EURUSD

The gray box is the weekly target zone.

Read the following and you will see the job killing that this new taxation would impose. For all of those fools in the Gov, you can't collect more taxes if you run those out of business from whom you propose to collect more taxes.

via Larry Levin:

Double Taxation

If you hadn’t noticed, the market was body slammed today.  Last week’s “mark-‘em-up-into-the-month-end-close” rally is over. Now that the month’s good close is behind us, the market can get back to fretting over oil and daily gasoline price hikes at the pump.  The S&P closed down -1.55%.

This tax news came out yesterday and may have flown under the radar for most: Tax-Cheatin-Timmy wants to raise your taxes if you are self-employed. 

“Congress,” says Geithner, “has to revisit this basic question about whether it makes sense for us as a country to allow certain businesses to choose whether they’re treated as corporations for tax purposes.”

Small businesses can currently choose to be taxed as a corporation or a variety of other ways such as; partnerships, S-corps, and others.  But the guy at the IRS who CHEATED ON HIS OWN TAXES, believes the government shouldn’t give you a choice to be an S-corp and should be DOUBLE taxed.  

According to some reports, Tax-Cheatin-Timmy believes his idea would allow the government to tax an additional $3 trillion.

Let’s assume you own a small business and then make the “crazy” assumption that you pay yourself, you would be double taxed as follows.

$100,000 gross
 -$15,000 FICA/Medicare
 -$29,750 Corporate Income Tax (35%)
$55,250 is the balance which will be taxed again
-$19,338 for Personal Taxes (35%)

You now have $35,912 net income (36% of the gross) to be taxed by the state, county and city.

Boy-howdy this sounds like a great jobs builder!  Luckily small businesses don’t generate (cough) many (cough, COUGH) jobs.

Dollar Weakness

From Larry Levin

Tuesday's Sell Off

The Holiday-shortened week started off with Tuesday’s drop.  The sell-off followed on the heels of Monday’s Globex-only session. The Dow Jones closed down 1.44%, S&P 500 closed down 2.05%, and the Nasdaq was slammed 2.74%.  
 
On the flip side oil was up nearly 10% since its last regular session.  Gold and silver were also up substantially.
 
What was rather surprising, however, was the old “flight to quality” standby: the US dollar.  It never caught a bid!  With so much global uncertainty and a strong sell-off in equities, there is usually a strong “flight to quality” bid in the US dollar.  I checked the currencies several times Tuesday and was surprised each time that it was so slow.  
 
The CIO of Pimco was also surprised and said on Bloomberg today, “It is a warning shot to America that we cannot simply assume flight to quality, flight to safety. That people are starting to worry about the fiscal situation in the U.S., worrying about the level of debt and what they're hearing about states and municipalities. I would take this as a warning shot that we cannot assume that we will maintain the standing of the reserve currency as we have in the past.”
 
The violence in Libya continues to escalate with the dictator, Qaddafi, saying it could become a civil war, while threatening to hunt down all protestors and kill them in their homes if they do not stop.  Moreover, he declared Force Majeure on the 1.5-million barrels of light sweet crude oil Libya exports daily and threatened to blow up its oil infrastructure…a-la Saddam Hussein. 
 
Although the protests have spread to Bahrain and have really escalated, which is bad, the oil situation would only become truly frightening if the problems led to a Saudi regime change.  Until then, it’s possible that this oil spike and the equity swoon are nearly over.

Oil $200/barrel

What these videos and see if you agree. If this happens as outlined in the videos, will it mean the end of the dollar by the end of 2012?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This short write up is from the Sovereign Investor. There is a bill already in the House to confiscate individual IRAs and 401Ks and being considered. This is not a joke and needs to be seriously considered for your personal investment. Think about it, if this happens and you have 100K, 500K or whatever amount, if the Gov does this outright theft, you will no longer been physically entitled to this money. Yes that's right, it will be legally stolen from you!! What will you get in return? The Gov's promise to pay you a minimal % return yearly. But wait, isn't that what Soc Sec is? Yes, but Soc Sec is bankrupt like the country and what the Gov needs by taking these retirement accounts is a further way to continue spending as the dollars value declines. This is and will be the continued and utter destruction financially of the US.

Good luck and invest well!!

Uncle Sam Wants Your Retirement Money

The Sovereign Society (February 17, 2011)

The guys in Washington are getting desperate.

For years, our government has relied on the major Asian players like China and Japan to finance our debt. I’m sure you’ve heard this story. We bought their stuff, and they bought our Treasuries and other U.S. paper.
This system worked out great for us.
Today, that’s no longer the case. We’re the biggest financial losers on Earth…
Our national debt is a staggering $14 trillion! Worse, foreign investors don’t trust us to pay it down – so they’ve cut off our cash flow.
In short, the government needs Treasury buyers. So the guys in Washington are turning to you… and your cash-rich retirement plan to buy up those unwanted Treasuries.

Another Social Security?

The Department of Labor and U.S. Treasury Department are looking into ways to promote the conversion of retirement plans into an “annuity payment.”
But here’s what you need to know: An “annuity payment” is really government speak for forcingyou (think: mandatory Social Security contributions) to buy U.S. Treasuries with your retirement money.
And most likely, the government wants to lock you into those low-yielding 30-year Treasuries that foreign investors no longer want. That way, they can finance a mountain of deficits for decades to come.
Imagine that 100% of your retirement is tied to the dollar, a declining asset and backed by a practically worthless government IOU. It’s the last asset you’d want to own for your retirement.
What’s more, the timing coincides with the beginning of the retirement of the Baby Boomers. Think about it, beginning next year the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will begin turning 65 and there will be a ton of money flowing into treasuries each year for the foreseeable future.
Make no mistake about it, Uncle Sam wants your retirement plan – and there’s really only one thing you can do to protect yourself – get your retirement money offshore while you still can. They are coming for it and you are running out of time.

Uncle Sam Will Tell You When You Can Take Your Own Money

(And they won’t let you take it all at once)
A major step towards the forced purchase of treasuries will come through a fundamental change in the way you take the money out of your retirement plan.
Federal lawmakers want to remove all of the flexible withdrawal options you have. They want to force you to withdraw money in equal payments over your remaining life span, known in the industry as a lifetime annuity.
An annuity is a steady stream of income that will be paid to the retiree over the remainder of his life expectancy.  A 67-year-old male would receive his payments over a 15-year period. Contrast this with the rules in place today that give you the ability to withdraw all the funds as a lump sum or as needed after reach age 59 ½. (The current rules require mandatory distributions begin by age 70 ½.)

