Is the Fed Losing Credibility?


Indecisive

The Federal Reserve pushed back its plans to raise its benchmark short-term interest rate, which was widely expected following the jobs report previously. Yet this was not a credible day for the Fed in the least as they are starting to appear to be confused and skitzofrantic. Fed credibility is beginning to create a crisis behind the scenes generating doubts about monetary policy moving forward. The Fed’s monetary policy appears ai9mlessly wondering trying to figure out what to do with conflicting problems on both side of the dividing line. It’s not clear that the Fed has a grip on any theory and is revealing that those at the top perceived with so much power, are helplessly a drift in a ship without sails, rigging, a rudder, or an engine.

Fed Velocity of Money May 1 2016

Fed Excess ReservesConsequently, after a two-day policy meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee emerged unanimously voting to hold the federal funds rate between 0.25% and 0.50%, that they are paying banks to hoard cash in excessive reserves. They are in bed with the bankers who tell them then need a place to park money without risk. The entire idea of quantitative easing was to inject cash to “stimulate” the economy. But that policy never achieved its goal and the US economy bounced back, but it was a dead-cat bounce. This has been the worse recovery in Post-Depression history because they have paid bankers not to lend money. Paying bankers .50% to hoard money has caused the velocity of money to collapse altogether. European banks are shipping cash to that States and parking it at the Fed to achieve that same riskless trade.

The Fed cannot break free of the bankers to see what they are actually doing is not stimulating the economy, but causing it to contract.

Here we have the Dow electing our Daily Bearish Reversal and Gold electing a Daily Bullish Reversal all because they FAILED to show the world they have this under control. Yet this reaction from the markets is terribly interesting. The Dow declines because the Fed DID NOT RAISE RATES, and gold rallies for the same reason. This is counter-trend to the general “fundamental” expectations.  The Dow was doing well with the prospect of a rate hike until the jobs report and it rallied but stopped dead with the Weekly Bullish Reversal at 17800. Gold crashed but held our critical Bearish Reversal at 1206 and bounced. While the gold crowd thinks a rally is good because the market will crash, at the same time we have the Dow declining with lower rates instead of higher rates. These trends are showing extreme stress in the financial markets overall.

Russia Has Hillary’s Emails & Hacked Democrat’s Server


Hacker-2

It has been reported that Russia did hack Hillary’s server. Now, Russia is threatening to release all Hillary’s emails, which may jeopardize her election. The emails are widely expected to reveal how she was shaking down foreign governments to donate to her private “charity” in return for favors. This is calling into question just what Hillary would sell if President. A close look at the Clinton scandals shows a clear pattern. The sex scandals were all Bill while the money scandals were all Hillary. No first lady in history was ever embroiled in financial scandals one after the other.

The Energy Magazine Oilprice.com reported that Russian intelligence has informed Western intelligence agencies that the government in Moscow is now planning to publish the emails from Hillary Clinton. If this proves to be true, then this will confirm that she place national security second to her personal self-interest.

Then, the Democrats say that the Russian government had hacked its servers and were now in possession of the dossier, which they created on Donald Trump.

Department of Labor Changes Interpretation of Act to Raise Minimum Wages


Dept-Labor
The U.S. Department of Labor, acting on a directive of President Obama issued back in March 2014, has announced changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Beginning this fall, the act will basically double the amount of money workers must make to be exempt from federal overtime pay requirements. Essentially, employees with gross salaries under $45,000 who work more than 40 hours a week must be paid overtime.

Obama could not increase the minimum wage rate through Congress, so he instructed the Labor Department to do it through the backdoor. This will definitely kill jobs and cut hours to ensure employees do not exceed 40 hours. A $15 an hour job for 40 hours comes in at $31,200 annually. By raising the threshold, Obama has more likely than not created an incentive not to hire full-time workers. This is what we get when someone has no idea of how the real world works.

Nigel Farage on the Future of Immigration post-Brexit


Pensions Continue to Spiral Downward


Britian Steel Workers

There are 11 million workers in Britain who assumed they had great pensions. The British Steel Pension Scheme is proposing to break its pension promises to its 130,000 members because they are losing money. Tata Steel is looking to sell its holding in its UK plants over the next few months, and that means that the £15bn pension scheme, that would normally be put into the general Pension Protection Fund, has been the slush fund for failed companies. So in other words, what they thought was a guarantee, will be nothing of the sort. Once government takes over anything, it just bleeds money.

Total Narrative Reversal? – Pulse Nightclub Massacre Was Not an LGBT Motivated Attack…


An interesting take on what happened and presented in a very believable way; one wonders if the truth will ever really be known.

BREXIT Polls at 55% – Will the Euro Crash & Burn?


British GDP Growth since 1949

Euro HangingWe provided this chart in our BREXIT Report which says it all. For all the scare mongering how Britain will be worse off if it leaves the EU, this chart demonstrates how the politicians are lying. Britain has seen only declining economic growth since it joined the EU and these are the British government’s own numbers.

Caution will be necessary. If Britain leaves and they cannot cover up that much against the EU, then the pound will survive and the Euro will witness a contagion begin as other states will be driven to hold referendums.

What nobody wants to talk about in the press is how Merkel’s decision to let in the refugees was unilateral. She has fought for the federalization of Europe, but went and made a decides that binds everyone. Girls are being raped in Sweden and Germany. This whole this is a real crisis. Calling those against it racists just demonstrates how abusive these politicians are to defend their mistakes. The refugees are not a race, it is a religion.

European State of the Union Through the Eyes of a 23-Year-Old


european_union_3d_map_1600_clr_17749

I happened to have a conversation with someone from Portugal who was neither a trader nor an investor, just an observant 23-year-old. When I asked for her take on the state of affairs in Europe, she candidly replied:

“Yes, there are groups of people who expect civil war. Actually, the situation in Europe at this moment is a big mess. Those in the Baltic countries are afraid of Russians, others are in a big panic because of ISIS, and the other third are upset about EU not to mention a mess with refuges and etc… In general, war industry brings amazing profit. So it is a question of time when history will repeat once again, as you say.”

Censorship? Manipulating the News?


COMMENT: Dear Mr. Armstrong,

Is there a bug in my computer or has the latest the Nigel Farage video been removed from your blog? I also can’t find the recent more private video on migrant problems in Germany, which was rather shocking for us as the German press is not allowed to automatically report on migrant problems. It’s not a free and independent press anymore.

Thank you for your very interesting and excellent blog.

Kind regards,

ml

REPLY: The videos are still there on my end. It appears that perhaps someone in Germany is blocking those videos. Very curious.

China Corporate Defaults – Good, Bad, or just Ugly?


Shanghai-Stk-Exchnge-1

A fertilizer producer in north China default on bond payments has demonstrates a positive aspect that the state governments are not so eager to bail-out failed companies. This will be a positive step forward in transforming China into a major capital market. For now, it is still not ready for prime time.

Of course many are touting this as a reason to buy gold. It seems they will distort anything to justify a buy. Gold will rise on a sustainable basis when the GENERAL PUBLIC see that government is in trouble, not companies per se. That is starting to materialize in Europe and the election is starting to expose the corruption in the United States as “super delegates” hand Hillary the nomination nullifying the vote of the people. Bernie wants to keep going and on this issue he is correct. You cannot pretend this is a democracy and then do everything in your power to make sure the people really choose nothing.

That is the key to the future. When everyone wakes up and simply say – OMG. This is a joke! The 2016 election may lead to a real political revolution by 2018 overturning Congress entirely.