Japan continues to be the world's biggest financial story. The consensus seems to be that the country's extraordinary economic measures are good for both itself and the world. I've detailed 
What gives you the upper hand or what is your "edge" in the financial markets? If you don't know your "edge , then you don't have one and your odds are probably more like those of a gambler in a casino. If you know your "edge" and you have a slight, legitimate advantage over the rest of the market, then over time you should make money. A casino has an "edge" over their customers and with the odds in their favor they make money over time while the gambler, well... gambles.
Despite the 6.5% stock market rally over the last three months, a handful of billionaires are quietly dumping their American stocks . . . and fast.
Perverse reporting of economic data by the Corporate Media is nothing new.
However, what is newsworthy is when that same Corporate Media explicitly
acknowledges such perversity. Such open manipulation of the news was on
display today.
A kiss is still a kiss. A sigh is still a sigh…
Where on earth did Paul Krugman get the idea -- expressed Monday morning -- that ours is "a weak economy?" The Dow Jones Industrial Average is about to scale previously uncharted heights and the Standard & Poors Index is piling onto its molehill, too. If stocks are up the economy can't be weak since stock markets = the economy. All the efforts of the Gitchi Manitou behind the operations of money, the Federal Reserve, are bent toward inflating the stock markets, including now the novelty of outright strategic stock purchases, so these stock markets must hold the secrets of economic life.
With central banks printing like never before, legendary investor Jim Rogers warns that markets and economies are likely to get hurt in the aftermath.
For 727 editions, and nearly 30 years, Bill Buckler, the "captain" of the free market-praising Privateer newsletter provided a welcome escape from a world overrun with "free-lunch" economists, "for-hire" politicians, "crony-capitalist" oligarchs, "heroin-addict" bankers, "the-solution-to-record-debt-is-more-record-debt" Keynesians, and all those other subclasses of that species which Einstein, or whoever, described so aptly in saying that they all expect a different, and happy, outcome when applying the same flawed methods over and over. And for 30 years, Buckler's steadfast determination and adherence to his arguments, beliefs, reasoning and ironclad logic brought him countless followers, all of whom are now able to see past the bread and circus facade of a world every day on the edge of political and social collapse. Sadly, all good things come to an end, and so does The Privateer. We are delighted to celebrate its illustrious memory by presenting to our readers the final, must read, issue of the newsletter which encapsulates the philosophy and ideology of its author - a man much respected and admired in the free market circles - and thirty years of objective, unbiased market and economic commentary, best of all. 
Today's turbulent financial times are likely to leave you in a world of panic if you have neither money nor health.
Our wealth is disappearing, and we need to speak up now. In a 
It is a common trope in science fiction novels. Economic transactions are handled seamlessly with a wave of a card or a physically imbedded chip, and whatever the author imagines money to be is transferred, far removed from the archaic confines of ancient physical monies. If you Google "cashless society" you get about 600,000 references in under a second, and 20 pages into the references there are still articles on a future world where physical cash is no longer needed. Some see it as a sign of the "end times," some as a capitalist plot, some as a frightening vision of socialists and ever-bigger governments, and some as a logical step in the evolution of a technologically driven international commerce. 
"When the Fed's fire hoses started spraying an elephant soup of liquidity injections in every direction and its balance sheet grew by $1.3 trillion in just thirteen weeks compared to $850 billion during its first ninety-four years, I became convinced that the Fed was flying by the seat of its pants, making it up as it went along. It was evident that its aim was to stop the hissy fit on Wall Street and that
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix 
While broad US macro-economic data has been sliding rapidly of late - now at equivalently bad levels as we saw in August of last year's 'swoon', we have often seen 'survey-based' data provide some fillip to the hard-data deterioration.
The breakout headliner issue in 1978 was 'Tax Revolt'. A Time Magazine cover showed Howard Jarvis shaking his fist under that headline. Proposition 13 time. Then? The Tax Revolt went, as we would now say, viral. Citizen discontent — and political activism — against high tax rates turned into a national, and then international, phenomenon.
We begin this week with a simple pop quiz. Is inflation good or bad? Answer quickly. I'm sorry – your answer is wrong. Or rather, we can't know if your answer is right or wrong because we are not sure what is meant by the question. We may think we know – and we may be right – but we can't be sure, because the word inflation has different meanings for different people in different places and different times. In fact, even the same people in the same place and time can't agree on a precise definition.
Over the last
few weeks, I’ve watched in horror as the financial situation
in Cyprus goes from bad to worse.