NIA Projects Multi-Trillion Dollar U.S. Budget Deficits

 

NIA Projects Multi-Trillion Dollar U.S. Budget Deficits

 

Earlier this week, President Obama released the White House's budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 along with their budget projections for the following 10 years. The White House projects a record budget deficit in 2011 of $1.645 trillion, but for the deficit to be reduced to $1.101 trillion in 2012, $768 billion in 2013, $645 billion in 2014, and a low of $607 billion in 2015, before rising back up to $774 billion in 2021. We give Obama credit for being honest and admitting that he has no intention of making any attempt to balance the budget. However, NIA believes the White House is making ridiculous assumptions and deceiving the public about future budget deficits.

 

In our opinion, the White House will be right about the U.S. having a record budget deficit in 2011. Unfortunately, we believe this is the only thing they will be right about. Any proposed spending cuts coming out of Washington today are so small that they are a waste of time even discussing. The truth is, the total cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory programs alone will be $2.2 trillion in 2011. Then when you add in the projected $205 billion in interest payments on our national debt in 2011, we will have a budget deficit of $235 billion right there without including any of the government's $891 billion in security and $496 billion in non-security discretionary spending.

 

Obama's proposed freeze on non-security discretionary spending will only save $406 billion over the next 10 years, which is absolutely nothing. If Obama didn't just freeze discretionary spending, but he cut all discretionary spending down to zero, we would still have a budget deficit. Nobody in the mainstream media is educating the American public about just how dire our country's fiscal situation is. We get called fear-mongers for preparing Americans for hyperinflation, but we speak the truth while the mainstream media ignores our country's financial problems. We wouldn't have to spend close to a million dollars per year producing documentaries and writing articles about the hyperinflationary crisis ahead if the mainstream media did their job.

 

NIA believes that after our record budget deficit this year, there is a 99% chance that we will continue to see more record budget deficits in the years ahead. Even if 2012 or 2013 saw a minor dip in our budget deficit, we could see budget deficits that are double or triple their current level within the next few years. In fact, NIA doesn't think our nation will survive until 2021 based on the path we are currently on. The U.S. won't be able to continue printing money to monetize the debt and deficits, without seeing an outbreak of massive inflation and perhaps hyperinflation at some point this decade.

 

To reach the White House's projected reductions in the budget deficit after a record budget deficit in 2011, the White House is projecting that annual price inflation in the U.S. will rise from just 1.3% in 2011, to just 1.8% in 2012, 1.9% in 2013, 2% in 2014, and 2.1% per year from 2016 through 2021. NIA believes these numbers are unrealistic and that real price inflation in the U.S. is already north of 5%. NIA believes real price inflation is likely to rise above 10% in either the second half of 2011 or early 2012. The Federal Reserve has held interest rates at artificially low levels of 0% to 0.25% for over two years. Artificially low interest rates are very inflationary. In order to contain price inflation and keep it under control, the Federal Reserve must raise interest rates to above the real rate of price inflation. The Fed won't do this because it would destroy our phony economic recovery.

 

If the Federal Reserve never lowered interest rates and kept them at 5.25% where they were in 2006, instead of having 5% price inflation today, we would likely have at least 5% price deflation. This means inflation is now conservatively 10% higher than where it would have been without the Federal Reserve's destructive actions. To put this into perspective, with three years of 5% price inflation, a product becomes 35% more expensive than it would have been with three years of 5% price deflation.

 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported yesterday that year-over-year price inflation in the month of January was 1.63%, compared to 1.5% in December. Even based on the phony BLS numbers, it is obvious to all that price inflation in the U.S. is accelerating. NIA estimates that real price inflation is now closing in on 6%.

 

Not only is the White House budget using deceptive inflation numbers, but it is also misleading Americans about GDP growth. The White House budget is projecting 5% annual nominal GDP growth over the next 10 years. Over the past decade, the U.S. has seen an average annual nominal GDP growth rate of 3.95% and if you go back to the years 2001-2005 during the Real Estate bubble, we saw annual nominal GDP growth during those five years of 4.86%.

 

It is absolutely insane for the White House to be projecting nominal 5% GDP growth per year, with inflation of only 2% per year. There is absolutely no chance of the U.S. economy seeing real GDP growth of 3% per year, which would be higher than our average real GDP growth during the biggest artificial boom in U.S. history. In our opinion, any GDP growth the U.S. sees this decade will be created entirely by inflation. Considering that the White House expects there to be a lot of GDP growth in the years ahead, they are clearly putting a lot of pressure on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to create as much monetary inflation as possible.

 

As part of the White House's budget projections, they also project unemployment in the U.S. to decline from an average of 9.6% in 2011 to a low of 5.3% in years 2016 through 2021. Real unemployment in the U.S. today, after accounting for both short and long-term discouraged workers, is now approximately 22%. Between federal, state, and local government workers, government employees now make up 16% of all U.S. payrolls. Over the past 60 years, government employment growth has just about doubled the rate of U.S. population growth. During the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis, we could very easily see the number of government employees cut in half, which would send the official U.S. unemployment rate up to 16% and the real unemployment rate up to 29%.

 

The biggest problem NIA has with the White House budget is their projections for interest payments on our national debt. Historically, going back the past 50 years, yields on the 10-year bond have averaged about 7.2%. The 10-year bond yield has been skyrocketing in recent months and is currently 3.57%, up from being 2.381% on October 8th of last year. With the 10-year bond yield surging 50% over the past four months, there is no reason the yield can't surge another 50% over the next six to twelve months up to 5.36%. Yet, the White House is projecting the bond yield to average 3% in 2011 and to rise to only 3.6% in 2012, 4.2% in 2013, and up to a high of 5.3% for years 2017 to 2021. Trust us, if interest rates on the 10-year bond don't rise to 5.3% within the next six to twelve months, we guarantee they will still do so a lot closer to six months than six years.

