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Guest Post: The Human Stain
I shuddered when it was announced that Stanley Fisher was elevated to co-Chairman of the Fed. He is a wholly-corrupt representative of the neo-conservative movement that has enveloped this country. People who consider themselves “liberals” and Democrats are unwittingly supporting a viper’s nest of necon totalitarianists. Hillary Clinton was the mad-bomber who helped orchestrate the Obama Government’s steamrolling over Libya and the Ukraine and the attempted steamrolling over Syria. When HRC is in the Oval Office, Stanley Fisher will be elevated to King of the Fed and it’s lights out for the middle class.
One of subscribers has written an excellent of summary of the one aspect of the political and economic drive toward totalitarianism in this country. Notice how he omits Bernanke and Yellen. They were mere dishrags for the people behind the scenes who are actively attempting to orchestrate the future of this country (Soros, Gates, Buffet, Rothschilds, Kissinger, etc):
I agree with you, the world’s move away from the fraudulent dollar is bigger than interest rates. My belief is that they are trying to buy two months. All they care about is winning the election, because they can loot like never before … literally trillions of dollars … as the sick, withdrawn witch is under constant medical care within the Imperial Bedroom at the WH.
This is unfolding as some kind of twisted, gothic, Elizabethan drama, with a demented Queen orchestrating State viciousness and lunacy from the privacy of her chambers. If HRC won’t even hold a press conference during her so-called campaign, what will she be like when she gets in? She will turn her back on the people so fast it will be unprecedented in all of U.S. history. The Invisible, Corrupt, Murderous, Greedy, Thieving Queen: coming soon to the American Theater of the Absurd. And the Court of Sheer, Inexcusable American Stupidity.
There’s an old saying that our faces shed their masks as we grow older. In other words, our faces come to show who we really are. Stanley Fisher is a perfect example … that face literally exudes evil. When his face begins to talk, the situation goes from “mere” evil into depths of the inferno. Lucifer has only rarely had such a talented acolyte.
His voice is a totally contrived, studied, phony blend of arrogance, fake aristocracy, haughtiness, superciliousness, elitism, royal tonality, superiority, and condescension. It is as if he concocts it in front of his bathroom mirror to get it right … it is completely contrived and fake, and self-engineered to make him look superior. I can’t listen to him any more … my gag reflex can’t take it.
[Larry] Summers, another phony and fraud, has imported aspects of the voice from his idol, Stanley Fisher, and he too is impossible to listen to unless a person has some strange desire to vomit.
Speaking of broken masks revealing the true persons, look at Soros and Greenspan. Faces that have become truly grotesque over time, revealing who the persons truly are.
Everything the people need to know stands right before their eyes, but they do not see a thing. They listen to and worship the likes of Stanley Fisher and Greenspan as if they are gods, and not the human wrecking balls they actually are.
The political and economic collapse of the U.S. has long since “crossed the Rubicon.” The public violence that is spreading like the plague in places like Chicago, Milwaukee and Baltimore is a symptom of this underlying collapse – a collapse that has been covered up with extreme propaganda, shock and false-flag fear events and the glorification of U.S. military imperialism.
The Government’s New Home Sales Report Is Idiotic
Absurd surges in new home sales activity were not significant…Headline reporting of this series is of no substance, as seen frequently with massive, unstable and continuously shifting revisions of recent history… – John Williams, Shadowstats.com on the June report.
Like everything else going on in the financial markets, the Government’s new home sales report is thoroughly inconsistent with all of the actualized supporting data and bears absolutely no resemblance to observable reality.
The Census Bureaus, which is notorious for producing fraudulent data, reports that new homes sales hit a 9-year high in July on a “statistically adjusted, annualized rate” basis. However, it had to revise its original report down for June to 582k from 592k. Bloomberg theatrically describes the report as indicating “sky high momentum.” These are, of course, fairytale numbers.
This is how John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics described last month’s new home sales report: “Despite ‘benchmarking’ to the unstable seasonal-adjustment factors with the April 2016 release, this series remains extraordinarily unstable and consistently unreliable on a near-term month-to-month basis as weather headline sales increased or decreased.” (Shadowstats.com)
The Government’s numbers were “driven” by an unexplainable 18% surge in new home sales in the South. Yet, according to Redfin.com’s data for July, homes sales for July in the south’s biggest MSAs (population areas) cratered: Atlanta -12.9%, Dallas/Ft Worth -13.3%, Miami -24.2%, Orlando -16.1% (LINK). In other words, the Government’s metric conflicts drastically with observable reality.
