and Japan intentionally devalued their currencies to protect their slices of the global trade pie. In game theoretic terms, Europe and Japan have been “free riders” on the global system, using currency devaluation to undercut the prices of competing US and Chinese products in a way that avoids domestic political pain.
• Oil output rises even as US rig count falls to historic lows
  The number of oil and gas drilling rigs in the US has fallen to the lowest level since data started being collected, although production remains near record highs. The number of rigs drilling in the US now stands at 94, three down on last week and the lowest rig count since the energy consultancy Baker Hughes starting tracking the figures back in 1948. The rig count has dropped by 63 per cent over the past year and is almost 90 per cent lower than peak levels five years ago when oil was in excess of $US110 a barrel.
• Even Mainstream Economists Starting to Admit that “Free Trade Agreements” Are Anything But …
  Trump and Sanders have whipped up a lot of popular support by opposing “free trade” agreements. But it’s not just politics and populism … mainstream experts are starting to reconsider their blind adherence to the dogma that more globalization and bigger free trade agreement are always good.
• Trump is completely wrong about the U.S. trade deficit
  Thomas Sowell once explained that economists visit the dentist so often because we gnash our teeth hearing so much “ignorant nonsense about the economy.” Thanks to the gibberish spewed almost daily about international trade, dentists must be having an especially busy year. Virtually all economists support free trade and oppose protectionism. For example, a 2014 University of Chicago survey found that 93% of the country's top economists agreed with the statement “Past major trade deals have benefited most Americans” and none disagreed (7% were uncertain).
• The world's second biggest coal miner could be about to go bankrupt
  Peabody Energy, one of the world's biggest producers of coal, has warned that it is at risk of going bankrupt in the very near future, thanks to a lack of “sufficient liquidity to sustain operations and to continue as a going concern” caused largely by the continuing downturn in the coal mining industry. In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, the US-based producer said: “There can be no assurance that our plan to improve our operating performance and financial position will be successful.” Peabody has undertaken a huge programme of cost-cutting in recent years to stave off a massive crash in the price of the commodity.
• Richard Russell – The Key To The Bull Market In Gold & The Bear Market In Global Stock Markets
  Late last year, Richard Russell gave us the key to the bull market in gold and the bear market in global stock markets.  This is the second in a series of releases KWN will be publishing on the wisdom passed down from the Godfather of newsletter writers. From legendary Richard Russell:  “I want to start this site off with a bow to Fred Hickey, who puts out The High Tech Strategist. Hickey is a prodigious worker and reads everything. Fred is a true believer in gold and I read his work carefully. Americans are scared to death and befuddled by the news of the day. They are well aware that their own lives and jobs have little to do with the nonsense that the Fed and the government is shoveling out to them.
• Peter Boockvar – Fed Suspends Reality As The Rush To Gold Continues
  On the heels of the Fed’s decision not to raise rates, today Peter Boockvar sent King World News a fantastic piece discussing the Fed’s decision and the subsequent surge in the gold market. Peter Boockvar:  For the past few years the Fed has been chipping away at the concept that they are driving monetary policy dependent on the data that they see. We know that because they kept changing the rules of the game in that every time a goal was reached the goal was altered. Well, I believe it is safe to say that after yesterday’s FOMC statement, the Yellen press conference and what was said in them, the communication and structural strategy of ‘data dependency’ has been officially neutered. The Fed’s goal is now a perfect world. As we of course will never get there, the rest of us are left flying blind as to what to expect from monetary policy…
• Why Global Debt Growth May Extend The Oil Glut
  In this post I present some selected parameters I monitor which may help understand near term (2-3 years) oil price movements and levels. It has been my understanding for some time that the formulations of fiscal and monetary policies affect the commodities markets. Changes to total global debt has and will continue to affect consumers’/societies’ affordability and thus also the price formation of oil.
• Political Turmoil Rages in Brazil, Puts Oil Industry On Edge
  More than 3 million people protested in the streets of major cities across Brazil on March 13, numbers that may have exceeded even the massive rallies that took place at the end of the country’s military dictatorship in the mid-1980s. The population is fed up with corruption, fed up with the ruling party, and are seeking the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff.
• The Terrible Oil News Nobody Noticed
  A terrible bit of news went unnoticed in the commotion amid the rebound in oil prices over the past two weeks. While every news outlet shouted about Iran and OPEC, a U.S. energy icon quietly announced news that could potentially shatter the industry. As I’ve explained recently, many oil companies are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. But news out of Alaska could lead to disaster. BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT) – operated by the Alaskan division of oil giant British Petroleum (BP) – sells oil from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield.
• The Wisdom Of Jesse Livermore As Gold And Silver Surge Strongly After Fed Decision
  On the heels of the Fed’s decision not to raise rates, gold soared more than $30 and silver surged as well, and the U.S. dollar tumbled. But even with the recent positive action in the gold and silver markets, what some of the gold and silver community are struggling with at this point is exercising patience.  Some have been selling positions and moving to the sidelines, waiting for the next shoe to drop.  While there will be pullbacks, KWN readers around the world need to understand that you don’t want to give up your position at the beginning of a new bull market…
• And this is When the Jobs “Recovery” Goes Kaboom
  The future for employment looks bright. The gig economy is firing on all cylinders. The FOMC, in its statement concerning its interest rate decision today, was practically gleeful about employment and where it’s headed: A range of recent indicators, including strong job gains, points to additional strengthening of the labor market. The Committee currently expects that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen.
• Fleckenstein – Silver May Be About To Scream Higher As People Lose Confidence In Idiot Central Bankers
  With many people wondering what’s next for the markets, today Bill Fleckenstein warned silver may be about to scream higher as people lose confidence in idiot central bankers. Despite the Fed’s dovishness, overnight markets were mostly lower, though that did not seem to matter too much to the SPOOs or trading here, as the indices were not very far from unchanged through midday, with the Dow and the S&P slightly higher and the Nasdaq a touch lower. In the afternoon they all marched higher still. By day’s end the Dow/S&P gained about 0.75% (with the Nasdaq just up fractionally despite decent strength in lots of speculative names, especially chips)…
• WTI Crude Slides Back Into Red For 2016 As The Fed And Oil Remain On Unsustainable Paths
  Oil prices have increased 50 percent since the lows exhibited earlier this year, a rise that is largely linked to the positive market reaction to the OPEC output freeze. But WTI Crude has given up all its early morning “see oil is fixed” gains in a hurry as once again the algo ramps give way to the realization that, as OilPrice's Leonard Brecken notes, comes even as for all intents and purposes OPEC has nearly reached its production limits and Iran still plans in increasing output.
• The Stunning Size Of China's Housing Bubble In One Chart
  Over the past month we have documented the surreal reemergence of China's latest housing bubble (recall the first one burst in early 2014 which forced Beijing to reflate the stock market bubble, which also burst over a year later). But nothing does China's housing bubble justice quite like a simple chart showing what is going on right now with home prices in Shenzhen, which incidentally also puts the housing bubble in the context of China's recently burst stock market bubble. No comment  necessary.
• ALERT: Gerald Celente Issues Trend Forecast On Gold And The Fed
  The top trends forecaster in the world just announced a trend alert for gold and the Fed! He also discusses the unprecedented moves by central banks. Gerald Celente – Once upon a time, in a pre-smartphone and Facebook Age, workers of the world with a little extra cash did what the millennial generation would never dream of and probably never heard of. They’d deposit their money in savings accounts or buy certificates of deposit…
• Caterpillar cuts Q1 earnings, revenue guidance
  Caterpillar on Thursday cut its first-quarter earnings and revenue guidance, but said it remains comfortable with its prior full-year forecast. Shares of Caterpillar fell more than 3 percent in premarket trading on the news. (Get the latest quote here.) The world's largest construction and mining equipment maker's giant said it expects quarterly adjusted earnings of 65 cents to 70 cents a share, sharply lower than Street expectations of 97 cents a share. Revenue was forecast at $9.3 billion to 9.4 billion for the quarter, below expectations of $10.4 billion.
• U.S. current account deficit narrows in fourth quarter
  The U.S. current account deficit narrowed in the fourth quarter, but the improvement is unlikely to be sustained as a strong dollar continues to undercut exports of goods. The Commerce Department said on Thursday the current account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, fell 3.6 percent to $125.3 billion. The third-quarter deficit was revised up to $129.9 billion from $124.1 billion. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the current account deficit falling to $118.9 billion in the fourth quarter. For 2015, it totaled $484.1 billion, the largest since 2008.
• Is This Why Yellen Went Full-Dove: U.S. Hiring Plunges Most Since November 2008
  While the BLS' JOLTs report usually gets a B-grade in terms of importance due to its one-month delayed look back (we just got the  January report which is one month behind the most recent payrolls number) it serves an important function due to its breakdown of various labor components such a job openings, new hires, separations, quits and terminations, all of which make up Janet Yellen's “labor dashboard.” In fact, according to Yellen herself, the JOLTs data is as important, if not more so, than the BLS report. Which may explain why yesterday the Fed surprised as dovishly as it did. As a reminder, the key number most look for in the monthly JOLTs report is the number of Job Openings: for January the BLS reported a print of 5,541K, which modestly beat the expected 5,500K consensus number.
• Luxury jeweler Tiffany's profit beats estimates as costs fall
  Upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co (TIF.N) reported a better-than-expected profit for the holiday quarter as it raised prices and benefited from lower prices of diamonds, gold and silver. Shares of the company, which became a household name due to the 1961 Hollywood classic “Breakfast at Tiffany's”, rose as much as 4 percent in morning trading on Friday. Weakness in the global economy and a strong dollar have hurt Tiffany and other luxury retailers such as Nordstrom Inc (JWN.N), Neiman Marcus Group and Macy's Inc-owned (M.N) Bloomingdale's as tourists shy away from buying high-end items.