 

With treasury yields having been held at artificially low levels for so long, we expect them to rise above historically average levels and remain there for many years. There is no doubt that we will see bond yields back above 7.2% in the years ahead. As inflation begins to spiral out of control, we expect to see bond yields rise to above 10% and beyond. The White House doesn't expect interest payments on our national debt to rise above $500 billion until the year 2015. They're projecting net interest payments in 2015 of $505 billion with our public debt averaging the year around $13.9 trillion. In order words, they expect us to pay only 3.6% interest on our debt that year.

 

To summarize, Obama expects our budget deficit to decline from $1.645 trillion this year down to a low of $607 billion in 2015 by having 5% per year GDP growth, only 2% per year inflation, unemployment in 2015 of only 5.9%, and an overall interest rate that is only 1/2 of historical 10-year treasury yields. NIA projects that the U.S. will see zero GDP growth adjusted for inflation and if we are right, and we also see the U-3 unemployment rate rise back above 10% along with our overall interest rate on our debt rising back to historical levels of 7.2%, our actual deficit in 2015 could very easily surpass $3 trillion.

 

In early 2008, the Bush Administration was projecting the U.S. budget deficit to decline to $160 billion in 2010, $96 billion in 2011, and for the U.S. to have a $48 billion surplus in 2012. Look how easily a $96 billion projected deficit turned into a $1.645 trillion deficit, 17 times higher than projected. It is nearly impossible to reduce budget deficits once they begin spiraling out of control, unless the government acted to dramatically slash spending by 50% or more in all areas of the budget including the so-called untouchable areas like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Obama pledged while running for President to cut the budget deficit in half during his first term, but it has so far increased by 262%. If we have just a few more years of trillion dollar plus budget deficits, interest payments on our national debt will begin to approach half of U.S. government tax receipts and at that point, hyperinflation will be all but guaranteed.

 

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at:http://inflation.us

Pause at point A is 88.6% PWMM projected from weekly low. Watch for point B at the upper channel line and the 100% PWMM projected from the weekly low.

EURUSD hit daily low at 100% DMM (gray box) projected from current days high prior to the continued trend long. This level is also confluence with the previous week's close.

EURUSD move down to 50% DMM projected from high and retraces to 61.8% DMM from new low.

UNEMPLOYMENT

By Tyler Durden:

Persons Not In Labor Force Who Want Job Now Jumps To All Time Record; Real Unemployment Rate At 12.8%

Probably the last chart to bury any doubt about just how truly horrible today's employment data was, comes from a little observed data metric: that showing the number of people who are not in the labor force, but who want a job now. The number just hit 6,643,000, a jump of 431K from December, and the highest number in history. These are people that would send the unemployment rate to about 12.8% if they were in the labor force (and, as indicated, looking for a job). Nothing else needs to be said.

Currently the U-6 unemployment number is at 16.1% or so is being reported. Here are some more realistic numbers, U-6 at 17.3%.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/nfp-36000-huge-miss-146000-expectations-9-unemployment

Inflation

Comments and statistics from Larry Levin I Didn't Do It

Does anyone take Ben Bernanke seriously?  Chairman Bernanke gave a speech today to the National Press Club in which he crowed how great and successful his QE program has been.  He was happy to take credit for the massive increase of speculation of the markets, which he called a virtuous circle, but simultaneously denied having ANY culpability of ramping the commodity markets.  Convenient, isn’t it?

The US stock indices began the latest rocket shot in November when QE2 was indicated by the Fed.  Chairman Bernanke is very pleased by this but I have a question: when was the Fed granted a 3rdmandate, which is apparently to rig the stock market?  The S&P500 is up 30% in just 7-months, which is roughly SIX YEARS of gains packed into a scant seven months.

In that exact same period, sugar has exploded nearly 200%.


Coffee futures have doubled since QE2.  Lumber has nearly doubled since QE2.  Gold and silver have skyrocketed since QE1, but got added fuel from QE2. Soybeans exploded, while corn prices have doubled!  

Wheat has also skyrocketed and oats…OATS…have blasted 123% higher; just a “slight” increase, right?

 The purpose of QE2 was supposed to lower interest rates.  Bond prices initially rallied when the first hints of QE2 were floated, but dropped like a rock when the program became official.  By the way, falling bond prices, like now, result in HIGHER interest rates.  Isn’t that the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen?

Are you wondering what happened to the value of your currency with all of the mad money printing?  Naturally, it plummeted.

When confronted with all of this, The Ben Bernank did his best Bart Simpson impersonation and said “I didn’t do it.”  He said that his free money out of thin air policies have done NOTHING to food prices even though we all have access to commodity charts.  

In general, Bernanke said that higher food costs are due to developing nation’s rampant demand for resources.  Sadly there was no follow up question, which should have been “Are you suggesting that developing countries demand for raw materials and commodities began with QE2?”  Of course the answer is no.  China, India, Brazil, etc have all been growing for many years.  To suggest the massive food inflation has nothing to do with US monetary policy is a joke.  It is a lie.

Specifically, the political upheaval of Egypt was brought up and how the match that lit the tinder was skyrocketing food prices.  Once again, The Ben Bernank did his best Bart Simpson impersonation and said “I didn’t do it.”  The Ben Bernank claims that it’s Egypt’s fault, not his.  He says the falling US dollar does not affect food prices, even though all major commodities are priced in US dollars and the commodity prices are much, much higher.  

Here’s what Helicopter-Ben left out of his statement: Egypt’s currency, like China’s, is pegged to the US dollar.  Therefore, when Egypt imports these foodstuffs it is paying the extremely high costs, with LOWER Egyptian currency because of the peg.  It is getting screwed twice.  

Sure, Egypt doesn’t have to peg its currency to the US dollar but it does for now.  The point is, FOMC policy (money printing) is to purposefully drive down the US dollar to purposefully drive up inflation.  It is working exactly as he planned.  However, when this leads to bad things, Zimbabwe-Ben says “I didn’t do it.”  

After you take away all of the BS, one could reasonably say that the higher price of food in Egypt is DIRECTLY tied to US monetary policy and Ben Bernanke.  And when one makes that connection, it isn’t too far of a stretch to say his policies are also linked to the riots, revolution, and now death in the streets of Cairo.

But hey, who gives a damn as long as the banking Kleptocracy gets the money?  Savers?  Who cares! 

Coming Riots?