Additionally, the new home sales report is entirely at odds with the ongoing economic contraction as reflected in most private-sourced economic reports. This morning, for instance, the Richmond Fed’s manufacturing index collapsed the most on record (going back to 1993). Another report on U.S. manufacturing activity released this morning showed continued weakness in the manufacturing sector, with the employment index at its lowest in four months. If economic activity is contracting and real jobs (not Census Bureau fake jobs) are declining in number, homes are not being purchased. Again, the new home sales report does not fit the facts.
Finally, in the report it showed that new home inventory is declining. However, I look at several new homebuilder financial reports every quarter and they all show inventory levels that are ballooning (and being financed with debt). For instance, Toll Brothers reported this morning (more on that later) and its inventory level of new homes increase 5.3% from the end of last quarter and 6.8% from the end of January. DR Horton is the country’s largest new homebuilder, its inventory level has soared nearly 10% over the last four quarters.
Also, the same Census Bureau has been reporting well in excess of 1 million supposed housing starts for the last several months. How is it possible that starts exceed sales by a significant amount and yet inventory is said to be shrinking? Once again, the facts do not fit the report.
Remember the Redfin.com report referenced above when existing home sales are reported tomorrow. The National Association of Realtors uses the same statistical meat grinder used by the Government in producing its seasonally adjusted annualized fictional account of the housing market.
As far as demand at the lower end of the market, I will republish the market color I received earlier this month from one of my Short Seller Journal subscribers, who has been a real estate professional for over 3 decades:
You are spot-on the housing market. I think the flippers in Denver metro are driving the under $400,000 price to a frenzy and the over $500,000 in the burbs are dropping in price. Some of these flippers have 8-10 houses at the same time. A little jiggle and they will dump. Then the part time rental landlords follow in selling as the rental market gets tough.
The only reason that prices keep rising is because the Fed’s near-ZIRP interest policy and the Government’s sub-prime dressed-in-drag mortgage-lending programs have enabled buyers to pay more than ever for a home and make monthly payments – for now. As the real economy continues to implode, delinquencies and defaults will pile up as quickly as they did from 2008-2010, led by the flippers reference in the quote above.
Housing: I’ve Worked Thru 4 Bubbles – They All End The Same
The three primary drivers of the economy are starting to head south: retail, housing, autos. I can smell the housing market slipping away now. I’ve been early on housing, like I was when the mid-2000’s Bubble 1.0 popped, but I was eventually very correct (I sold my dream house in November 2004).
The housing market is beginning to crater. I draw on “hands on” data from the Denver area because I can get “boots on the ground” due diligence accomplished. Denver is considered somewhat of a demographic “bellweather” for economic trends as they unfold. I don’t care what the media propaganda is reporting, in Denver housing sales are rapidly slowing, inventory is rapidly building and prices are falling. I’ve witnessed two $2 million+ homes in my area reduce their offer price 14% and 20% respectively shortly after their initial listing.
Ultra-high end resort areas are starting to get killed. Aspen is reporting that sales are down more than 42% in the first-half of 2016 vs. 2015: Aspen’s Sustained Nosedive. Same with Long Island’s Hamptons, where sales volume in East Hampton and Southampton plunged 53% and 48% respectively from a year ago: LINK.
Usually, when sales drop like this, so do the prices of houses. There is no better time than this to invest in property, as you will be purchasing it for a low price and can hold onto it until house prices inevitably grow again, increasing your profit. It might be time to contact the best real estate agents Winston Salem has to offer to see what properties are available.
You see, once the high-end wets the bed, the rest of the market follows very reliably and obediently.
My view is supported by the homes sales data for July reported by Redfin.com last week. According to Redfin, home sales (closings) fell 11% in July: LINK. Redfin of course concocts a ridiculous calculus to rationalize the decline, but that’s nothing more than a disconsolate effort to defer acceptance of the unpleasant but inevitable reality.
