Axel Merk
Merk Hard Currency Fund
To print or not to print? Odds are that Fed Chairman Bernanke has been contemplating this question while drafting his upcoming Jackson Hole speech. The one good thing about policy makers worldwide is that they may be fairly predictable. As such, we present our crystal ball as to what the Fed might be up to next, and what the implications may be for the U.S. dollar and gold.
A few days ago we promised to to anaylyze Governor Romney's Fox News exclusive. Romney seems to be concerned how stopping spending, speciifically defense spending will hurt the economy; in fact, Romney embraces the idea of more of the same.
By Clif Droke
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:2389:]]By John Mauldin
I am attending the Global Interdependence Center's latest conference here in Philadelphia, writing you from the Admiral's Club on my way to Boston. The chatter last night at dinner and between sessions was focused on the risks in Europe. I did an interview with Aaron Task on Yahoo's Daily Ticker, where I noted that European leaders are starting to use the word contained when they talk about Greece. Shades of Bernanke and subprime. This too will not be contained.
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:2418:]]In this dated clip, the staff favorite historian- Nial Ferguson takes on our staff favorite Kensian - Paul Krugman. What is so puzzling to us is how anyone can take the likes of Krugman seriously. If printing money created real wealth, than the likes of Zimbabwe would be at the top of the rich country list.
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:2355:]]By Michael Pento
Based on many pronouncements by economic policy makers, reams of articles by the top financial journalists and near continuous discussion on the financial news channels, it appears that the quantitative easing juggernaut that has steamed the high seas of macroeconomics for the last three years is finally pulling into port...supposedly for the last time. According to the dominant narrative, QEI and QEII helped stabilize the economy during the Great Recession and now the Federal Reserve is ready to take the training wheels off. If so, the economy may need a helmet because there is virtually no chance that it can avoid major contractions without central banking support.
By Antal E. Fekete
Gold Bond: Life-Saver for the U.S. and World Economy
Sources
The financial instability that first surfaced with full force in 2008 is the result of a deteriorating condition in world finance going back 40 years. Worse still, that deterioration is continuing and threatens with an historically unprecedented world-wide credit collapse.
By Tony Pallotta
Recently I have been discussing the possibility that the US economy is in fact in a period of contraction. I want to revisit that call as I don't loosely throw out such a statement without backing it up with real data. Q1 2011 GDP was 1.77%, a 43% reduction in Q4 2010 GDP of 3.11%. Although Q1 GDP could be revised higher over the next two revisions it did highlight three sources of contraction.
By Karen Roche of The Gold Report
email: newsletters@theenergyreport.com
Economic recovery? What economic recovery? Contrary to popular media reports, government economic reporting specialist and ShadowStats Editor John Williams reads between the government-economic-data lines. "The U.S. is really in the worst condition of any major economy or country in the world," he says. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, John concludes the nation is in the midst of a multiple-dip recession and headed for hyperinflation.
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:2308:]]By John Mauldin
I am back from Rob Arnott's conference in Laguna Beach, and I must confess that if I had attended it before I wrote last week's e-letter I might have had lower odds on the US political class solving the debt crisis, absent a real economic crisis forcing them to. There were several presentations that made the problems quite clear. It remains a tough issue.
This week's Outside the Box is a recent white paper by Rob, where he argues that the traditional way we look at GDP is flawed, because it overstates what is happening in the real, private part of the economy, which is the productive part. Government spending is either money collected from the private sector in the form of taxes or borrowed money that future generations must repay. While not likely to become a mainstream economic view, this is very useful for our own thinking about what constitutes productivity and investments. This is a short but powerful piece from one of America's most honored economic writers.