• Consumer Sentiment Index Falls For Third Straight Month
  Consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell for a third straight month in March, according to the latest University of Michigan survey, as Americans suspect that the era of cheap gas is ending. That’s a bad sign for consumer spending from Apple (AAPL) iPhones to Tiffany (TIF) jewelry. The Michigan sentiment index’s flash reading was 90, down 1.7 points from the February’s final reading of 91.7, January’s 92 and December’s 92.6. It’s the lowest reading since October. Wall Street expected a flash March reading on 92.2. The index hit 95.9 in April, the highest since January 2007, but quickly retreated to 87.2 in September.
• The Economic Recovery: A Myth Built Upon a Myth
  No matter how much data you point to showing the health of the US economy isn’t as good as advertised, you will inevitably hear the refrain, “But look at the jobs numbers!” Just the other day, Peter Schiff appeared on Fox Business and said the US economy is likely already in recession. Peter repeated his prediction that the Fed wasn’t going to raise rates again, but would instead drop them to zero. National Alliance Securities Global strategist Andy Brenner was having none of that. He insisted the Fed would raise rates at least two more times this year because the economy is doing OK. And what was his proof? You guessed it – jobs! Peter made mincemeat out of Brenner’s argument, pointing out that most of the new jobs in the February report were part-time and low paying.

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From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From March 11, 2016 to March 17, 2016:

• Record Swings of Deflation and Inflation Coming-Michael Pento
  Money manager Michael Pento says the Fed and other global central banks are “not going to stop manipulating the markets.” Pento explains, “There is no escape from the manipulation by central banks and manipulation of asset prices. There is no escape of manipulation of interest rates, of money supply growth, of stock values and of bond prices. They can never stop. . . . Just a hint that this massive manipulation of all markets and asset classes might end someday sends them crashing. So, there is no escape in Japan, China, Europe and the United States. That means we are headed for massive bouts of wild swings between inflation and deflation, the likes of which we have never before seen in the history of economics.”
• This Chart Shows the First Big Crash Is Likely Just Ahead
  The story on Wall Street and CNBC continues to be that we’re in a correction and this is a buying opportunity. Even Warren Buffett joins the chorus of stock market cheerleaders for the skeptical public. Well, I agree with the skeptical public, not the experts here! The bull market from early 2009 into May 2015 looks just like every bubble in history, and I’m getting one sign after the next that we did indeed peak last May.
• What’s in Store for the Real Economy
  The Census Bureau announced today that total business sales in January did what they’d been doing relentlessly for the past one-and-a-half years: they fell! This time by 1.1% from a year ago, to  $1.296 trillion, and by 5% from their peak in July 2014. They’re now back where they’d been in January 2013. Sales are adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences, but not for price changes. And since January 2013, the consumer price index rose 2.8%! This is why the US economy has looked so crummy. That’s bad enough. But it gets much worse.
• U.S. Consumer Prices Fell in February
  U.S. consumer prices fell in February due largely to a slide in gasoline prices, but other evidence pointed to steadily building inflation pressures that could reassure the Federal Reserve as it considers raising short-term interest rates. The consumer-price index, a gauge of what Americans pay for everything from refrigerators to dental care, declined 0.2% over the month, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Overall prices haven’t risen since November and are up just 1% over the past year.
• U.S. industrial output resumes downturn in February
  After hopeful signs of stabilization in January, industrial production decreased 0.5% in February, according to data released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 0.6% fall in industrial output for February. The Fed revised January’s strong gain in output to 0.8%, down a tad from the 0.9% gain initially estimated. Many analysts said the details were not as disappointing as the headline.
• US Recession Data Signals It's A Very Short Road To Capital Controls
  “Prosperity is like a Jenga tower. Take one piece out and the whole thing can fall.” That’s a direct quote from John Williams, the President of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank in a speech he gave a few weeks ago. He could have just as easily been talking about propaganda. The Fed, the White House, Wall Street, the media have a vested interest in peddling a certain narrative about the economy. The narrative goes something like this: “Everything’s awesome. Stop asking questions”. But if you look at their own data, the numbers tell a different story.
• China Freight Index Collapses To Fresh Record Low
  The Baltic Dry Index has risen for the last few weeks, buoyed by hopes (a la Iron Ore) of a National People's Congress stimulus surge from China. While the scale of the ‘bounce' is negligible in real terms compared to the total collapse, it has caused such momentum-muppets as Jim Cramer to proclaim China ‘fixed' and investible. So we have one quick question – if everything is awesome, why did the China Containerized Freight Index just crash to new record lows? It appears BDIY gets over-excited relative to CCFI…
• US Government Blames 9/11 On Iran, Fines Iran $10.5 Billion; Iran Refuses To Pay
  On March 14th, Iran announced that it will never pay the $10.5B that a U.S. court demanded it pay for the 9/11 attacks. The same Bill-Clinton-appointed judge who had ruled, on 29 September 2015, that Saudi Arabia has sovereign immunity for 9/11 and so can’t be sued for it, ruled recently, on March 9th that Iran doesn’t have sovereign immunity and fined Iran $10.5 billion to be paid to 9/11 victims and insurers; but, on March 14, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iran won’t pay, because, as the Ministry’s spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari put it, “The ruling is ludicrous and absurd to the point that it makes a mockery of the principle of justice while [it] further tarnishes the US judiciary’s reputation.”
• RBS to cut almost 450 investment banking jobs in UK
  Royal Bank of Scotland is cutting 448 investment banking jobs in the UK, moving two-thirds of them to India. The bank, 73% of which is owned by the taxpayer, said it would cut back- and middle-office roles in its investment bank, including a small number of technology jobs. Under its chief executive, Ross McEwan, RBS has been shrinking the division to focus on its personal and small business operations in the UK and Ireland.
• US retail sales dip in Feb.; Barclays slashes GDP view
  U.S. retail sales fell less than expected in February, but a sharp downward revision to January's sales could reignite concerns about the economy's growth prospects. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday retail sales dipped 0.1 percent last month as automobile purchases slowed and cheaper gasoline undercut receipts at service stations.
• Japanese Gold Buying Spree Confirms Negative Interest Rates Good for Gold
  Over the last several weeks, we’ve been building the case that negative interest rates are good for gold, and mainstream analysts have echoed our thoughts. Last week, Britain’s largest bank, HSBC, issued a statement saying the longer the world’s central banks continue to experiment with negative interest rates, the better the outlook for gold.
• US Business Inventory-Sales Ratio Jumps To Post-Crisis (7 Year) High
  Following the recessionary surge in Wholesale Inventories-to-Sales ratio, this morning's Total Business inventories-to-sales rose to 1.40x – the highest since May 2009. With a 0.4% slump in sales and 0.1% rise in inventories, the smell of recession lays heavy on US businesses… but then again – who cares if Draghi can keep buying ‘assets' and saving the world?
• Unpaid subprime car loans hit 20-year high
  Americans with lower credit scores are falling behind on auto payments at an alarming pace. The rate of seriously delinquent subprime car loans soared above 5% in February, according to Fitch Ratings. That's worse than during the Great Recession and the highest level since 1996. It's a surprising development given the relative health of the overall economy. Fitch blames it on a dramatic rise in loans with lax borrowing standards that have helped fuel the recent boom in auto sales. More Americans bought new cars last year than ever before and the amount of auto loans soared beyond $1 trillion.
• Ackman takes $1B hit as Valeant tumbles 49%
  Somebody give Bill Ackman an aspirin. Better make it a double. The embattled hedge fund mogul saw the value of his investment in Valeant Pharmaceuticals fall by $766 million on Tuesday after shares of the troubled company fell by 51 percent in the wake of three troubling disclosures.
• Gold Falls as Investors Lock in Gains Ahead of Fed Meeting
  Gold prices fell Monday, as investors locked in gains on the precious metal ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting. Gold for May delivery closed down 1.1% at $1,245.10 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
• The Cashless Society – Keynesian “Stability” Vs Trumpian Turmoil
  In this article, Claudio Grass, Managing Director at Global Gold Switzerland, talks to economist and Mises Institute Senior Fellow Thomas DiLorenzo. This exclusive interview covers central bank monetary policies, Keynesian economics, the economic“recovery,“ political correctness, and much more.
• The Liquidity Endgame Begins: Whiting's Revolver Cut By $1.2 Billion As Banks Start Slashing Credit Lines
  Earlier today we reminded readers about the circular (and why note fraudulent conveyance) scheme hatched by JPMorgan to reduce its secured loan exposure to Weatherford, when just two weeks ago none other than JPM underwrote an WFT equity offering in which it sold equity in the company, and which proceeds were promptly used by the company to repay the JPMorgan revolver. We then showed that it wasn't just Weatherford: most of the “uses of funds” from the recent record surge in oil and gas equity offerings, have been used to repay the secured debt/revolver facilities, thereby eliminating funded and unfunded balance sheet exposure of major US banks.
• Having Killed Their Equity Market, China Unleashes “Tobin Tax” For FX Market
  In September last year, Chinese regulators stepped on the throat of a ‘fair' market in equity futures trading and for all intent and purpose killed the Chinese equity market. Tonight – after 2 days of Yuan weakness – having warned everyon from Soros to Kyle Bass that “betting against the Yuan can't possibly work,” The PBOC just unleashed plans for so-called “Tobin Tax” on FX transactions (which implicitly taxes each transaction, reducing liquidity, raising margins and reducing leverage). Deputy central bank governor Yi Gang raised the possibility of implementing a Tobin tax late last year in an article written for China Finance magazine, and now, as Bloomberg reports, it is on!