Perhaps most shocking in Redin’s report is the extent to which the bottom fell out of what had been some of the hottest markets in the country. Year over year for July closings fell 46% in Vegas, 24% in Miami, 21% in Portland, 20-% in Oakland and 11% in Denver.
I’ve been focusing on the housing market in my weekly Short Seller’s Journal because the homebuilder and related home construction stocks are no-brainer shorts. It’s been my view that flippers/”investors” have been the majority of existing home sales volume reported this year. Perhaps this is because they take more time perfecting the property and ensuring that it is safe. Many house flippers will even outsource difficult work that requires equipment like scaffolding. This ensures that roofing jobs or other construction jobs are done properly. However, it’s important that these workers use scaffolding sensibly or they could experience some scaffolding accidents. Hopefully, they will be cautious and won’t need to hire any legal representation. Anyway, I have a subscriber who is three decade-plus real estate professional in Denver who is sharing some great insider color on the market, something you will NEVER get from the National Association of Realtors:
You are spot-on the housing market. I think the flippers in Denver metro are driving the under $400,000 price to a frenzy and the over $500,000 in the burbs are dropping in price. Some of these flippers have 8-10 houses at the same time. A little jiggle and they will dump. Then the part time rental landlords follow in selling as the rental market gets tough
I am selling a $309,000 condo and showing another buyer $300,000-$350,000 houses in the same part of Denver. Condos and houses of the same 1980’s age are not worth the same. Every time the condo and house of same square footage and age get the same price, the prices fall. Condos go down the farthest of anything.
I believe the flippers who are facing getting “stuck” with their inventory will start to panic and look to unload their “investments.” Many of them are using debt to make their purchases. This of course will hasten the downturn in housing. This is exactly how the end of the big Housing Bubble 1.0 was triggered.
The current housing bubble is the most extreme of the four bubbles I have witnessed since the late 1970’s. Prices for new homes have moved above the prices of the last bubble. In many areas, existing home prices are now at all-time highs. This is despite the fact that sales volume is roughly 2/3’s of the volume of the last bubble. This activity is occurring amidst rapidly rising inventories.
The next downturn in housing will be worse than the last one because the Government 
has aggressively stuffed as much mortgage debt as possible into the system with its 3% to no-percent down payment programs, reduced mortgage insurance requirements and by looking “the other way” on credit scores.
If the Fed hikes rate in September, as it incessantly insists will definitely possibly happen, it will be lights out for housing. On the other hand, it can only take interest rates down 50 basis points to zero, probably will not enough stimulate sales because anyone with a high degree of monthly payment sensitivity has most likely already overpaid for their “dream” home. When the Government introduced 0-3% down payment programs plus subprime programs.
Lies, More Lies And Hillary Clinton Allies With Rothschilds
The mainstream U.S. media has been propagating outright lies about the alleged geopolitical belligerence of Russia and China when, in fact, the United States Government has been the implementing the world’s most aggressive and deadly deployment of military hardware and militarily offensive overtures in the Middle East, eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Far East.
Those who bother to “keep up” with news by reading their local newspaper or, more likely, catching a little Fox News or CNN online or on TV are inundated with news stories about the “antics” of Russia with regard to Russia’s territorial rights in Crimea or of China with regard to China’s territorial rights in the South China Sea. But those narratives are nothing more than fictionalized propaganda. The truth is that the U.S. – under the guise of “NATO” – has been surrounding Russia’s border with militarily offensive military equipment and personnel. The U.S. has been directly and aggressively confrontational with China over China’s territorial claim to certain South China Sea islands.
The same false narrative has been applied to the situation in Syria. The U.S. wants Syria’s President Assad removed and a U.S./Saudi puppet installed because it benefits U.S and Saudi elitist/royalty energy interests. Syria is also historically a key strategic location geographically. But Russian, and now China, has drawn a line in the “sand” in Syria. The entitled, “exceptional” U.S. oligarchy is unhappy with this and floods the mainstream media airwaves with a level of propaganda that might make Joseph Goebbels blush but would make Edward Bernays proud.