Egypt: Preview of America in 2015

 

The rioting and looting currently taking place in Egypt is primarily a result of massive food inflation and shows what all major cities in the United States will likely look like come year 2015 due to the Federal Reserve's zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing to infinity. On December 16th, 2009, NIA named Time Magazine's 2009 'Person of the Year' Ben Bernanke our 'Villain of the Year', saying he created "unprecedented amounts of inflation in unprecedented ways" and "When it costs $20 for a gallon of milk in a few years, Americans will have nobody to thank more than Bernanke."

 

What started out a few weeks ago as protests in Algeria with citizens chanting "Bring Us Sugar!" and five citizens being killed, quickly spread to civil unrest in Tunisia which saw 14 more civilian deaths, and has now spread to riots in Egypt where 300 Egyptian citizens have been killed. Food inflation in Egypt has reached 20% and citizens in the nation already spend about 40% of their monthly expenditures on food. Americans for decades have been blessed with cheap food, spending only 13% of their expenditures on food, but this is about to change.

 

NIA was the first to predict the recent explosion in agricultural commodity prices in our October 30th, 2009, article entitled, "U.S. Inflation to Appear Next in Food and Agriculture", which said we have a "perfect storm for an explosion in agriculture prices". A couple of months later in 'NIA's Top 10 Predictions for 2010' we predicted "Major Food Shortages" and said, "Inventories of agricultural products are the lowest they have been in decades yet the prices of many agricultural commodities are down 70% to 80% from their all time highs adjusted for real inflation". Over the past year, agricultural commodities as a whole have outperformed almost every other type of asset, with silver being one of only a few other assets keeping pace with agriculture. (On December 11th, 2009, NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade at $17.40 per ounce and it has so far risen 64% to its current price of $28.39 per ounce).

 

The world is at the beginning stages of an all out inflationary panic. Wheat, which NIA previously called on 'NIAnswers' its favorite investment besides gold and silver, is now up to a new 30-month high of $8.63 per bushel and has doubled in price since June of last year. Algeria bought 800,000 tonnes of wheat this past week, bringing their total purchases for the month of January up to 1.8 million tonnes, which was quadruple expectations. Saudi Arabia is also beginning to stockpile their inventories of wheat. Rice futures have gained 8% during the past few days with Bangladesh and Indonesia placing extraordinary large orders. Indonesia's latest rice order was quadruple its normal allotment and Bangladesh plans to double rice purchases this year. Meanwhile, the U.S., which is the world's third largest exporter of rice, is expected to cut production by 25% in 2011.

 

NIA considers rice to be one of the world's most undervalued agricultural commodities at its current price of $15.96 per 100 pounds and forecasts a move back to its 2008 high of $24 per 100 pounds as soon as the end of 2011. NIA believes cotton, at its current price of $1.80 per pound, may have gotten a bit ahead of itself in the short-term. In NIA's first ever article about agriculture on February 17th, 2009, we said that cotton's "upside potential is astronomical" at its then price of $0.44 per pound. NIA pointed to increasing sales to textile companies in China and the fact that cotton was down 70% from its all time high as reasons to be very bullish on cotton at $0.44 per pound. Early NIA members could have made 309% on cotton, but today we see much bigger potential in rice. The recent spike in cotton reminds us of the 2008 spike in oil. Although we believe cotton will ultimately rise above $3 per pound later this decade, we could possibly see a dip to below $1.40 per pound first.

 

Many people in the mainstream media have been criticizing NIA's recent food inflation report, claiming that agricultural commodity prices have very little to do with prices of food in the supermarket. CNBC's Steve Liesman, in particular, claims that "rising commodity prices won't cause inflation". Liesman has it backwards. NIA has never claimed that rising commodity prices cause inflation. Soaring budget deficits that the U.S. government can't possibly pay for through taxation causes inflation when the Fed is forced to monetize the debt by printing money.

 

Rising commodity prices are only a symptom of inflation. The reason NIA was so bullish on agricultural commodities going back two years ago when we produced our first documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation', is because while gold is the best gauge of inflation and is often the best tool for predicting future money printing, agriculture is where the majority of the monetary inflation ends up going after the Fed's newly printed money trickles down to the middle-class and poor. With gold prices already surging two years ago when we produced 'Hyperinflation Nation', NIA said in the documentary "food prices have the potential to surge most during hyperinflation".

 

One thing NIA is almost 100% sure of is that come year 2015, middle-class Americans will be spending at least 30% to 40% of their income on food, similar to Egyptians today. As NIA warned in its latest documentary 'End of Liberty', if you don't have enough money to accumulate physical gold and silver, it is important to begin establishing your own food storage, and store enough food to feed you and your family for at least six months during hyperinflation. Many store shelves in Egypt are now empty after recent panic buying, with shortages of nearly all major staple items throughout the country.

 

The U.S. Treasury is getting ready to sell $72 billion in new long-term bonds next week, as the U.S. rapidly approaches its $14.29 trillion debt limit. The debt limit is now expected to be reached by April 5th and Treasury Secretary Geithner warned the U.S. will see "catastrophic damage" if it isn't raised. With the Federal Reserve now surpassing China and Japan as the largest holder of U.S. treasuries, the real "catastrophic damage" ahead will be hyperinflation as a result of the U.S. government doing absolutely nothing to dramatically reduce spending. It is an absolute joke that Obama during his State of the Union address announced $400 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but then the very next day, the Congressional Budget Office increased its 2011 budget deficit projection by $400 billion to $1.48 trillion.

 

Not raising the debt limit would be a good thing, as it would force Washington to live within its means. Sure, the stock market would collapse and the U.S. economy would enter into its next Great Depression, but at least it would save the U.S. dollar from losing all of its purchasing power. In fact, the standard of living for middle class Americans might actually improve if the government allowed the free market to put our economy into a depression, because goods and services would get cheaper.

 

The U.S. economy has become a drug addict that is dependent on cheap and easy money from the Federal Reserve. While Wall Street bankers took home a record $135 billion in total compensation in 2010, up 5.7% from $128 billion in 2009, this money was stolen from middle-class and poor Americans through inflation. The more monetary inflation (heroin) the Federal Reserve creates in order to satisfy the (in the words of Gerald Celente) "money junkies" on Wall Street, the more middle-class and poor Americans become dependent on unemployment checks and food stamps just to survive. Millions of American students are graduating college with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt but no jobs. Luckily for them (but not holders of U.S. dollars), NIA is hearing reports from both unemployed and underemployed college graduates with student loans that the government is reducing their required monthly payments by sometimes 90% or more based on their current incomes.