• Trump is a Picky Eater Who Sleeps 3 Hours a Night and Hates Sloppy Dressers, His Ex-Butler Says
  What is it like serving at Donald Trump's beck and call? The billionaire’s former butler Tony Senecal has much to tell — like when a young Mr. Trump and first wife Ivana, had four butlers waiting on them hand and foot. Senecal, who served Trump for almost 20 years, told IE: “After Mr. Trump and Ivana got a divorce, we were going over to his room one night and he said: ‘Tony, do I need four butlers?' and I said: ‘As long as it's me Mr. Trump you only need one.’ He got rid of the other three.” Senecal describes Trump as a man always on the move and rarely relaxes. “I'm going into the room to clean it after he's gone and he's re-arranged the closet. And the clothes are all on the floor that he wants to get rid of,” he said. The former butler said that Trump is always busy because he is “always thinking.”
• “It's The Q2 2015 Rally All Over Again” – Morgan Stanley Warns Big Oil Drop Imminent Due To “Rampant Hedging”
  One week ago, the market was disappointed when Goldman's head commodity strategist, Jeffrey Currie pointed out the obvious, namely that the higher the price of oil rises, the greater the probability it will tumble shortly, as a result of recently shut off production going back online. To wit: Last year commodity prices were driven lower by deflation, divergence and deleveraging which were reinforcing through a negative feedback loop. Deflationary pressures from excess commodity supply reinforced divergence in US growth and a stronger US dollar which in turn exacerbated EM funding costs and the need for EMs to de-lever though lower investment and hence commodity demand. While we believe that these dynamics likely ran their course last year resulting in signs of rebalancing, the force of their reversal has created a new trend in market positioning that could run further. However, the longer they run, the more destabilizing they become to the nascent rebalancing they are trying to price.
• Bloomberg Stumbles On The “Only One Buyer Keeping The Bull Market Alive”
  Last week, when Bloomberg was celebrating the 7 year anniversary of the third longest, most central bank-supported, and thus “most hated” bull market in history, it said that  “investors are awash in angst, showing little faith the run can continue. They worry about contracting corporate earnings, slowing Chinese growth and uncertainty over interest rates. And they’re walking the talk by pulling cash from stocks at almost the fastest rate on record. It’s not unwarranted – the S&P 500 has gained just 0.5 percent in the last 18 months.”
• Stocks are climbing that ever-higher “wall of worry”
  It can hardly be denied that stocks are climbing that infamous “wall of worry”. Every day it seems, more and more doom-laden headlines appear in the media to suggest stocks are heading for an almighty fall. That is making my “headline indicator” (HI) start to twitch (as it has done recently for crude oil and gold). On Thursday afternoon, Mario Draghi unleashed his latest money-printing bazooka, and I made a few comments on Friday on how that related to the euro. Since then, there has been a veritable barrage of negative comment from the pundits on why central banks are out of ammo. Many conclude that the next crisis will see them powerless to stem the inevitable wave of selling.
• Fed’s ‘Cocaine and Heroin Injection’ a Criminal Act-Gerald Celente
  Trends forecaster Gerald Celente says former Fed President Richard Fisher dropped an ominous truth bomb last week on CNBC. Celente says, “Last week, when it was a celebration of . . . 2009 and the markets started going up, Fisher says, quote, ‘We injected cocaine and heroin into the system to enable a wealth effect . . . and now we are maintaining it with Ritalin.’  Fisher also said, a few weeks ago, that ‘the Fed is a giant weapon that has no ammunition left.’  Let’s take his quote, and this is very important, ‘We injected cocaine and heroin into the system.’  You go back to our 2010 alert, and we said this was no recovery.  It was a cover-up.  What Fisher just said was a criminal act. Injecting cocaine and heroin into the system was a criminal act by the banking gang.”
• Still not enough: US gov’t collects record $1.2 trillion in taxes, or over $8k per taxpayer
  Uncle Sam hauled in $1.248 trillion in taxes for the first five months of fiscal year 2016, costing each taxpayer $8,263, according a monthly Treasury Department statement. Even after adjusting for inflation, however, the government is still in the red. The federal government collected more money between October 2015 and February 2016 than it did any other five months in history, said the Treasury statement, released on Thursday. The US fiscal year begins on October 1 and runs through September 30.
• Obama makes case for gov access to all digital devices to prevent terrorism and tax cheats 
  Without mentioning the government’s case against Apple directly, President Barack Obama told a Texas audience that mobile devices should be built such a way that the government can access them in order to prevent a terrorist attack or enforce tax laws. “The question we now have to ask is: If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?” Obama said during a question and answer session at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas on Friday, according to Reuters.
• Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente Warns: Prepare For The Panic Of 2016: “History Will Remember This”
  Earlier this week hedge fund manager Marin Katusa explained that up until the recent stock market hit all the easy money flowing into the energy sector was being exuberantly spent on hookers, blow and fancy toys. Now, as oil prices hover under $40 per barrel, Katusa said more pain is likely coming and oil, along with other asset classes, are going to go “lower for longer.” In a recent interview with Future Money Trends, trend forecaster Gerald Celente echos Katusa’s concerns. Having accurately predicted the Crash of 2008 nine months ahead of the bottom falling out on a global scale, Celente says another panic is coming this year.
• Credit Card Debt In The United States Is Approaching A Trillion Dollars
  For the first time ever, total credit card debt in the United States is approaching a trillion dollars.  Instead of learning painful lessons from the last recession, Americans continue to make the same horrendous financial mistakes over and over again.  In fact, U.S. consumers accumulated more new credit card debt during the 4th quarter of 2015 than they did during the years of 2009, 2010 and 2011 combined.  That is absolutely insanity, because other than payday loans, credit card debt is just about the worst kind of debt that consumers could possibly go into.  Extremely high rates of interest, combined with severe penalties and fees, can choke the financial life out of almost any family in no time at all.
• Beware: The market’s ‘crystal ball’ just turned from bullish to bearish
  Once again, the stock market’s crystal ball proved to be deadly accurate. About a month ago, I wrote that the option premiums on the Volatility Index (“VIX”) were slanted highly in favor of a lower VIX. And because a lower VIX usually means a higher stock market, I argued the market’s crystal ball – VIX option prices – was predicting a rally in stocks…
• Until this happens, keep buying gold: Gartman
  Gold is up nearly 20 percent in 2016, and that has veteran trader Dennis Gartman urging investors not to sit out on the rally. “The trend is up, the trend has been up for the last several months and I continue to think that as long as the monetary authorities are going to remain as expansionary as they are [this trend will continue],” the editor and publisher of The Gartman Letter said in an interview with CNBC's “Futures Now” on Thursday. “Monetary expansion equals higher gold prices.”
• Jim Rogers: ‘This isn’t the end of the correction in gold’
  I recently had a chat with fellow Singapore resident Jim Rogers, one of the most successful investors in history. Jim co-founded the Quantum Fund, one of the world’s most successful hedge funds. After the fund generated returns of more than 4,200% over 10 years, Rogers quit full-time investing. He went on to drive around the world, literally, and write several excellent books that blend travelogue, investment insight, and political commentary. Today, Jim is viewed as one of the founding fathers of the boots-on-the-ground approach to investing in emerging and frontier markets around the world.
• Secret Monetary Group Warns a Catastrophe Is Coming
  The Bank for International Settlements is nothing if not obscure. As the central bankers’ bank, it seems little-more than a back-door, private club for monetary elites to rub shoulders. And it’s located in Switzerland which has always carried a reputation for financial secrecy. Then it has this going for it – John Keynes of “Keynesian economic theory” opposed its dissolution back in the 1940s. His was the kind of thinking that has largely influenced central banks to hijack our economies with manipulative monetary policies! So you’d probably think I hate these guys.
• Bundesbank Fears “Doom Loop”
  “ECB barrel-scraping getting louder” – that’s what Daiwa Capital Markets called it. But those acts of desperation, as sweet as they seem to the markets, had slammed into opposition at the German Bundesbank. And now “people familiar with the matter” and a “central bank source” are talking to the Wall Street Journal to air their concerns. Yesterday, the ECB bent over backwards to increase the negative interest rate absurdity, given how well it has been working so far. It cut its deposit rate one notch to negative 0.4%. That was less than expected. But it also added a slew of “surprises” intended for the markets to feed on and soar.
• SILVER OUTBREAK: Investment Demand Will Totally Overwhelm The Market
  It's no secret to the precious metal community that silver is one of the most undervalued assets in the market, however 99% of Mainstream investors are still in the dark. This was done on purpose to keep the majority of individuals invested in Wall Street's Greatest Financial Ponzi Scheme in history. You see, this is the classic PUMP & DUMP strategy. Unfortunately, it's not a lousy penny stock that Wall Street is pumping, rather it's the entire market. Most pump & dump stock campaigns last a day, week or a few months. Sadly, this one has gone on for decades and the outcome will be disastrous for the typical American.
• “Gloom” Returns To China's Economy: Industrial Production, Retail Sales Miss Lowest Estimates
  After an unprecedented surge in Chinese attempts to stimulate the economy in late 2015, mostly on the fiscal side, coupled with recent monetary easing by the PBOC which cut the banks' reserve ratio recently and unleashed a tsunami of new loan creation in January, many expected that this unprecedented credit impulse would translate into at least a modest rebound for the economy, prompting a stable pick up in spending for the economy which many are touting is now consumer-spending driven as opposed to export and production.
• From Champs To Chumps: Latin America Oil Giants Owe $275 Billion
  The Latin American state-run oil companies whose largesse filled government coffers from Mexico to Brazil during the crude boom of the previous decade are quickly becoming dangerous liabilities as soaring debt levels spook investors. Regional leaders are being forced to shelve plans to spend petro-cash on popular projects after oil prices plunged more than 50 percent in the past two years and are instead grappling with mounting bills at their state-backed champions. The burden is being amplified as local currencies crumble against the dollar, driving up the cost of to pay off foreign debt.