Finally, a report was out over the weekend that the entitled Hillary Clinton, who aspires to be the next Queen President of the U.S. puddle-jumped in her lear jet (I’m not sure how she managed to make enough money to afford a lear jet on a Senator’s salary) from Matha’s Vineyard to Nantucket, where the Rothschilds (Lynn Forester de Rothschild) hosted a $100,000 per head fundraiser. It’s a shame that Hillary’s faithful supporters have no clue with regard to the meaning of a Rothschild-funded Oval Office.
In the latest episode of the Shadow of Truth, we discuss why the United States has become the most corrupt Government in modern history, if not all of history:
The Fed’s Latest Comedian: Stanley Fisher
Stanley Fisher embarrassed himself and the Fed today by regurgitating the standard Fed threat to raise rates in 2016. The Fed officials are starting to sound like that teacher on the Peanuts cartoon:
We are close to our targets,” Fischer said in a speech at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado on Sunday. “Looking ahead, I expect GDP growth to pick up in coming quarters, as investment recovers from a surprisingly weak patch and the drag from past dollar appreciation diminishes,” he added, without giving explicit views on his rate outlook. LINK
Someone needs to put a muzzle on these guys. The economy is meeting the Fed’s goal of what, creating the lowest labor force participation rate in history? I have to believe the Fed is looking at the real economic data reports and not the seasonally manipulated annualized rate garbage fed to us by the likes of the Government, auto industry and housing industry. Retail sales, including and especially restaurant sales, are declining and possibly on the verge of collapsing. Same with housing. I have been reviewing the real data in-depth in my weekly Short Seller’s Journal.
It’s especially funny that Fisher is bragging about a strong in economy from his perch at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado. Why? Because Aspen real estate is collapsing: Brokers At A Loss To Explain Sudden, Precipitous Drop In Aspen Real Estate: (LINK)
High-end sales that fuel Aspen’s $2 billion-a-year real estate market are evaporating, pushing Pitkin County’s sales volume down more than 42 percent to $546.45 million for the first half of the year from $939.91 million in the same period of 2015
I was just in Aspen two weeks ago. I wandered into the Ralph Lauren store and it was a morgue. The salesperson was hounding me like a starving wild animal. It was uncomfortable.
I’d love to see the Fed hike rates next month at their next FOMC circus. In fact, hike them 50 basis points instead of the gratuitous one-quarter of one percent they teased us with at the end of 2015. A rate hike might finally put the hammer on Clinton’s Presidential aspirations. We already can see that her supporters could give a shit about her psychopathic criminal behavior.
Fisher apparently thinks the Fed has “neared its goals” for the economy. If he thinks falling housing, retail and auto sales – combined with shrinking jobs market – are worth goals, hell raise rates 1%.
The the truth is that the only goal the Fed has accomplished is an almost daily delivery of good belly-laugh.
Derivatives: Unexploded Financial Weapons
Central counterparties keep records of trades and help suck risk out of the banking system, but this only works if they themselves are well capitalised and have plans in place to deal with a sudden collapse of one or more of its members and get close to failure. Otherwise, they’re just unexploded nuclear bombs nestling deep in the financial system. – Business Insider LINK.
Who are we kidding. Since the 2008 de facto banking system collapse, the OTC derivatives problem has mushroomed out of control. The Obama Government heralded in the Dodd Frank legislation, which allegedly made the financial system safer for everyone. In reality it is nothing more than a fairlytale written with the goal of allowing the Too Big To Fail banks to cover up their continued derivatives Ponzi scheme.
Now the BIS has issued yet another warning about the dangers lurking with derivatives. The “central clearing exchanges,” like the Depository Trust Clearing Corporation, are giant derivatives-infested vipers nest which harbors the next – and possibly imminent – financial system collapse.
This is one of the reasons behind Carl Icahn’s recent candor regarding the U.S. financial system: “sooner or later there’s going to be a massive problem.” LINK
In today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth, we discuss the reasons why the BIS is sounding the derivatives alarm bell again and why Carl Icahn has become “Dr. Doom” on the stock market:
Gold And Silver: Patience Required
I wanted to share a discussion on the metals that I had with GATA’s Bill “Midas” Murphy this morning. I had emailed him to ask him if he knew of any reasons the metals were getting slammed today because the dollar was down a bit, the economic reports were poor and the stock market was selling off – all three occurrences of which are precious metals-friendly.