 

China and Japan recently saw their credit ratings downgraded, while the U.S. credit rating remains at "AAA". NIA believes it would make far more sense for the world's largest debtor nation to be downgraded instead of the world's two largest creditor nations. The Federal Reserve's second round of quantitative easing has yet to even reach the halfway point and the Fed already holds about $1.11 trillion in U.S. treasuries. By the time QE2 is over at the end of June, the Fed will own $1.6 trillion in U.S. treasuries, about what China and Japan own combined. Shockingly, Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig is already dropping hints about QE3. According to Hoenig, the Fed may consider extending treasury purchases beyond June 30th, 2010, (the scheduled completion date for QE2) if U.S. economic data looks disappointing.

 

With the Fed taking over as the largest holder of U.S. treasuries, China is beginning to rapidly move away from the U.S. dollar and into gold. In just the first 10 months of 2010, China imported 209 metric tons of gold compared to 45 metric tons in all of 2009, a stunning five-fold increase. While the western world is downplaying the threat of inflation as much as possible, Asian countries understand that hyperinflation is the most devastating thing that can possibly happen to any economy. The demand for gold in Asia right now is the most intense it has ever been, as they look to tackle rising inflation before it becomes hyperinflation.

 

The Chinese are so smart that families are now giving each other gold bullion as gifts instead of traditional red envelopes filled with cash. China is now on track to soon surpass India as the world's largest consumer of gold. The China Securities Regulatory Commission recently gave Beijing-based Lion Fund Management Co. approval to create a fund that will invest into foreign gold ETFs.

 

U.S. stock mutual funds saw $6.7 billion in net inflows during the past two weeks, the most in any two week period since May of 2009. The rioting, looting, and civil unrest in Egypt is now making the U.S. look like the safe haven of the world, even though it should be considered the riskiest place to invest. From the Dow's low in August until now, about $38 billion was actually removed from U.S. stock mutual funds, despite the stock market rising 20%. The Dow Jones has been rising from September until now solely due to the Federal Reserve printing around $350 billion out of thin air. When central banks print money, stock markets often act as a relief valve due to there being too much inflation going into the hands of financial institutions.

 

The U.S. M2 money supply surged by $46.6 billion during the week ending January 17th to a record $8.8623 trillion, following a rise during the previous week of $7.6 billion. The rise in the M2 money supply over the past two weeks of $54.2 billion equals an annualized increase of 16%. The M2 multiplier now stands at 4.218 compared to a long-term average of 10. When QE2 is complete, the Fed's monetary base will likely stand at $2.59 trillion. A return to the long-term average M2 multiplier of 10 means we are due to see a 192% increase in the M2 money supply and that is not even including a possible QE3 and QE4.

 

The U.S. economic ponzi scheme could unravel very quickly in the years ahead, with the velocity of money increasing much faster than anybody expects. As more Americans learn about NIA and become educated to the truth about the U.S. economy and inflation, a complete loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar could occur very suddenly. It is important for all Americans to prepare as if hyperinflation will be here tomorrow. At least in Egypt, their currency still has purchasing power and their citizens are trying to implement a regime change before it is too late. By 2015 in America, it will already be too late and the civil unrest here has the potential to be many times worse.

Silver Update

This Video shows the fear in the market and need to hold hard assets as protection against monetary collapse.

Dollar/Yuan

 

 

Obama Misinforming Public About U.S. Dollar and Yuan

 

President Obama's comments on Wednesday in a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, misinformed the public about potential changes in foreign exchange rates and their effects on U.S. citizens. Obama on Wednesday said that he would like to see the Chinese yuan appreciate faster in value. While Hu indicated that China is committed to allowing the free market to better dictate the value of the yuan, Obama said China is implementing their steps to allow the yuan to appreciate "not as fast as we'd like."

 

For years, the U.S. has been criticizing China by calling them "currency manipulators". The fact is, the Federal Reserve is the real currency manipulator because their actions will soon lead to a U.S. Hyperinflationary Great Depression that destroys the lives of all Americans who aren't prepared for life with a worthless U.S. dollar. All China is doing is pegging the yuan to the U.S. dollar so that their product manufacturers and exporters can maintain some level of stability. However, the U.S. is using this as an excuse to explain its rapidly deteriorating export market.

 

Obama was correct when he explained to the world how China would benefit by having a stronger yuan. Obama understands perfectly how a stronger yuan would bring down prices for Chinese citizens and allow them to enjoy a much higher standard of living. In fact, NIA believes China could solve their current inflation crisis simply by allowing the yuan to appreciate alone.

 

China has seen the prices of many food items soar by 25% or more in recent months, which is horrific for a country where many of its citizens spend half of their income on food. While most mainstream economists on CNBC, Bloomberg, and FOX Business are quick to blame China's food inflation crisis on the weather, NIA believes the weather has very little to do with it. It seems like the weather is always the excuse every time food prices rise. Mainstream economists would have you believe that the world has been experiencing never-ending droughts and floods that continue to worsen each year.

 

NIA members know better than that. After all, we have the most educated membership base in the world. The truth is, China's food inflation crisis is coming as a direct result of the Federal Reserve's destructive quantitative easing and money printing policies, and China's willingness to keep the U.S. dollar artificially propped up out of fear that Americans will no longer be able to afford their exports. China is importing all of its food inflation from the U.S. and if President Obama gets his way, China will throw its food inflation right back into the faces of all U.S. citizens.

 

Imagine a food fight in school between American and Chinese kids with the American kids throwing their free National School Lunch Program (NSLP) meals (paid for by Chinese purchases of U.S. treasuries) at the Chinese kids while the Chinese kids sit there ignoring it trying to enjoy their own meals that they spent half of their income to buy. All the while, the American kids are antagonizing the Chinese kids, calling them currency manipulators and blaming their need for free NSLP lunches on China's currency peg (when the peg is actually preventing the American kids from starving). Sooner or later, not only will the Chinese kids throw the NSLP lunch remains back at the Americans, but they might become so disgusted (because they paid for the food being thrown at them) that they actually regurgitate their meals that they worked half of the day to be able to consume, into the American kids' faces.