• A Right Way and a Wrong Way to Weather “The War on Cash”
  Many people have been talking recently about the “war on cash.” With policymakers seriously talking about eliminating cash, it can be worrisome. But there is a way to avoid the consequences of the “war on cash. You just need to pick the right strategy. With the endless lowering of interest rates and the possibility that they could turn negative, there is more incentive than ever for people to pull their dollar savings from banks and just hold on to the paper cash at home. After all, why risk your dollars in a bank that yields zero return or even charges you to hold your money? As a result, people are buying up safes, pulling their dollars out of the bank, and storing them at home.
• Why Negative Rates Can’t Stop the Coming Depression
  Are you ready to pay to save? Agora founder Bill Bonner explains why “negative interest rates” are spreading around the world…and could soon come to the U.S. Negative interest rates are a disaster story in the making. And they will only speed up the major monetary collapse we believe is coming. Bill believes the fallout from his catastrophe will be far worse than 2008. When it hits, every service you’ve come to depend on – your bank…your grocery store…your Social Security checks – will shut down.
• U.S. import prices fall for eighth straight month
  U.S. import prices fell in February for an eighth straight month, weighed down by declining costs for petroleum and a range of other goods, but the pace of decline is slowing as the dollar's rally fades and oil prices stabilize. The Labor Department said on Friday import prices slipped 0.3 percent last month after a revised 1.0 percent decrease in January. Import prices have decreased in 18 of the last 20 months, reflecting a robust dollar and plunging oil prices. They were down 6.1 percent in the 12 months through February. That was the smallest year-on-year drop since December 2014. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast import prices slipping 0.6 percent last month after a previously reported 1.1 percent fall in January.
• China's yuan hits 2016 high on strong fixing, global US dollar weakness
  China's onshore yuan on Friday (March 11) hit its strongest level against the US dollar in 2016, buoyed by the central bank's firmest midpoint this year and the greenback's slide after the European Central Bank suggested it was done cutting rates for now. Offshore yuan strengthened 0.3 per cent from Thursday to hit its highest level since early December at 6.4733 just before midday. The onshore yuan hit 6.4866 in late morning trade, its highest level since Dec. 29. Its previous 2016 peak was 6.4880, on Feb 15.
• Silver Could Be Poised to Come Out of the Shadows
  While there’s been a lot of attention focused on gold over the last few months, silver has remained in the shadows. The white metal has lagged a bit behind as the gold market turned bullish over the last few months. But there are some good reasons to take a close look at silver. According to Bloomberg, silver has advanced 10% since the first of the year while gold surged 18%. But dynamics look good for silver to close that gap: “Silver hasn’t been so cheap relative to gold for more than seven years and with mine supplies forecast to contract this year that may be a sign it’s ready to come out of the yellow metal’s shadow.”
• Men's Wearhouse parent closing 250 stores
  Shares of Tailored Brands, formerly known as Men's Wearhouse, jumped more than 11 percent in early trading Thursday, a day after the company announced plans to close roughly 250 stores this year. That includes shuttering 80 or 90 full-price Jos A. Bank stores. The announcement followed worsening sales trends at that label in the fourth quarter, with the company adding that it expects weakness there to continue into 2016. Revenues at Jos. A. Bank have gotten whacked since the company ended its ubiquitous Buy One Get Three Free promotion in October.
• The World Economy Wreckers Of Beijing
  The desperate suzerains of the Red Ponzi are incorrigible. There appears to be no insult to economic rationality that they will not attempt in order to perpetuate their power, privileges and rule. So now comes the most preposterous gambit yet. Namely, a veritable tsunami of state handouts to foster, yes, capitalist entrepreneurs! That’s right. As described by Bloomberg, Premier Li Keqiang  gave the word, and, presto, nearly $340 billion poured into an instantly confected army of purported venture capital funds run by local government officialdom all over the land.
• German bank that almost failed now being paid to borrow money
  German bank Berlin Hyp had just issued 500 million euros worth of debt… at negative interest. I wondered if I really did go through a time warp, because this is exactly the same madness we saw ten years ago during the housing bubble and the subsequent financial crisis. To explain the deal, Berlin Hyp issued bonds that yield negative 0.162% and pay no coupon. This means that if you buy €1,000 worth of bonds, you will receive €998.38 when they mature in three years. Granted this is a fairly small loss, but it is still a loss. And a guaranteed one. This is supposed to be an investment… an investment, by-the-way, with a bank that almost went under in the last financial crisis. It took a €500 billion bail-out by the German government to save its banking system. Eight years later, people are buying this “investment” that guarantees that they will lose money.
• ECB cuts rates to new low and expands QE
  The European Central Bank has unveiled a series of new measures to strengthen the eurozone’s recovery, with policy makers expanding their quantitative easing package and cutting benchmark interest rates to a new low. The ECB has raised the amount of bonds the eurozone’s central bankers buy each month under QE from €60bn to €80bn — a greater amount than many analysts had expected. It also expanded the range of assets it will buy to include corporate bonds. At the moment, the ECB buys mostly government debt alongside smaller amounts of bundles of smaller loans repackaged into asset-backed securities and covered bonds. The central bank’s governing council also cut its deposit rate by 10 basis points to minus 0.4 per cent. The main refinancing rate fell by 5 basis points to 0 per cent. The move, which was towards the low end of markets’ expectations, in effect raises the fee charged on some bank deposits parked at central banks in the Eurosystem.
• Former Reagan Advisor: Congress Just “Hatcheted” Your Social Security Benefits
  While it went virtually unnoticed, Section 831 of the House's new budget bill could radically change your Social Security benefits as soon as May 1. This change will affect the benefits that as many as 21.3 million Americans could be eligible for, instantly. It could change your chosen retirement date. It could change the way you vacation. It could change your entire financial future…
• Bear Market 2016 Will Get Worse for One Major Reason
  During a four-day rally last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 490 points. And that was just the most recent surge in the index's 1,200-point recovery since its dismal start in early January. While the signs of a rebound were encouraging, Money Morning experts say “bear market 2016” isn't close to being over. “Despite some moderately positive economic news last week, the global economy remains depressed and the prospects for significantly higher stock prices are low,” Money Morning Global Credit Strategist Michael Lewitt said.
• The Stronger U.S. Dollar Is Actually Destroying the Markets
  The U.S. dollar remains the most important financial instrument in the world. The dollar rally has been the single most decisive factor in determining economic growth (or weakness) and market direction since early 2014. And – right now – that's not a good thing. Don't listen to Alan Ruskin, the macro strategist from Deutsche Bank (need I say more?) who posits that the strengthening dollar is largely a positive, since it's paired with an “improving labor market” and a “lower misery index.” He's looking for misery in all the wrong places.
• Terminally ill face being forced to do work experience or lose their benefits
  Terminally ill people face being forced to work to keep their benefits under draconian new Government plans, it was revealed yesterday. Cancer patients who have more than six months to live could have to do work experience or see their payments slashed under the scheme by Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith.
• Number of people on zero-hours contracts in UK increases to 801,000
  The number of workers on zero hours contracts in the UK has increased by 15 per cent in the last three months of 2015 compared with a year earlier, an increase of 104,000 contracts, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. One in 40 UK workers is on a contract that does not guarantee a minimum number of hours, the figures show. Some 801,000 workers were on zero-hours contracts in the UK from October to December 2015, or 2.5 per cent of people in employment, compared to 697,000 workers in the same period in 2014. Part of the increase may be accounted for by additional recognition of the term zero-hours, the ONS said, rather than new contracts.
• Jim Rogers Says 100% Probability US Is Heading for Recession; Data Backs Him Up
  Media and government officials keep telling us the economy looks great, but a peek behind the curtain tells a different story. Some people do see the writing on the wall. Peter Schiff has been saying the US may well have already entered a recession. Last month, Jim Grant echoed Peter, saying the US economy likely went into recession in December 2015. And in a recent interview, Rogers Holdings Chairman Jim Rogers said there is a 100% probability the US will be in a downturn within a year: “It’s been seven years, eight years since we had the last recession in the US, and normally, historically we have them every four to seven years for whatever reason—at least we always have. It doesn’t have to happen in four to seven years, but look at the debt, the debt is staggering.”
• This chart explains how the Baltic Dry Index could spell doom for the global economy
  Even if you follow markets and global economics news, you still may not know what the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is and why it matters. You might guess it's related to shipping – and you'd be right. The BDI is a very useful gauge of global trade, and tells you how much it costs to move goods around the world in massive ships. These goods can be pretty much anything: iron ore, grain, coal … stuff the world needs to build things and function. As such, analysts keen to predict how the health and future of the global economy like to pay close attention to it.
• Are You Kidding Me? Chinese Exports Plunge 25.4 Percent Compared To Last Year
  We just got more evidence that global trade is absolutely imploding.  Chinese exports dropped 25.4 percent during the month of February compared to a year ago, and Chinese imports fell 13.8 percent compared to a year ago.  For Chinese exports, that was the worst decline that we have seen since 2009, and Chinese imports have now fallen for 16 months in a row on a year over year basis.  The last time we saw numbers like this, we were in the depths of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  China accounts for more global trade than any other nation (including the United States), and so this is a major red flag.  Anyone that is saying that the global economy is in “good shape” is clearly not paying attention.
• China Resorts to “Stealth Interventions” to Prop Up Yuan and Stock Market
  A record $1 trillion or so has fled China in the last year or so. Official reserve data is masked, so it’s difficult to pin a precise number. We do know the official monthly drain is the smallest since June, but Daiwa Capital Markets believes PBOC Using Stealth Intervention as Reserves Decline.