For Americans, financial and economic Armageddon might be close at hand. The evidence for this conclusion is the concerted effort by the 
Editor's note: There is an old saying that not all that glitters is gold -- as in the gold coins many of you have held in your hands. There is another kind of gold that inhabits the practical wisdom of the ages. In today's "go-get-'em," "read-it-and-forget-it" world of everyday web browsing, it can be a challenge to separate the run of the mill from the meaningful. It is with that thought in mind we offer this compendium of the rules and laws of finance and investment by long-time market analyst R.E. McMaster. Formerly the writer/editor of the widely-circulated The Reaper newsletter, McMaster is known for his occasional forays into the realm of economic philosophy and history. 
'I hate seeing myself misquoted, misinterpreted or just misunderstood,' says our friend Fusion IQ chief and Big Picture blogger Barry Ritholtz. We can relate, given the reaction we get when we start talking about Treasuries, why we hate them and why we own them anyway.
Editor Note: The following 
Well known investor Jim Rogers, who made his fortune during the 1970′s crisis by investing in commodities like precious metals, has long-warned about the calamity faced by, not just America, but the world as a whole.
One would think that certain truths are obvious by now
Six months ago I wrote an article called 
In January, Economist Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff said he was "worried" that the economy was reaching "a real threatening point." The Cyprus banking crisis hit the Globe last week. Now, when asked if he was still "worried," he replied, "This morning, I moved my money out of the stock market . . . because I'm worried about Cyprus." Dr. Kotlikoff explained his dire concern by saying, "The rich people are already running on these banks. That's been going on for a year. . . . The everyday working people could start visibly running on these banks, and that could spread like wildfire throughout Southern Europe and Northern Europe and into the U.S. because we have a banking system that's built to fail." 
Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than 
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — The latest InvestmentNews cover is so powerful you can actually hear sirens atop a flashing neon billboard, megawarning in huge bold type: "Tick, Tick ... Boom!"
What might happen: printing money and issuing propaganda lose their effectiveness.
Bearish traders tend to short stocks and/or the equities market. While stocks subject to 
It's amazing how fast things change. Within a relatively short amount of time, ideas once inhabiting the realm of absurd, fringe, or pure fiction have now gained enough influence to draw the attention of congressional hearings, news reports, and, to my latest surprise, the front cover of a prominent research publication read by major institutions, central banks, and governments around the world.
My apologies to David Bowie for 'borrowing' the title of one of his songs for this article. However, there is no better way to encapsulate the financial emergency currently facing this bankrupt shell.
China seems to do everything big. It has the largest power station in the world and the longest high-speed railway line. It also has the world's largest public bathroom (which can hold over 1,000 people) and the world's largest pyramid.
Every once in a while, someone utters a statement that suddenly galvanizes the issue at hand. In the fable "The Emperor's New Clothes," Hans Christian Andersen tells of two weavers who convince the emperor that their special clothing for him is invisible only to those unworthy. When the emperor parades in front of his subjects wearing the special clothing, a child cries out the obvious, "he isn't wearing any clothes at all." That's the first thing that came to my mind when I read of the US Attorney General's words before a Senate hearing this week. 
Everybody is talking about the cuts in government spending with the $85 billion in forced spending cuts in military and social programs. $85 billion amounts to little more than a 2% cut in $3.8 trillion (or $3,800 billion) in federal spending per year. Didn't most working Americans just suffer a 2% pay cut with the expiration of the Social Security tax holiday? 
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the key benchmarks of the US stock market, has soundly surpassed its all-time high. And most of the investing world is toasting their collective success and celebrating the recovery. 
The Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed a new record on Tuesday, when the blue-chip index surged to a new all-time record high of 14,261.46, easily blowing away the previous mark of 14,164.53 achieved on October 9, 2007. The move will be recorded as a major point in the evolution of the stock market, which was trading just above 8,000 a few years back, prior to the most recent bull market wave that led the index to its record high.
It’s bitter cold outside and the winter storm has lasted for days. The snow is two feet high and getting worse. It’s 1872 and you are living in a dugout, living off small pieces of bread and potatoes, unsure when the weather will settle down. You also have a baby to feed.
Reckless money printing by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has pumped up the Dow to a brand new all-time high. So what comes next? Will the Dow go even higher? Hopefully it will. In fact, it would be great if the Dow was able to hit 15,000 before it finally came crashing down. That would give all of us some more time to prepare for the nightmarish economic crisis 
“I’m appalled that two clowns have won,” said Peer Steinbrück about the Italian election, referring to former comedian, now hot politician, Beppe Grillo, head of the 5 Star movement, and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. One of them is “a professional clown who doesn’t mind being called that,” he explained; the other is “a clown with special testosterone boost.”
It was not the first time that Steinbrück, SPD’s candidate to knock almighty Chancellor Angela Merkel from her perch this year, put his foot into his mouth. His countrymen grinned and gnashed their teeth at the same time. In Italy, it caused a media tornado. “My impression is that two populists won,” he added, populists being even worse in Eurozone politics than clowns. Read More