 

If the Federal Reserve continues down the path it is currently on, not only will China allow the yuan to rise to a free market determined level, which will send China's food inflation crisis back to the U.S., but China is likely to dump their U.S. treasury holdings that they are currently hoarding. China's foreign exchange reserves rose by $199 billion last quarter (its largest quarterly gain in 15 years and 78% higher than analyst estimates of $112 billion) to a record $2.85 trillion for total growth in 2010 of 18.7%. Most likely, about 2/3 of these reserves are in U.S. dollars. Americans have been deceived by the U.S. government and the mainstream media into believing the U.S. economy is recovering, because the U.S. has been enjoying the benefits of inflation without the consequences of rising prices. When the U.S. bond bubble begins to burst and these trillions of dollars being hoarded come home to roost, inflation will become the primary concern of all Americans.

 

NIA finds it completely outrageous how Obama can be so honest with Chinese citizens about their benefits of having a stronger yuan, but then seconds later outright lies to the American public by saying that Americans would gain by having a stronger yuan as well. A stronger yuan by definition would mean a weaker U.S. dollar. It is insane for Obama to proclaim that having a stronger currency is good for China but bad for America. The rules of economics are the same in both countries.

 

As the Chinese see their purchasing power increase by having a stronger yuan, Americans will see their purchasing power decrease by having a weaker dollar. These simple economic principles are easy for any human being to understand, but nobody in the mainstream media is calling Obama out on it. The media completely accepts Obama's statements as the truth, without providing any warning to American citizens that Obama's desired change in foreign exchange rates will shift China's inflation crisis completely to the U.S.

 

On November 12th, NIA's President Gerard Adams warned Americans on FOX Business to beware of massive food inflation in early 2011. We are less than three weeks into the new year and massive food inflation is already here. SuperValu, the third-largest U.S. food retailer with 2,349 stores that operate under such names as Acme, Albertsons, Save-A-Lot, just reported that all of their major vendors have announced their intentions to pass along rising costs throughout the calendar year and the company will be raising prices on all food items by 3% to 14%. NIA's experience tells us that SuperValu is planning to increase prices on most goods by approximately 14%. Trust us, if SuperValu was expecting to increase prices by an average of only around 5%, they would have given an average instead of such a wide range. (By the way, SuperValu's stock crashed 16% on the news and one of NIA's top 10 predictions for 2011 was that U.S. retail stocks will decline after reporting lower profit margins.)

 

The SuperValu situation confirms that double-digit U.S. food price inflation is just about guaranteed to occur in 2011. We also expect to see double-digit price inflation this year in clothing, oil, gasoline, natural gas, and all of the most important things Americans need to live and survive. If the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) somehow manages to report a CPI increase in 2011 of anything less than 5%, and the mainstream media continues to report the BLS's CPI numbers as the truth, any Americans who continue to listen to the mainstream media deserve to lose all of their purchasing power during hyperinflation.

POMO

The most recent POMO schedule and the amount of money the Fed Res is buying. QE2 as it is called.

Source and commentary, Larry Levin.

Free $$$ Schedule

Although today was another up day on Fraud Street, it was yet again accompanied by ridiculously low volume.  The lack of volatility is also miraculous but we know why: the Federal Reserve and the ECB have declared that nothing is allowed to fail and no bondholders will ever have to take a loss on a terrible investment.  There is no fear.  Let’s be blunt – because of the Fed and its QE/POMO there is no free market.
 
Since I have been asked relentlessly when the next POMO operation will take place I decided to post the schedule.  However, the pertinent question is really: when ISN’T the Fed conducting a $$multi-billion give away to the very banksters that nearly brought the entire global financial system to a permanent end?  (Seen even ONE in handcuffs yet? Neither have I.)
 
There are only two non-POMO days over the next month - Monday, January 17 and Wednesday, January 26. All other days have a POMO operation scheduled.  EVERY other day over the next month the greedy banksters will be pilfering more of your money – and ramping equities higher in the fashion of your favorite Euro-trash central planner.
 
The estimated giveaway for Treasuries over the next month is $112 BILLION.  Annualized, this comes to roughly the amount that the White House and Congress are deficit spending.  Watch Bernanke lie to us again tomorrow afternoon when he claims that he is not monetizing the debt.  Uh – huh.

College Bubble Set to Burst in 2011

 

 

College Bubble Set to Burst in 2011

 

The National Inflation Association believes that the United States has a college education bubble that is set to burst beginning in mid-2011. This bursting bubble will have effects that are even more far-reaching than the bursting of the Real Estate bubble in 2006. College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history.

 

NIA's advice to the youth of America today is to think for yourselves. Don't get suckered into overpaying for a college degree that is worthless because everyone else has one. College is only worth attending if you plan on actually learning something there. If you are only going to college because you think a piece of paper is going to help you find a job, you would be much better off skipping college and entering the workforce right now at any entry level job. Your experience will benefit you more than any piece of paper.

 

The median U.S. home price is currently $170,600, down 26% from its peak of $230,200 in July of 2006. The Dow Jones is currently 11,672, down 18% from its peak of 14,198 in October of 2007. Oil is currently $91 per barrel, down 38% from its peak of $147 per barrel in July of 2008. After the financial panic of 2008, the U.S. saw a collapse in the prices of just about all assets, goods, services, and commodities. Between lost stock market and home equity wealth, Americans lost $10.2 trillion in paper wealth in 2008, and have only recouped a fraction of it since then.

 

College is the only thing in America that never declined in price during the panic of 2008. It actually rose in price substantially. The annual tuition for a private four-year college was $21,235 in the 2005-2006 school year. Despite Real Estate beginning to collapse in late-2006, college tuition rose by 4.6% in the 2006-2007 school year to $22,218. Despite the stock market beginning to collapse in late-2007, college tuition rose by 6.7% in the 2007-2008 school year to $23,712. Despite oil and other commodities collapsing in late-2008, college tuition rose by 6.2% in the 2008-2009 school year to $25,177. Even after the Dow Jones crashed to a low in early-2009 of 6,469, college tuition still rose by 4.4% in the 2009-2010 school year to $26,273.