• Crackpot Valuations
  The markets are eerily quiet. With so many trends and facts to titillate us all, you’d expect a little more excitement. As it is, the big sell-off at the start of the year seems incomplete – a kind of financial foreplay without the climactic battering of a real bear market. What to make of it?
• A $10 billion hedge fund is bracing for a 2008-type event
  Perry Capital, a $10 billion New York-based multi-strategy hedge fund led by Goldman Sachs alum Richard Perry, is preparing for another credit event like 2008. Perry Capital bought $1 billion worth of credit-default swaps (CDS) on about 10 investment-grade corporate bonds, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. Investment-grade bonds have a rating of BBB or higher by Standard & Poor's or Baa3 or higher by Moody's. They are companies seen as having the safest balance sheets. Perry stands to profit if those companies are downgraded by ratings agencies.
• Markets betting on near-zero interest rates for another decade
  World markets may have recovered their poise from a torrid start to the year, but their outlook for global growth and inflation is now so bleak they are betting on developed world interest rates remaining near zero for up to another decade. Even though the U.S. Federal Reserve has already started what it expects will be a series of interest rate rises, markets appear to have bought into a “secular stagnation” thesis floated by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The idea posits that the world is entering a peculiarly prolonged period in which structurally low inflation and wage growth – hampered by aging populations and slowing productivity growth – means the inflation-adjusted interest rate needed to stimulate economic demand may be far below zero.

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From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From March 5, 2016 to March 10, 2016:

• Central Banks Out of Bullets: THE GOLD BULL IS BACK
  The multi-year bear market for gold and silver mining stocks appears to be coming to an abrupt end as gold breaks important resistance. The GDX mining stocks ETF has moved from $12 to over $19 in less than two months. As we re-enter a GLOBAL gold bull market, smart money appears to be leveraging rising gold and silver prices through the precious metals mining company stocks. Amir Adnani, the founder and Chairman of Brazil Resources joins me to discuss his outlook for the precious metals mining sector and global economy. About the central bankers Adnani says “They’re out of bullets.” As the result of negative interest rates and endless fiat money printing, people are quickly turning back to real money, gold. Adnani believes we are at the very beginning of an historic gold bull market, the likes of which the world has never seen.
• “Freedom Always Dies Bit by Bit”: Bundesbank Takes Sides in War on Cash
  There are two sides in the global war against cash. On one side are many of the world’s governments, central banks, fintech firms, banks, credit card companies, telecommunication behemoths, financial institutions, large retailers, etc. According to them, the days of physical currency are numbered, so why not pull the plug already, beginning with the largest denomination bills such as the $100-note and particularly the €500-note?
• Oil Prices Up In Spite Of Crude Inventory Build
  On the 84th birthday of the most wonderful Keely Smith (no relation, by the way), the oil market is reversing yesterday’s losses and going ‘zooma zooma’ to the upside, despite an impending solid build to crude stocks from the weekly EIA inventory report.
• How China Is About To Unleash A Monster Housing Bubble, In Six Easy Steps
  One week ago we showed the disturbing degree to which the latest (and greatest) housing bubble among China's Tier 1 has gripped the broader public, when we reported that local speculators are waiting in line for days to flip homes.
• Jeff Gundlach on the global economy, the Fed's next move, and negative interest rates
  Jeff Gundlach held his latest webcast on markets and the economy, called “Connect the Dots,” on Tuesday. The big takeaways were: The Federal Reserve has no business raising rates right now. Markets aren't pricing in a hike this month in, and no one has forgotten the volatility that ensued after the first hike in December. The rally in risk assets is near its end. Stocks have 2% of upside but 20% of downside. And there's still time to wait for commodities to cheapen more before buying. There isn't a strong case for an imminent US recession. Negative interest rates are bad for the world. They are having the opposite effect on currencies like the Japanese yen, which has rallied instead. They are also hurting European banks.
• OK, I Get it, this Stock Market Is Going to Be a Mess
  Just how overvalued are stocks, particularly small-caps? According to Wall Street, even the question is wrong. Stocks are never overvalued. They’re always a buy. The future looks bright. And even if it doesn’t look bright, analysts come up with “adjusted” earnings that are so brilliant that they blind even innocent bystanders. That’s how Wall Street justifies high stock prices.
• Global Rig Count Continues To Tumble
  The rig count data in all charts below is through February 2016. The Baker Hughes International Rig Count does not include the U.S., Canada, any of the FSU countries or inland China. It does include offshore China. That rig count peaked in July 2014 at 1,382 rigs and in February stood at 1,018, down 364 rigs from the peak.
• Gold Could Surge To $8,000/oz On Negative Interest Rates – Lassonde
  The gold bull market has returned and gold could surge over 1,000% to $8,000 per ounce in the coming years on ZIRP and NIRP according to legendary gold investor and industry insider Pierre Lassonde. Gold prices are heading higher, much higher and he is “very sure” that the five-year bear market for gold is over and we are at the beginning of a new bull market, the gold insider told leading Canadian business channel, BNN.
• U.S. wholesale stocks rise, seen hurting growth in 2016
  U.S. wholesale inventories unexpectedly rose in January as sales tumbled, suggesting that efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory overhang could persist well into 2016 and restrain economic growth in the coming quarters. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday wholesale stocks increased 0.3 percent after being unchanged in December. Sales declined 1.3 percent, extending December's 0.6 percent drop. January's weak sales pace means it would take wholesalers 1.35 months to clear shelves, the highest inventory-to-sales ratio since April 2009, when the economy was in recession.
• Deflation Is Coming To The Auto Industry As Used Car Prices Drop, Off-Lease Deluge Looms
  Last week, we learned that vehicle leasing as a percentage of monthly light-vehicle sales hit a record in February at 32.3%. In other words, a third of the over 1 million cars and light trucks “sold” during the month were leases, according to J.D. Power. This is indicative of what is now a long-term trend.
• The Collapse Of Italy’s Banks Threatens To Plunge The European Financial System Into Chaos
  The Italian banking system is a “leaning tower” that truly could completely collapse at literally any moment.  And as Italy’s banks begin to go down like dominoes, it is going to set off financial panic all over Europe unlike anything we have ever seen before.  I wrote about the troubles in Italy back in January, but since that time the crisis has escalated.  At this point, Italian banking stocks have declined a whopping 28 percent since the beginning of 2016, and when you look at some of the biggest Italian banks the numbers become even more frightening.  On Monday, shares of Monte dei Paschi were down 4.7 percent, and they have now plummeted 56 percent since the start of the year.  Shares of Carige were down 8 percent, and they have now plunged a total of 58 percent since the start of the year.  This is what a financial crisis looks like, and just like we are seeing in South America, the problems in Italy appear to be significantly accelerating.
• Britain will be ‘dragged along' into a European superstate if it stays in the EU, Boris Johnson warns
  Britain will find itself “dragged along” into an ever more integration European Union if it does not vote to leave, Boris Johnson has said. The Mayor of London wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper that European federalists “mean it” when they said they wanted a full political union.
• Saudi Arabia Suffers from Oil Recession, Looking to the US for Help
  When OPEC made the decision to maintain their levels of oil production, they did not expect such heavy losses themselves. Many have suspected that OPEC wanted to eliminate competition from American-based shale oil producers, and therefore, kept production high in order to lower the oil price. However, OPEC apparently did not foresee certain economic disadvantages that they would incur due to their actions.
• Peter Schiff: $5,000 Gold is Coming
  Peter Schiff did an interview with Rick Wiles of TRUNEWS on Monday and said $5,000 gold is coming. Peter reiterated his belief that the economy is already in a recession, and Fed will drop rates back to zero. After that, he said the central bank will initiate another round of quantitative easing. He made his case by explaining how the jobs numbers aren’t nearly as good as the government spin-doctors are saying, pointing out evidence of looming stagflation ahead, and making a compelling case that another real estate crash is likely in the near-future.
• Small-Business Owners' Confidence Wanes in February
  Small-business owners turned less confident about their economic prospects last month, with lackluster sales crimping margins and ongoing uncertainty over the economic outlook and political landscape pinching spending plans. The National Federation of Independent Business's small-business optimism index, based on a survey sent to about 5,000 owners, slipped 1 point to 92.9, the lowest level in about two years. In 2015, the gauge averaged 96.1.
• Consumer Credit Growth Weakest Since March 2013
  Against expectations of a $17 billion surge, US consumer credit grew at just $10.5 billion – the weakest and biggest miss since March 2013. The biggest driver of this disappointment was an actual contraction in revolving credit (down $1.1 billion) for the first time since Feb 2015.
• There's a ‘gathering storm' in the global economy and central banks are running out of options
  The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — known as the central banks' central bank — is warning there's a “gathering storm” in the global economy, in part caused by governments around the world running out of monetary policy options. In two separate notes, published March 6, BIS economists highlighted the fragile global economic backdrop and said negative interest rates could become a reality for many more countries as central banks search for ways to stoke real growth and battle issues like tumbling oil prices hitting the economy.
• Hillary’s Scary New Cash Tax
  The largest underground currency market in history…how to make huge investment gains from negative interest rates…none dare call it a tax.
• More Paper Than Gold: Issuance of ETF Shares Suspended Due to Surging Metal Demand
  The world’s largest asset manager has temporarily suspended the creation of new shares of its gold ETF due to the demand for physical gold. BlackRock announced it would temporarily stop issuing new shares of Gold Trust (IAU) on Friday: “Since the start of 2016, in response to global macroeconomic conditions, demand for gold and for IAU has surged among global investors. IAU has $8 billion in assets under management, and has expanded $1.4 billion year to date. February marked its largest creation activity in the last decade. This surge in demand has led to the temporary exhaustion of IAU shares currently registered under the ’33 Act.”
