Category Archive: 6b.) Acting Man

Nigeria Currency Devaluation Looms As FX Forwards Crash To Record Lows

Despite US equity investors' exuberance over bouncing crude oil prices, the world's crude producers continue to suffer and while Venezuela is in the headlines every day (having already collapsed into chaos), Nigeria appears the nearest to that abyss ...

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Diversify & Internationalize: How the West Is Changing Irreversibly by Jayant Bhandari

“Diversify & Internationalize: How the West Is Changing & Why the Trend Is Irreversible – Jayant Bhandari” Acapulco, Mexico February 2016

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Are Investors Idiots?

  Black-and-Blue Crash Alert Flag Let us  begin the week “on message.” The Diary is about money. Today, we’ll stick to the subject.  Old friend Mark Hulbert has done some research on the likelihood of a crash in the stock market.   Ye olde tattered C...

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Austria’s Presidential Elections – Europe’s Social Mood Keeps Worsening

Austria is a small European nation that has made the grievous mistake of needlessly joining the EU in 1995, together with Finland and Sweden. Austria’s neighbor Switzerland, which is of roughly similar size and likewise militarily neutral, proved to have far better instincts. The Swedes subsequently at least had the good sense to stay out of the euro zone. It seems if there is a mistake to be made, Austrian governments will eagerly make it.

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Revolution at the Ranch

  Alarming News BALTIMORE, Maryland – An alarming email came on Tuesday from our ranch in Argentina: “Bad things going on… We thought we had the originarios problem settled. Not at all. They just invaded the ranch.”   Originarios on the march… Photo ...

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How to Maximize Economic Potential

The fundamental problem facing today’s economy is the barefaced contempt governments the world over have for the free exchange of goods and services and private stewardship of property. What it is government’s think they are doing with their destructive fiscal and monetary policies is unclear. But what is crystal clear is the scrambled disorder modern day economic policies have wrought.

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How the Deep State’s Cronies Steal From You

The relentless growth of Leviathan: Total Pages of Code of Federal Regulations from 10000 in 1950 to 170000 in 2014. Federal tax rules – from 400 in 1913 to 74,000 in 2012. Aggregate word count of Dodd-Frank regulations doubled.

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The Japanese Popsicle Affair

  Policy-Induced Contrition in Japan As we keep saying, there really is no point in trying to make people richer by making them poorer – which is what Shinzo Abe and Haruhiko Kuroda have been trying to do for the past several years. Not surprisingly,...

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Pareto’s Wily Foxes

  Smart Money Fleeing Stocks DUBLIN – The Dow dropped 180 points on Tuesday – or about 1%. And another clever billionaire says he is looking elsewhere for profits. Reuters:   “Activist investor Carl Icahn on Monday said there was a chance the stock m...

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Drowning the Fir

  Presidential Duties Our editor recently stumbled upon an image in one of the more obscure corners of the intertubes which we felt we had to share with our readers. It provides us with a nice metaphor for the meaningfulness of government activity. F...

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The Long-Buried Secret of Napoleon Bonaparte

  Family Secrets DUBLIN – The smart money is getting out while the gettin’ is still good. That’s the message we get from reading the recent headlines.   Here’s the Financial Times:   Redemptions from stock funds have hit nearly $90 billion this year ...

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A Tale of Two Parliaments

  Boisterous Debate vs. Non-Existence Readers may recall that we have previously reported on brawls breaking out in various parliaments, such as e.g. in Ukraine’s Rada, where we suspect representatives are actually engaging in a form of performance a...

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Trump’s Biggest Deal

A reader asks Bill Bonner "Trump is the only candidate that might have a chance to get us out of the financial and economic mess the United States is in." Is he really?

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China’s Rolling Boom-Bust Cycle

Pater Tenebrarum looks on the most important China charts that indicate a boom-bust cycle: annual rate of growth of M1 and M2, China fixed asset investment, China Money Supply M1, Shanghai Stock Exchange, China commodity futures, Steel Rebar futures, China residential real estate prices

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The Fatal Conceit

Bonner shows that Hayek's Fatal Conceit is valid today: central economic planning is literally impossible – there can be no centrally planned rational economy. Individual planning is distinct from central planning, in that the many individual plans pursued by self-interested individuals mesh and create a spontaneous order.

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Kuroda-San in the Mouth of Madness

  Deluded Central Planners Zerohedge recently reported on an interview given by Lithuanian ECB council member Vitas Vasiliauskas, which demonstrates how utterly deluded the central planners in the so-called “capitalist” economies of the West have bec...

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Even Death Won’t Save Us

  Hazards and Benefits Rubbernecking at the economic train wreck of central planners is not without hazard.  A strained collar and dry eyes, for instance, are common perils.  So, too, is the lasting grimace of disbelief that comes with the roll-out o...

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Retirement Torpedoes and Democracy

Bonner compares Total credit market debt, federal government debt and GDP – an economy running on debt, and now running on empty.

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Heretical Thoughts and Doing the Unthinkable

  Heresy! NORMANDY, France – The Dow rose 222 points on Tuesday – or just over 1%. But we agree with hedge-fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller: This is not a good time to be a U.S. stock market bull.   Legendary former hedge fund manager Stanley Druck...

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Staying Home on Election Day

  Pretenses and Conceits The markets are eerily quiet… like an angry man with something on his mind and a shotgun in his hand. We will leave them to brood… and return to the spectacle of the U.S. presidential primaries. On display are all the pretens...

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