 

Annual tuition for a private four-year college in America is now $27,293, up 29% from five years ago. Meanwhile, the employment situation in the U.S. has deteriorated. There are currently 130.7 million non-farm jobs in America, down 3% from 134.5 million U.S. non-farm jobs in December 2005. 3.8 million jobs have been lost, while the U.S. population has grown by approximately 14 million people during the same time period. We would need to have seen the creation of 6.7 million non-farm jobs just to stay even, but now we are 10.5 million jobs short.

 

All across America, thousands of students are graduating law school each year with $250,000 in debt, but with no jobs at law firms available to them. 15,000 attorney and legal staff jobs have disappeared since 2008, yet 43,000 law degrees are being handed out each year. Law degrees are losing their value faster than the U.S. dollar is losing its purchasing power. Lawyers are non-producing workers that do nothing to create any real wealth for society. The artificially high incomes of lawyers are made possible entirely by inflation, which steals the wealth from hard working goods producing middle-class Americans and transfers it to those who add no real value to society.

 

The service sector currently makes up 76.9% of the U.S. GDP. Agriculture, which in 1933 made up 28% of GDP, currently makes up only 1.2% of GDP. The wealth of any country is primarily created at first from the production of food, oil, and precious metals. Secondly, wealth is created from the manufacturing of real consumer goods. After a country generates wealth by producing real things and builds a large domestic pool of savings, it can begin growing a service based economy, just so long as it has enough savings to support it.

 

During the past decade, an unprecedented number of Americans went to school to become lawyers, because they thought if they became a lawyer they would immediately become rich. 60% of the U.S. Senate and 37% of the House of Representatives are lawyers. The reason we have so many lawyers in Washington is so that they can pass as many new harmful laws and regulations as possible, in order to provide enough work for all of their lawyer friends. All of the needless legislation that is passed each year in order to provide work for lawyers, has the devastating unintended consequence of destroying what little is left of the free market. Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, but it is now nearly impossible for a small businessman with limited financial resources to build a large successful corporation in any sector, because their legal costs would eat up all of their profits.

 

Many law students got suckered into going to law school due to deceptive marketing practices. Some law schools are advertising that 90% of graduates are employed within one year of graduating. Sure, maybe 90% of law school graduates were employed a year later, with half of them working at McDonald's, but no law school degree is required for that. Schools are using dozens of unethical tactics to manipulate their numbers while encouraging alumni to falsify the surveys they fill out about their employment situation. Just like we are now seeing countless class action lawsuits against mortgage companies that misled customers about the loans they signed up for, we will soon see a massive number of lawsuits filed against colleges that lied about their job placement rates and average starting salaries of graduates. (At least there will be some work for law school graduates.)

 

Most Americans today are sheep who believe that the key to success and happiness in life is following the same career paths as everybody else. While everybody went to school to become a lawyer, nobody went to school to become a farmer because Americans didn't see any money in farming. With prices of nearly all agricultural commodities soaring through the roof in 2010 and with NIA expecting this trend to continue throughout 2011, the few new farmers out there are going to become rich while lawyers are standing at street corners with cups begging for money.

 

The college tuition bubble has been fueled by the U.S. government's willingness to give out easy student loans to anybody who applies for them. If it wasn't for government student loans, the free market would force colleges to provide the best quality education at the lowest possible price. By the government trying to make colleges more affordable, they have actually driven prices through the roof. Colleges have been encouraged to spend recklessly on wasteful construction projects, building new libraries, gyms, sports arenas, housing units, etc. Colleges spent $10.7 billion on construction projects in 2009. Although this is down from an average of $14.7 billion per year colleges spent on construction projects from 2005 to 2007, colleges are still struggling to pay off their old construction related debt. When interest rates start to rise, it will add further upside pressure to college tuition prices.

 

College students borrowed $106 billion in total student loans for the 2009-2010 school year, up from $96 billion in 2008-2009, $94 billion in 2007-2008, $87 billion in 2006-2007, and $83 billion in 2005-2006. Total student loan debt in the U.S. currently stands at $830 billion and now exceeds credit card debt. President Obama's new student loan bill that was passed last year now makes the government the primary lender to students. By taking the free market out of the student loan business and allowing students to receive loans from the government at artificially low interest rates, colleges will be encouraged to spend more recklessly than ever. None of this wasteful spending is doing anything to improve the quality of education in America.

 

Over a year ago when NIA was filming 'The Dollar Bubble' in Los Angeles, violent riots broke out at UCLA over a 32% increase in college tuitions (from $7,788 to $10,302). We went to the protest in order to video tape the shocking footage to show you. While we were there we remember thinking to ourselves, why on earth are these students protesting at all? If tuitions are rising by 32% and they are unhappy about it, why don't they quietly and peacefully enroll someplace else for college next semester. If not enough students enroll into UCLA, the university will be forced to either dramatically cut their costs or shut down. UCLA decided to completely ignore the riots and went ahead with the 32% rise in tuitions. Did the students decide to enroll someplace else? Nope, most of them simply took out larger student loans and went back to UCLA. In fact, UCLA reported that they received a record amount of freshman applicants for the next semester.

 

With all of the technological advancements taking place around the world today, the cost for a college education should be getting cheaper. Americans today can purchase just about any type of product they want over the Internet for substantially less than they can find it in a retail store. When the U.S. dollar collapses and the college bubble bursts, NIA predicts we will see a boom in online education where Americans take all of their courses over the Internet from the comfort of their own home at a fraction of the cost of traditional college.

 

Later this year, NIA is going to be producing a documentary about America's college education crisis and the college tuition bubble that is about to burst. In the weeks ahead, NIA is going to begin searching for people who deserve to be featured in our documentary. If you are a college student, a recent college graduate, or a current or ex-college professor with an extremely shocking, interesting, and important story that the whole world needs to know about in what will be the most viewed college documentary in world history, please send an email tocollegebubble@inflation.us. We would also love to hear from any NIA member who has any ideas of topics that we should cover in this new documentary. Please send all ideas and suggestions to collegebubble@inflation.us.

 

This will truly be one of the most important documentaries NIA has ever produced. We need to change the mindset in America that only those with college degrees have any chance of becoming successful. Americans have become so brainwashed that even after graduating college with over $50,000 in debt and not being able to find a job, many of them are wasting even more years of their life and getting even deeper into debt to attend a graduate school, for a master's degree that is just as worthless as a bachelor's degree. It is like comparing a $10 bill (master's degree) to a $1 bill (bachelor's degree), they are both worthless pieces of paper with no intrinsic value.