• Sweden Begins 5 Year Countdown Until It Eliminates Cash
  How much louder can the “ban cash” calls get? Recall it was just last year when we catalogued the growing cacophony of crazies for whom banning physical currency is the only way to ensure that depositors can’t simply reassert their economic autonomy under a low or zero rate regime. Put simply, if interest rates get too low, depositors will simply take their money out the bank and put it in the mattress or the safe where, to quote WSJ from last week, “interest rates are always low no matter what central bankers do. Most recently, Larry Summers called for the abolition of the $100 bill in the US and in Europe the €500 note is to go the way of the dinosaurs.
• Worried about stocks? Don't watch so much: Buffett
  If investors are worried about their retirement savings after watching 2016's wild market fluctuations, Warren Buffett has some advice. “I would tell them don't watch the market closely,” the Oracle of Omaha said. The billionaire and philanthropist who has amassed a fortune of more than $64 billion tells CNBC's “On The Money” that buy-and-hold is the best strategy. “The money is made in investments by investing,” Buffett said in a recent interview, “and by owning good companies for long periods of time. If they buy good companies, buy them over time, they're going to do fine 10, 20, 30 years from now.”
• The Nine Horsemen Of The US Recession Apocalypse
  “There are no signs of a US recession anytime soon”… apart from these nine charts that is…
• The $15 Minimum Wage and the End of Teen Work
  A new report from JP Morgan Chase & Co. finds that the summer employment rate for teenagers is nearing a record low at 34 percent. The report surveyed 15 US cities and found that despite an increase in summer positions available over a two year period, only 38 percent of teens and young adults found summer jobs.
• Death Of Paper Gold Picks Up Speed BIG TIME Today
  We may be finally witnessing the REAL ENDGAME TO PAPER GOLD MANIPULATION. The Death of the paper gold market picked up speed today as Blackrock announced that issuance of new Gold IAU ETF shares was suspended. However, it’s MUCH WORSE than the information in news release…
• It’s a revolution: German banks told to start hoarding cash
  German newspaper Der Spiegel reported yesterday that the Bavarian Banking Association has recommended that its member banks start stockpiling PHYSICAL CASH. Europe, of course, has been battling with negative interest rates for quite some time. What this means is that commercial banks are being charged interest for holding wholesale deposits at the European Central Bank. In order to generate artificial economic growth, the ECB wants banks to make as many loans as possible, no matter how stupid or idiotic.
• Oil rig count drops for 11th straight week
  The combined count of US oil and gas rigs is one shy of a record low. Data from driller Baker Hughes Friday showed that the oil rig count fell by 8 to 392 this week. It's the lowest count since the week of December 4, 2009. The tally of gas rigs fell 5 to 97, taking the total rig count down 13 to 489, one rig above the lowest level in about 70 years. The combined count of oil and gas rigs has plummeted in the last few weeks. Last week, the oil rig count fell by 13, while the gas count rose by one.
• This chart shows the Bilderberg Group’s connection to everything in the world
  The Bilderberg Group is 120-140 powerful people who meet each year to discuss policy. The meetings are closed to the public. This graph we found on Facebook shows the members’ connections to a ton of corporations, charities, policy groups and media. Everyone from Eric Schmidt to George Soros is a member. There are tons of conspiracy theories about the group, including that they control the world economy. We took the findings with a grain of salt–after all, it’s easy to trace an individual to a corporation and the graph doesn’t specify what influence the member wielded. But perhaps it’s a compelling argument for why the meetings should be public.
• Now the Swiss withdraw their bid to join the EU: Nation's parliament retracts 24-year-old bid to become a member amid deepening row about migration
  Switzerland's parliament has voted to withdraw its long-standing application for membership of the EU – amid a deepening row about migration. The country's National Council has backed a symbolic motion to retract the country's 24-year-old bid to join what was then the European Economic Community (EEC). Lukas Reimann from the Swiss People's Party (SVP) argued it was ‘high time' to make the move, as the country is battling with the European Commission about restricting free movement.
• The Economic Collapse Of South America Is Well Underway
  The 7th largest economy on the entire planet is completely imploding.  I have written previously about the economic depression that is plaguing Brazil, but since my last article it has gotten much, much worse.  During 2015, Brazil’s economy shrank by 3.8 percent, but for the most recent quarter the decline was 5.89 percent on a year over year basis.  Unemployment is rising rapidly, the inflation rate is up over 10 percent, and Brazilian currency has lost 24 percent of its value compared to the U.S. dollar over the past 12 months.
• ALERT: Andrew Maguire – Western Central Planners Have Finally Lost Control Of The Gold Market
  Today whistleblower and London metals trader Andrew Maguire told King World News that Western central planers have finally lost control of the gold market.
• Fresh recession will cause eurozone collapse, warns Swiss bank
  A recession in Europe could lead to the collapse of the eurozone, as the single currency would buckle under the political turmoil unleashed by a fresh downturn, a leading investment bank has warned. In a research note titled “Close to the edge”, economists at Swiss bank Credit Suisse warned the fate of monetary union hangs in the balance if Europe's policymakers are unable to ward off another global slump and quell anti-euro populism. “The viability of the euro is contingent on the current recovery,” said Peter Foley at Credit Suisse.
• The Trumpster Sends The GOP/Neocon Establishment To The Dumpster
  Wow. Super Tuesday was an earthquake, and not just because Donald Trump ran the tables. The best thing was the complete drubbing and humiliation that voters all over America handed to the little Napoleon from Florida, Marco Rubio. So doing, the voters began the process of ridding the nation of the GOP War Party and its neocon claque of rabid interventionists. They have held sway for nearly three decades in the Imperial City and the consequences have been deplorable.
• 260,000 Austrians sign EU exit petition, forcing referendum debate in parliament
  Over 260,000 Austrians have signed a petition calling for the EU exit for the country, and now the Austrian parliament must discuss a referendum on the issue. Overall, the 261,159 people who signed the petition represent 4.12 percent of the electorate. The petition was most popular in the regions of Lower Austria (where 5.18 percent of potential voters signed it) and in Carinthia (4.85 percent). The threshold for calling a debate on a potential referendum is 100,000 people.
• Jim Rogers Says 100% Probability US Is Heading for Recession; Data Backs Him Up
  Media and government officials keep telling us the economy looks great, but a peek behind the curtain tells a different story. Some people do see the writing on the wall. Peter Schiff has been saying the US may well have already entered a recession. Last month, Jim Grant echoed Peter, saying the US economy likely went into recession in December 2015.
• Over 80% Of Jobs Added In January Were Minimum Wage Earners
  Jobs were good; earnings were a disaster – that's the best summary of today's jobs report. As we noted earlier, February suffered the biggest ever monthly drop in average weekly earnings, because not only did hourly earnings drop but so did hours worked, resulting in far lower overall weekly wages.
• U.S. trade deficit widens as exports hit five-and-a-half-year low
  The U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in January as a strong dollar and weak global demand helped to push exports to a more than five-and-a-half-year low, suggesting trade will continue to weigh on economic growth in the first quarter. The Commerce Department said on Friday the trade gap increased 2.2 percent to $45.7 billion. December's trade deficit was revised up to $44.7 billion from the previously reported $43.4 billion. Exports have declined for four straight months.
• Big Pharma is Betting on This Presidential Candidate to Win. Donates Millions of Dollars
  In the past few years we have seen price hikes of pharmaceutical drugs — the most well-known incident is of the drug Daraprim, which jumped from $13.50 to $750 per pill after being purchased by the infamous entrepreneur and pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli. We have seen a dramatic increase of deaths caused by prescription drugs and learned that all new pharmaceuticals coming out have 1 in 5 chance of causing a serious adverse health reaction.
• Barclays announces withdrawal from Africa
  Barclays, one of the UK’s main four banking groups, used the release of its 2015 results to announce that it will divest itself of its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa over the next two to three years. The withdrawal from Africa is one of the first decisions taken by Jes Staley, who took over as chief executive (CEO) three months ago and will re-organise Barclays around two main divisions: UK retail banking and its corporate and investment bank.
• It's Official: Canada Has Sold All Of Its Gold Reserves
  One month ago, when looking at the latest Canadian official international reserves, we noticed something strange: Canada had sold nearly half of its gold reserves in one month. According to the February data, total Canadian gold reserves stood at 1.7 tonnes. That was just 0.1 per cent of the country’s total reserves, which also include foreign currency deposits and bonds. As we noted, the decision to sell came from Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office.
• “It's A Recession Stupid” – US Factory Orders Tumble For 15th Month In A Row
  In 60 years, the US economy has not suffered a 15-month continuous YoY drop in Factory orders without being in recession. Today's -1.9% YoY drop may suggest the slide is decelerating, but off the weakness in December (-2.9% MoM), January's bounce +1.6% MoM missed expectations (+2.1%) notably (and Ex-Trans decline MoM). Recession…?
• “No signs of recession” says agency that always fails to predict recession
  In the middle of a heated battle against my jetlag yesterday, I finally decided to exercise the nuclear option and turn on CNBC in order to stay awake. I figured someone would say something completely ridiculous, and it would get my blood boiling enough to power through the next couple of hours. Within minutes I saw a top economist for Moody’s (one of the largest rating agencies in the world) saying that there are absolutely zero signs of recession.
• We just got the clearest sign yet that something is wrong with the US economy
  We just got the clearest sign yet that something is wrong with the US economy. Markit Economics' monthly flash services purchasing manager's index, a preliminary reading on the sector, fell into contraction for the first time in over two years. The tentative February index was reported Wednesday at 49.8. That's below 50, the border between expansion and contraction.