As Bill suggested, silver is under more pressure today than gold, with JPM going all out to get the speculative traders to sell, which helps JPM push the price down. If you look at short term chart, it would appear that silver is forming a head and shoulders “top” formation, something which JPM is trying achieve, as Bill correctly pointed out.
However, technical formations almost NEVER work in the metals. Typically doing the opposite of the what the formation is indicating works the best over the last 15 years. That would imply a big upleg coming, which supports my view based on the fundamentals, which would support the view of another big move higher on the horizon.
I think JPM is doing whatever it can to minimize the damage from the inevitable. The biggest seasonal physical buying period starts in another couple weeks. Next week is options expiry for Sept silver. They probably want to push silver below $19.50 if they can because the Sept silver put/call structure currently is favorable to the call-writers (i.e. JPM) is silver closes below $19.50 on the 25th. The problem is, the way the economy and the political system is melting down, they can’t control the possibility of a random news event hitting the tape that would send the metals soaring. I believe there’s high probability a news event like that could happen at any time.
Interestingly, the o/i for gold is coming down a bit earlier than usual for the typical contract “roll” period (for Aug) and the Sept silver o/i is coming down. They are covering for a reason, I believe. (click image to enlarge)
Silver is up 42.4 % since Dec 14, 2016. That is a HUGE run. If you look at a 1-yr graph, silver is trending sideways consolidating that gargantuan move it made in just 7 months. JPM and all of the other technical analysis cretins out there want us to believe that silver is forming a head n shoulders top formation. But it’s not. It was in danger of going parabolic, something we DON’T want to have happen. Yes, silver could go parabolic up to $50 and still be insanely undervalued relative to the supporting fundamentals, but the huge hedge fund trading algos would not treat it that way.
Silver looks like it will pullback to its 50 dma, which is around $19.15 right now. As long as it holds that level – and they may crush it below that level with A LOT of paper for a few days, it will be ready for the next upleg. Since mid-Dec, we have been in an uptrend that is bouncing off of the 50 dma and moving higher. The RSI and MACD momentum indicators are signalling the probability that the current move is becoming “exhausted,” with probability weighted toward a move higher soon.
At some point we might see a 200 dma correction. But silver could correct to its “chart” uptrend line around the $17 and still be up 24% since Dec 14. Anyone who would sneer at that ROR belongs in an asylum or is an internet blog terrorist.
Both gold and silver are in the process of making an eventual move that will shock and awe. We’re now aware that some of the biggest, most influential money manipulators in the world are shoveling fiat currency confetti into big positions in gold and silver – including the nefarious Rothschild clan: LINK. These guys are not buying gold for just a double or triple. They’re buying it because they know that the global fiat paper currency experiment is coming to an end. And along with it so is the debt-fueled lifestyle America has enjoyed since 1971…
Full Metal (Gold And Silver) Price Manipulation
I’m not sure of the significance of 20 minutes past the hour, and I’m sure it has some sympbolic meaning to the gold manipulation cabal, but for the last week the price of gold has been getting slammed with an avalanche of Comex confetti at regular intervals at 20 minutes past the hour.
THAT is not the graph of a market that is allowed to trade freely. But notice how gold bounces back sharply from every take-down attempt. This is especially significant given that this is one of the slowest seasonal periods of the year for the buyers of physical gold and silver.
This morning (Tuesday morning) was particularly blatant. Gold had traded steadily higher overnight from $1344 (December futures basis) to $1364 just after the Comex floor opened for business (8:20 a.m. EST/6:20 a.m. MST).
Whenever the elitists start to lose control of gold, they roll out one of their Fed stool pigeons to threaten the world with a 25 basis point (one quarter of one percent) rate hike at the next FOMC meeting (September). Today’s park bench popcorn scavenger was NY Fed President, Bill Dudley, who stated on Fox Business that a rate hike in September is “possible.” I guess that means September’s meeting is a “live meeting” – a phrase Dudley and SF Fed Prez, John Williams, propagated the mainstream media propaganda meat grinder with in May – LINK .
But gold shrugged off Dudley’s empty, Straw-man threats and closed today respectably up about $5 from the close of yesterday’s afternoon “access market” trading session. I still believe that gold could see $1500 by Halloween despite the Comex B-52 paper bombs being dropped religiously on the market. And we are just one economic, political or societal catastrophe from gold making a rapid run toward $2,000.