 

NIA believes that any recent high school graduate with $30,000 saved for college who invests that money into silver and becomes a minimum wage apprentice for the next 4 years, will likely have enough money in 4 years to buy a median priced U.S. home. Not only that, but they will have work place experience that is far more valuable than the worthless college degrees of any of their friends. We must work hard to educate America to the truth if our country is going to have the wherewithal to survive the upcoming bursting college bubble and Hyperinflationary Great Depression.

Massive Silver Withdrawals From The Comex

The following is from another blog.

Here is the reprint:

Massive Silver Withdrawals From The Comex

It will be interesting to see how the CFTC, the Obama Administration, and the Comex deal with this situation with silver, including the disposition of the massive paper short positions that appear to be undeliverable.

It could prove to be a watershed event, or at least an interesting scandal to observe as it unfolds.

Harvery Organ's commentary:

"And now for the big silver report.

We witnessed a massive withdrawal of silver unprecedented in the history of the comex. First there was a smallish 6507 oz of silver deposited to two customers, one being 497 oz and the other 6010 oz). But just look at the huge withdrawals:

Four customers (not dealers) withdrew a total of 1,019,310 oz from the comex vaults. This is real silver leaving from 4 registered vaults. The individual withdrawals are: 579,081, 30,380, 399,994 and 9855 oz.

The dealer (our bankers) also were involved in the withdrawal of silver to the tune of 769,941 oz (there were 2 dealers involved removing 102,866 and 667,875 ozs). When you see this massive drain of silver, the fire is raging. The total silver withdrawal by both dealer and customer totalled an astronomical 1,789,251. The Brink's trucks must have been very busy yesterday.

The comex folk notified us that an amazing 85 notices were sent down for servicing for a total of 425,000 oz of silver. The total number of silver notices sent down so far total 323 or 1,615,000 oz. To obtain what is left to be served, I take the open interest for January at 153 and subtract 85 deliveries leaving a total of 68 notices or 340,000 oz left to be serviced.

Thus the total number of silver ounces standing in this non delivery month of January is as follows:

1,615,000 oz + 340,000 = 1,955,000 oz (Thursday total = 1,625,000). As promised to you, this number is rising and will continue to rise until the end of the month as our banker cartel scrambles to get any morsel of silver to satisfy the massive demand for this metal. Our bankers are stunned to see such a huge amount of silver options in a traditionally slow month.

I hope everyone caught the Eric Sprott story on Kingworld news that he is having trouble locating silver."

A recent letter from Larry Levin.

Bond Losses

More encouraging economic data this morning in the way of the ADP jobs report and the non-Manufacturing ISM Index sent bonds down and equities higher.  Investors seem to be exiting bond positions and entering stocks.
 
For those investors who chased the bond bubble and bought late, the current decline in bonds is killing them.  When bond prices drop, yields increase. Therefore, a Treasury with a lower interest rate (that was purchased over the last few months) is worth less today than when purchased.  After all, who wants to buy an older lower yielding investment when a fresh government IOU today yields more?  
 
Surely there has been a lot of investor demand for Treasuries, but nobody has had as voracious an appetite as the Federal Reserve.  Remember that via POMO and QE2, your Federal Reserve Bank is taking the potential losing Treasury investment off of the books of the TBTF banksters…and giving a guaranteed loss to you, the taxpayer.  How very nice of the Fed.  It is hard to imagine ANY situation in which the Fed actually lost money in the end (because it can probably just declare “do over” and say the losing securities no longer exist. Who’s going to audit it – Congress?) but if it did lose money, the taxpayer will be on the hook.
 
Since Benny & The Inkjets have been monetizing near 100% of every Treasury auction for months, it owns a great deal of these securities.  So what happened to the value of its holding?  Oh yeah, it’s bad.  It is estimated that the Fed lost $10-BILLION today alone!
 
Zero Hedge has this to say…
 
The ongoing collapse in bond prices is making John Meriwether blush with envy at the wholesale wanton destruction of capital undertaken by Ben Bernanke. Keep in mind LTCM - the organization which proved definitively that Nobel prizes in economics are given only to the most consummate destroyers of value, logic, reason and humility - lost "just" $4.6 billion from its peak before it became the biggest systemic risk in the world back in 1998 and had to be rescued by a consortium of banks. The bottom line: with about $10 billion in SOMA losses today alone, Ben Bernanke has generated more than double the losses that nearly destroyed western finance 13 short years ago. And nobody cares.
John Lohman explains:
Chairman Top Tick continues to crash and burn, losing $7.2 billion in Treasury and Agency paper in today’s bloodbath alone.  Adding a rough estimate for the MBS holdings would put the session’s losses well over $10 billion.  Indeed, a baker’s dozen of John Meriwethers couldn’t destroy this much capital in such a short period of time.

And with all of the usual caveats that accompany a simple modified duration analysis (ignoring convexity, assuming instantaneous parallel shifts, etc.), the table below estimates the Fed’s losses for various upward interest rate shocks.  Again, keep in mind this does not include the massive MBS portfolio, which is extending in duration with every uptick in rates.
 
 


Soooooo…what will the Fed do?  If it sells its securities back to the banksters, the Fed loses a fortune (and this slide has just begun).  If the Fed holds the Notes & Bonds to maturity (I highly doubt it), it will receive its capital in full from the Treasury department BUT, the banksters will still have all that cash.  The Fed will not have “sopped up” the liquidity.  That money will eventually reach the economy and the inflation will be breathtaking.  The money the Fed will receive from the Treasury will be in devalued dollars so it loses money either way.  What’s more, the higher interest will absolutely annihilate the government’s ability to run the country.  At the current trajectory, the US debt will be near $20-Trillion in just five years and the interest payments will become unbearable.

Then again, since the Fed creates money out of thin air; can it really lose money it hasn’t earned?  It never existed before the Treasuries were purchased so why would the Fed care if it sold the securities for a loss if that would sop up the massive liquidity?  The Ben Bernank will just take the golf pencil out of the bag – the one with the fat eraser – and erase all of the necessary places on the balance sheet that it doesn’t like.  Poof, it’s gone!

One thing’s for damn sure: no matter the process, it will make bankers a great deal of money and you a LOT POORER.