• Power to the People – Owning Gold and Silver to Weather the Monetary Storm
  Perhaps you saw the recent article about home safes selling out in Japan. This is an unintended consequence of the Japanese central bank’s negative interest rate policy. People are starting to pull their paper cash out of the banks. They are withdrawing all they can and buying personal safes to horde currency at home. The reasoning is, of course, why leave your cash in the risky banking system when you get zero return from it sitting there? In truth, Japanese banks are slowly sucking their depositors’ wealth away – charging them for the right to lend them money.
• Plunging Manufacturing Numbers Mean That It Is Time To Hit The Panic Button For The Global Economy
  We haven’t seen numbers like these since the last global recession.  I recently wrote about how global trade is imploding all over the planet, and the same thing is true when it comes to manufacturing.  We just learned that manufacturing in China has now been contracting for seven months in a row, and as you will see below, U.S. manufacturing is facing “its toughest period since the global financial crisis”.  Yes, global stocks have bounced back a bit after experiencing dramatic declines during January and the first part of February, and this is something that investors are very happy about.  But that does not mean that the crisis is over.  All bear markets have their ups and downs, and this one will not be any different.  Meanwhile, the cold, hard economic numbers that keep coming in are absolutely screaming that a new global recession is here.
• By refusing US, India shows goodwill towards China: State media
  Chinese state media has praised India’s decision to refuse to patrol the South China Sea with the US. In the second commentary within a week on the proposed India-US joint patrol issue, an article in the state-run, Global Times said: “The New Delhi government pursues pragmatic diplomacy and strives to reach a balance between the US and China. Some interpret New Delhi’s refusal (to jointly patrol the SCS) as retaliation against Washington’s approval of weapon sales to Islamabad last year.”
• New snooping laws will hand sweeping powers to EVERY police force to hack into phones and check web browser histories
  New spying laws creating sweeping powers for the police to access anyone's web browser history and break into their phones have been handed to MPs. A new draft of proposed laws was presented to Parliament this afternoon after three inquiries made scores of recommendations for changes and one blasted the original as rushed and flawed. Among the changes in the re-written bill are expanded powers to break into phones and computers if there is a ‘threat to life' and enhanced rules on allowing police and security service access to records about which websites – but not specific pages – have been accessed.
• The Printing Press: A Great Way to Fool People – Peter Schiff’s Gold Videocast with Albert K Lu
  In his most recent Gold Videocast for SchiffGold, Albert K Lu interviewed John Rubino, founder of DollarCollapse.com. Rubino had a pretty compelling explanation for why there wasn’t a massive, sustained economic collapse a decade ago, and why he thinks it’s still lurking on the horizon. “The reason that we’re still here, when we really should have fallen apart based on how much debt there was out there, and various other measures of instability, is that a printing press has turned out to be a great tool for fooling people.”
• Sports Authority Files for Bankruptcy and Plans to Eliminate 140 Stores
  The long-speculated bankruptcy of Sports Authority is official. In a statement posted to its website Wednesday, CEO Michael Foss said that the company decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a way to implement a financial and operational restructuring that it sees as necessary to better appeal to customers. Foss said the sporting goods retailer has identified 140 stores to close or sell in the coming months. “This was a tough decision to make, but we believe it was a necessary step in our plan to make Sports Authority an even better partner for our customers,” he wrote.
• World Trade Organization shutting down India's massive solar project is what's wrong with the world
  The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched on the 11th January, 2010 by the Prime Minister of India.  The mission was to deploy 20,000 MW of grid-connected solar power by 2022 and reduce the cost of solar power generation in the country.  Once completed, the mission would have made the country a global leader in solar energy.
• A French message to Britain: get out of Europe before you wreck it
  There is, between you and us continental Europeans, a disagreement which is turning ugly. Your immense history justifies a limitless admiration for you. You were the inventors of democracy and of human rights, you dominated the world for centuries, first ruling the oceans and after that the world of finance. And when apocalypse threatened, your courage and tenacity – you held on long, American and Russian help arriving late in the day – saved our honour and freedom.
• Turkey could join the EU sooner after helping with the ‘disorderly' migrant crisis, says Merkel on visit to Istanbul
  Turkey could join the European Union earlier than expected after its help in dealing with the ‘disorderly' migrant crisis, Angela Merkel signalled today. The German Chancellor arrived in Istanbul for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on how to stem the flow of people from conflict in the Middle East. But a Brussels plan to allow Turks access to EU visas – in exchange for their country's help with the Syrian migration crisis – has been branded as ‘bordering on insanity'.
• Can Americans Handle Four More Years Of This?
  No child (or student, or poor person, or grandchild, or debtholder, or healthy person, or retiree, or African American, or family, or homeowner, or renter) left untouched… Now that is a legacy.
• Alan Greenspan hasn't been optimistic about America in a long time
  Alan Greenspan is doesn't feel good about America. In an interview with Bloomberg TV's Tom Keene and Mike McKee on Tuesday, the former Federal Reserve chair laid out an uncertain and downbeat view of the US economy. McKee asked if Greenspan thought that financial markets were right by signaling trouble for the economy. “Yep,” said Greenspan. “We're in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water.”
• You'll have to work to 81 to have the same retirement as your parents
  Workers in some parts of the UK face working the best part of a decade longer than others to maintain their current living standards when they retire, according to a report. The findings raise the prospect of some people having to “work until they drop” to sustain their current lifestyles. An average earner who starts saving for a pension aged 22 and makes the minimum statutory contributions would need to work until the age of 77 to get the sort of “gold standard” pension enjoyed by many of their parents' generation, the research from Royal London found. But the worst off will need to keep doing the day job until they're into their 80s.
• Here Comes Mandatory Gun Insurance (And A $10,000 Fine If You Don’t Buy It)
  Politicians nationwide have discovered a sneaky new way to discourage gun ownership: mandatory insurance. Laws that would force gun owners to purchase liability insurance have been proposed in three states and the city of Los Angeles, Insurance Business America reported. Under the proposals, gun owners who did not buy insurance would face fines up to $10,000. The laws also would require individuals to prove they have insurance prior to buying a firearm.
• China Faces 15 Trillion Bombshell As Shadow Banking Sector Collapses
  We’ve spent more time than most documenting China’s wealth management product problem. WMPs are part and parcel of Beijing’s sprawling shadow banking complex which, until 2014 that is, helped pump trillions of yuan into China’s economy and shouldered the burden when it came to propping up the most important economy on the planet. But WMPs are dangerous. In fact, we flagged them as an 8 trillion black swan back in August on the way to asking what would happen if China’s shadow banking sector were to collapse altogether.
• The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch
  Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden. What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood. Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and  storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.
• BRICS Bank African center opens in March
  The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) will open its Africa Regional Center in Johannesburg next month, South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday. The BRICS Bank is looking at local funding solutions, such as tapping financial and capital markets in BRICS nations, NDB President Kundapur Vaman Kamath has said. South Africa’s first instalment of two billion rand (about $132 million) was paid in December last year, and the budget makes provision for South Africa’s further commitments over the medium term, Gordhan said in his 2016 budget speech in Parliament.
• ‘Gold is the new black’ with best start to a year since 1980
  Banks and pundits are singing gold’s praises as it leaps in 2016. The chart on the articles page from The Economist says gold GCJ6 has gotten off to its best start to a year in 35 years. The safety play is up 15% in the year to date as of Friday, helped by haven demand amid dives by stocks, crude oil and other assets.
• American Gold and Silver Eagle Sales Continue at Torrid Pace
  The demand for gold and silver bullion coins surged in the last half of 2015, and it has not abated so far this year, despite a rally in the price of both metals. Last year, demand was so strong the US Mint sold out of American Silver Eagles in July. Inventory was replenished in August, but the coins were on weekly allocations of roughly 1 million ounces for the rest of the year. The mint set a record for Silver Eagle sales in 2015, with the final total coming in at 47 million ounces.
• They Can Already Hack the iPhone — FBI’s Public Display is Propaganda to Sell You the Police State
  The apparent battle between Apple and the FBI at least tells us that the post-Snowden privacy debate is still alive. The subject of the controversy is an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, and the FBI did not choose this case randomly. If the surveillance state is to have any hope of gaining their vaunted “backdoor” into the electronic devices of everyone, then preying on the fear of terrorism has the biggest chance of success.

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From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From February 26, 2016 to March 4, 2016:

• ALERT: Paul Craig Roberts Just Warned The Global Financial House Of Cards May Not Make It Through This Year
  Today former U.S. Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts warned King World News that the financial house of cards may not make it through this year. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:  “Today the Federal Reserve’s policy is focused on saving a handful of very large banks.  These are very huge conglomerates that financial deregulation allowed to become so concentrated that they are just massive institutions.  And the belief is that if one of them were to fail, the consequences would be that the entire financial system would fail…
• Economic Recovery? 13 Of The Biggest Retailers In America Are Closing Down Stores
  Barack Obama recently stated that anyone that is claiming that America’s economy is in decline is “peddling fiction“.  Well, if the economy is in such great shape, why are major retailers shutting down hundreds of stores all over the country?  Last month, I wrote about the “retail apocalypse” that is sweeping the nation, but since then it has gotten even worse.  Closing stores has become the “hot new trend” in the retail world, and “space available” signs are going up in mall windows all over the United States.  Barack Obama can continue huffing and puffing about how well the middle class is doing all he wants, but the truth is that the cold, hard numbers that retailers are reporting tell an entirely different story.