Buy every manipulated sell-off in gold and silver. It’s the true “TINA” idea.
A lot of readers have asked me if it’s too late to buy mining stocks at this point. I refer them to a long-term graph of GDXJ so they can see where the junior miners have been relative to the level at which they bottomed. It’s a prototypical chart of a market that is in the early stages of a massive move higher. The key is to identify the exploration companies that have a high probability of hitting the proverbial pot of gold. The last 5-years caused a lot of damage to the junior sector, but there’s a lot of companies with “a pulse” that have been revived, albeit significantly undervalued from a risk/return standpoint.
My Mining Stock Journal is focused on finding companies that are currently overlooked by the mainstream mining stock analysts and newsletters. As an example, I presented a stock idea in mid-April that is up over 280%. It recently doubled in price shortly after a major newsletter service poo-poo’d the idea. I draw on several seasoned veteran contacts plus 15 years of experience researching and investing in this sector. You can access the MSJ – a bi-weekly report – here: Mining Stock Journal.
I just received your August 4 Stock Journal and before getting to your suggestion and half way through your guidelines for picking stocks I wanted to write this first. I have attempted to find those obscure companies and must say it is most difficult. Upon reflection I should have just waited on your bi-weekly report because your picks have been awesome. – “Jim”
Where Is The IMF’s Gold?
In mid-2009, the IMF announced that it was going to sell a portion of its gold. It ended up selling 403 tonnes of its then-reported 3218 tonnes of gold. Back then the original announcement made it sound like the IMF was trying to push down the price of gold with a big sale announcement, as the price of gold went parabolic after the 2008 de facto collapse of the financial system. The excuse for the gold sale was to “shore up” IMF finances. However, historically, the IMF has sold off portions of its gold holdings as a policy to reduce gold’s role in the global fiat currency system.
At the time, India and China jointly delivered a research paper which suggested that, if the IMF were interested, the two countries would be interested in buying all of the IMF’s gold. The IMF limited its sale to the 403 tonnes: 200 tonnes to India, 2 tonnes to Mauritius and 10 tonnes to Sri Lanka. By December 2010 the IMF concluded the sale of the balance of the gold without ever disclosing the buyers.
The IMF’s gold comes primarily from the member countries, who pledge gold to the IMF as part of the cost of their “quota” assigned to become a member country. 25% of a country’s “quota” were to be paid in gold. The IMF states that its gold is held in various depositories, like the NY Fed, around the world. The truth is that most of the gold “pledged” to the IMF has likely been leased out by the custodial Central Banks.
Curiously, over the IMF’s 71 year history, it sold its gold intermittently. Each time the demand by Central Banks to buy that gold has far exceeded the amount of gold offered. This is an important point to note because it drives home the point that gold is significantly undervalued and that real Central Bank demand emerges when large quantities (100’s of tonnes) of gold are offered for sale.
In the latest episode of the Shadow of Truth, we discuss the interesting shift occurring in the IMF’s SDR structure and what it means for the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. We also discuss why the price of gold will likely begin to move much higher as we move from summer into autumn – we also discuss why GLD is a total fraud:
De-Dollarization is Now Assured – SDR Bonds Have Been Approved
At Rory’s prescient behest, we have been way out in front of the curve on the Silk Road and on the issue of China using the IMF to push aside the dollar as the reserve currency. Casey Research finally caught up with their own Silk Road piece – more than a year after the Shadow of Truth was chatting about it.
Rory’s Daily Coin has been all over the restructuring of the IMF’s SDR, something on which the mainstream and alternative media has been conspicuously silent. As Rory reports below, the IMF has approved China’s issuance of an SDR-denominated sovereign bond issue:
This is a major first step in delivering a realistic blow to the dominance of the U.S. dollar as world reserve currency. It is no secret that China has been making international moves to make the Renminbi (RMB) a more attractive currency on the global stage. This latest move solidifies the RMB as a world currency.
You can read the rest of Rory’s analysis here plus I suspect we’ll chat about this in tomorrow’s episode of the Shadow of Truth plus we are going to rant about something that is on everyone’s mind: NBC’s abortionist coverage of the Olympics: Global De-dollarization Is Now Assured.