Ron Paul talked about bubbles during his Liberty Report last week, noting our articles on the subprime auto bubble, along with housing bubble 2.0.
As Ron pointed out, it’s hard to keep up with all of the distortions in the marketplace thanks to a decade of Federal Reserve easy money.
How do you cover all the bubbles? The nature of what the Fed does by manipulating interest rates to lower than the market rate, everything has to be affected to some degree by a bubble and a distortion and a malinvestment, and excessive debt.”
If reports from two major London gold dealers serve as any indication, a lot of Brits are buying gold.
According to a report in Business Insider, Sharps Pixley reported a whopping 253% year-on-year increase in physical gold sales in March. Showroom sales last month came in at over $12.7 million compared to $3.6 million during the same period in 2017.
Meanwhile, according to Investment Europe, the Pure Gold Company recorded a 62% increase in physical gold investment last Wednesday compared to the daily average.
The SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast combines a succinct summary of the week’s precious metals news coupled with thoughtful analysis. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg experienced the big-boy version of getting called into the principal’s office this week. He spent about 10 hours testifying before Congress after news came out that a data firm accessed Facebook user information.
The iconic image from the hearing was Zuckerberg perched on a booster cushion. He looked like Dennis the Menace sitting in front of an entire room full of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson clones.
Global silver mine supply dropped for the second straight year as industrial demand rose for the first time since 2013, according to the World Silver Survey 2018 produced by the GFMS team at Thompson-Reuters and released by the Silver Institute this week.
The Germans are showing off their gold.
The country ranks second in the world only to the US in official gold holdings. This week, the Bundesbank launched a six-month exhibition on gold showcasing its reserves along with the bank’s most interesting gold bars and coins. The official exhibit is part of a renewed emphasis on the yellow metal in Germany.
Last week, Pres. Trump said US markets might have to endure some short-term pain if the trade war with China escalates. But never fear, in the long run, everything will be great!
We have to do things that other people wouldn’t do. So, we may take a hit, but you know what, ultimately, we’re going to be much stronger for it.”
Peter Schiff agreed there is going to be short-term pain. And we’re also going to suffer some long-term pain.
Peter wasn’t focusing so much on the trade war, but a scenario certainly exists where Chinese retaliation could lead to some serious long-term pain for the US economy. It could pull out the ace up its sleeve.
You can say, “Everything is great,” all you want. But if it isn’t, it isn’t.
Pundits and politicians keep trying to talk up the economy. They might be able to keep optimism running high for a while, but at some point, expectations will run headfirst into economic reality.
In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff argued that nobody is ready for the long-term pain that’s ahead. That’s because the mainstream is mostly ignoring the warning signs. By-and-large, the message you’ll get watching CNBC or Fox Business is that “everything is great!” Peter has been hammering on this theme. In an earlier podcast, he noted that everybody is still optimistic about the economy because the stock market is so high.
There were more signs of a retail apocalypse in the first quarter of this year.
Defaults by retail companies rated by Moody’s hit an all-time high in Q1. There were a total of nine defaults among Moody’s-rated retail corporates. According to Wolf Street, total corporate defaults in Q1 were up 22% from last year, and the nine retailer defaults accounted for nearly 1/3 of them.
As Wolf Street put it, these are not mom-and-pop stores. These are retailers large enough to be rated by Moody’s – “corporations that make up the core of the Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown.”
Last month, US Global Investors CEO Frank Holmes said he thinks gold may well hit $1,500 this year. He listed the specter of increasing inflation, a weakening dollar, and income growth in China and India as three reasons to be bullish on the yellow metal.
This week, Holmes appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box and continued to make a case for buying gold.