• House Republicans seek to open up national forests to mining and logging
  Congress is to consider two bills that would allow states to hand over vast tracts of federal land for mining, logging or other commercial activities – just weeks after the arrest of an armed militia that took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon in protest at federal oversight of public land. The legislation, which will be presented to the House committee on natural resources on Thursday, would loosen federal authority over parts of the 600m acres (240m hectares), nearly one-third of the land mass of the US, it administers.
• With 269 Stores Closing, Is this the Beginning of the End for Walmart?
  All great empires eventually fall. This is as true in retail as it is in geopolitics. Often the descent into oblivion takes decades. A&P, which was once such a formidable market power that it was the subject of antitrust hearings in Congress, began to falter in the 1950s, some 80 years after cloning its first store. At the time, it was by far the largest grocer in the country. It would remain the industry leader for another quarter of a century, even as its stores seemed increasingly outdated and its corporate practices inexplicably unable to keep up. After several rounds of store closures in the 1970s and 1980s, and a bankruptcy filing in 2010, A&P finally threw in the towel for good just last year. By then, it was a two-bit player in the grocery business, its once continent-spanning empire now confined to the Northeast.
• End of the British Army? EU plots ‘scandalous’ military merger if UK votes to stay in
  THE EU is to launch a £3 BILLION defence research and development programme with the ultimate aim of merging the continent's militaries into one gargantuan Euro army, Express.co.uk can exclusively reveal today. Brussels bureaucrats are railroading through contentious plans to vastly expand the European Union’s military scope which could ultimately end with the British army being subsumed into a vast continental force.
• Finland Busts Key Refugee Myth: They Are Mostly Male and Not From Syria
  The head of Finland's Immigration Services asylum unit, Esko Repo, and communications chief Hanna Kautto told the Finnish news outlet Yle that out of the 19,632 refugees that have arrived in Finland this year, over 15 thousand are adult males. The number of female migrants totals 2,816 and there are also about 2,000 children travelling with adults as well as roughly one thousand unaccompanied minors. Furthermore, only 409 of the refugees came from Syria, with the majority of the migrants – nearly 14 thousand people – arriving from Iraq.
• With twice the debt of California, Ontario is now the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower
  Ontario, the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower, is ploughing ahead with Canada’s most ambitious infrastructure plan — risking the censure of Standard & Poor’s and underperformance for its $307 billion of bonds. The nation’s most-populous province is keeping a goal of spending $130 billion over the next decade on work such as roads and mass transit in Toronto even after S&P dropped its credit grade this month to the lowest level ever. Yield spreads on some of the province’s debt reached the widest since January after the ratings move.
• The Minimum Wage Killed 1 out of 11 Jobs on This Tropical Island
  Congress is considering potential responses to Puerto Rico’s depression and fiscal crisis. Fiscal conservatives are considering whether outside oversight by a “control board” would force feckless local legislators to make difficult choices, such as consolidating rural schools and laying off bureaucrats. However, if Congress gives the board authority only to cut government spending and raise taxes, it will be unable to clear out the failed policies that have choked growth in Puerto Rico.
• An Escalating War on Cash
  On February 16th, The Washington Post printed the article, “It’s time to kill the $100 bill.” This came on the heels of a CNNMoney item, the day before, entitled “Death of the 500 euro bill getting closer.” The former cited a recent Harvard Kennedy School working paper, No. 52 by Senior Fellow Peter Sands, concluding that the abolition of high denomination notes would help deter “tax evasion, financial crime, terrorist finance and corruption.” In recent days, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, ECB President Mario Draghi, and even the editorial board of the New York Times, came out in support of the elimination of large currency notes. Apart from the question as to why these calls are being raised now with such frequency, the larger issue is whether these moves are actually needed or if they merely a subterfuge for more complex economic manipulations by central banks to extend control over private wealth.
• China rules out weakening yuan to boost trade
  China's central bank chief promised Friday to avoid weakening its yuan to boost sagging exports as he tried to reassure nervous financial markets about his government's handling of its economy and currency at the start of a closely watched gathering of global finance officials. Beijing wanted to use the gathering of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 rich and developing countries to promote its campaign for a bigger voice in managing global trade and finance. Instead, the communist government is scrambling to defend its reputation for economic competence following stock market and currency turmoil.
• BRICS NDB, Chinese Gov't Sign Agreement Setting Shanghai as Bank's HQ
  Kundapur Vaman Kamath and Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong signed a memorandum of understanding with the municipality on the terms of the NDB’s accommodation. “We hope that with the support of the government of China and other BRICS countries, as well as the Shanghai government, the New Development Bank will soon become a new model of a multilateral development institution operating openly and with high efficiency,” Wang said at a press conference.
• A revolt is growing as more people refuse to pay back student loans
  Remember those 15 people who refused to repay their federal student loans? Their “debt strike” has picked up 85 more disgruntled borrowers willing to jeopardize their financial future to pressure the government into forgiving their student loans. And the government is starting to listen. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has invited the group to Washington on Tuesday to discuss their demand for debt cancellation. Although the CFPB doesn’t have the power to grant that request, the agency’s overture shows that the strike is being taken seriously.
• Russian-Japanese Ties Develop Despite Sanctions – Russian Trade Minister
  Russia’s economic relations with Japan are expanding despite anti-Russia sanctions, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with Japanese media Saturday. “The situation is changing, but to interrupt dialogue in foreign trade and economic cooperation is impossible. Even under sanctions the Russian-Japanese relations are developing,” Manturov told the Yomiuri Shimbun daily.
• Apple’s lawyer: If we lose, it will lead to a ‘police state’
  Apple’s attorney painted a scary picture if Apple loses its fight with the FBI. In an interview with CNNMoney’s Laurie Segall on Friday, Ted Olson warned of a government with “limitless” powers that could “listen to your conversations.” Olson said the demands would mount.
• Paul Craig Roberts Warns Of Massive Social Instability And Nuclear War
  Today former U.S. Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts spoke with King World News about massive social instability and nuclear war. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:  “The U.S. has this drive for world hegemony, but they are confronted with Russia and China, and on a regional basis, Iran and Syria.  So the U.S. can’t exercise this hegemony because these countries are in the way…
• Chicago PMI Collapses From ‘Mysterious' January Bounce As Employment Crashes To 7 Year Lows
  Following the biggest beat on record in January jumping to 55.6, Chicago PMI collapsed in February to a stunning 47.6 – below the lowest estimate from economists. The entire report is a disaster with New orders tumbling, production sharply lower, and employment contracting for the 5th month in a row – to its lowest since March 2009. As one respondent warned, business was just “limping along at the moment with little promise in sight.” From one-year high “HOPE” to near 7 year low “NOPE”…
• Pending home sales fell 2.5 pct in January
  The winter wallop may have chilled housing activity in some parts of the country, but overheated home prices are really what are slowing sales nationwide. Home buyers signed 2.5 percent fewer contracts in January to buy existing homes compared to December. The expectation had been for a slight gain. The so-called pending home sales index from the National Association of Realtors, an indicator of future closed sales, is now just 1.4 percent higher than it was in January of 2015. Pending sales have been higher annually for 17 straight months, but this is the second smallest gain in that time.
• Another financial crash is ‘certain’, former Bank of England governor warns
  We’re still crawling out from the dark days of 2008’s crash, hoping the global economy has somehow repaired itself. Unfortunately, the former Bank of England governor Mervyn King says it hasn’t – and it’s not a case of if the next one happens, but when. Lord King, who led the bank between 2003 and 2013, had a grim warning for global leaders unless they reformed the system, saying another financial crisis is ‘certain’ and will come ‘sooner rather than later’. He said the reason for the global crisis eight years ago was the system itself, and not greedy bankers.
• Mainstream Waking Up to Reality; Now Saying “Buy Gold”
  Just a few months ago, mainstream analysts were calling gold a “barbaric relic.” Now all of a sudden, they are saying, “Buy gold!” Last Friday, Deutsche Bank issued a note asserting that with emerging economic risks and market turmoil, signs point in gold’s favor: “There are rising stresses in the global financial system…Buying some gold as ‘insurance’ is warranted.”
• “There’s never been a change this big, nor so many people unprepared.”
  I had an amazing time this weekend sharing the stage at an investment conference in Miami, with other speakers like Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, and G. Edward Griffin among others. During a panel on the future of money and banking we discussed how the financial system is rapidly losing control of its own product, i.e. money, in the same way that the music industry has lost control of its product. In the past there used to be a handful of large record labels that controlled the distribution of music across the world. In the same way, our financial system was set up for a handful of banks to tightly control the distribution of money across the world to the point that no financial transaction could occur without a bank inserting itself in the middle.
• Welcome To The Third World, Part 17: Was Middle-Class Retirement Just A Credit Bubble Fantasy?
  One of the jarring — and until recently underreported — aspects of those seemingly-positive recent US jobs reports is the increasing skew towards older workers. Most new jobs have gone to people who in better times would be leaving to live off their savings. Now they’re coming back, frequently taking jobs they wouldn’t consider if money wasn’t so tight.
• Fed's Dudley sees risks to U.S. economic outlook tilting to downside
  An influential Federal Reserve official on Tuesday said he sees downside risks to his U.S. economic outlook, an assessment that could flag a longer pause before the Fed's next interest-rate hike than he and his colleagues had earlier signaled. “At this moment, I judge that the balance of risks to my growth and inflation outlooks may be starting to tilt slightly to the downside,” New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said in remarks at a conference in Hangzhou, China sponsored by the People's Bank of China and the New York Fed.
• Nomi Prins Just Issued A Major Warning
  By Nomi Prins, Keynote Speaker at the recent IMF, World Bank, Fed Conference. February 25 (King World News) – Throughout last year, I predicted the Federal Reserve wouldn’t raise rates by September and that it was unlikely to do anything to seriously rock the rate boat at all. That turned out to be accurate…

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