21 Signs That This Could Be A Long, Hot, Crazy Summer For The Global Financial System

The summer of 2012 is shaping up to be very similar to the summer of 2008.  Things look incredibly bleak for the global economy right now.  Economic activity and lending are slowing down all over the planet, and fear is starting to paralyze the entire global financial system.  Things did not look this bad back in the summer of 2011 and things certainly did not look this bad back in the summer of 2010.  It is almost as if a "perfect storm" is brewing.  Today, the global financial system is a finely balanced pyramid of risk, debt and leverage.  Such a system requires a high degree of confidence and stability.  But when confidence disappears and fear and panic take over, the house of cards can literally start collapsing at any time.  Right now we are watching a slow-motion train wreck unfold and nobody seems to know how to stop it.  Unless some kind of a miracle happens, things are going to look much different when we reach the start of 2013 than they do today.

The following are 21 signs that this could be a long, hot, crazy summer for the global financial system....

#1 There are rumors that major financial institutions are cancelling employee vacations in anticipation of a major financial crisis this summer.  The following are a couple of tweets quoted in a recent article by Kenneth Schortgen Jr....

Todd Harrison tweet: Hearing (not confirmed) @PIMCO asked employees to cancel vacations to have "all hands on deck" for a Lehman-type tail event. Confirm?
Todd M. Schoenberger tweet: @todd_harrison @pimco I heard the same thing, but I also heard the same for "some" at JPM. Heard it today at a hedge fund luncheon.

As Schortgen points out, these are not just your average Twitter users....

Todd Harrison is the CEO of the award winning internet media company Minyanville, while Todd Shoenberger is a managing principal at the Blackbay Group, and an adjunct professor of Finance at Cecil College.

#2 The Bank for International Settlements is warning that global lending is contracting at the fastest pace since the financial crisis of 2008.
#3 Unemployment in the eurozone has hit a brand new all-time record high.
#4 The government of Portugal has just announced that it will be bailing out three major banks.
#5 Many U.S. banking stocks are being hit extremely hard.  For example, Morgan Stanley stock has declined by 40 percent over the past four months.
#6 Yields on Spanish debt and yields on Italian debt have been absolutely soaring.
#7 10 year U.S. Treasury notes hit a record low on Friday because investors are scared and they are looking for safety. The following is from a recent USA Today article....

"Treasuries are at 1.46 because people are freaking out," says Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.

#8 New orders for factory goods in the United States have declined three times in the last four months.  That is a sign that the "economic recovery" in the U.S. has clearly stalled.
#9 U.S. job growth in May was well below expectations and the unemployment rate has increased to 8.2 percent.
#10 Economies all over the developed world are seriously slowing down right now.  The following is from a recent article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard....

Brazil wilted in the first quarter. India grew at the slowest pace in nine years. China’s HSBC manufacturing index fell further into contraction in May, with new orders dropping sharply and inventories rising.

#11 Stocks in Japan hit a 28 year low on Monday.
#12 Over the past five years, the stock markets of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus have all fallen by more than 50 percent.  Will we soon see similar results all over the rest of Europe?
#13 The Greek economy is literally shutting down.  Just check out the chaos that unpaid bills are already causing....

And unpaid bills are now threatening Greece’s electricity supply. State-owned Electricity Market Operator (LAGIE), a clearing house for power transactions, hasn’t paid independent power producers for electricity it bought from them. They, in turn, haven’t paid their natural gas supplier, Public Gas Corporation (Depa), which now doesn’t have the money to pay its supplier. Payment is due on June 22. Alas, its supplier is Gazprom in Russia, and they insist on getting paid. If not, they will shut the valve, and Depa won’t get the gas to supply the independent producers, which will have to take their power plants off line, removing about a third of the country’s electricity production.

#14 It is estimated that there are 273 billion dollars of failed real estate loans in the Spanish banking system.
#15 In March, 66 billion euros was pulled out of Spanish banks and sent out of the country.  That was an all-time record and that was before we even knew the results of the recent elections in Greece and France.  The numbers for April and May will almost certainly be even worse.
#16 The unemployment rate in Spain is 24.4 percent and for those under the age of 25 it is over 50 percent.
#17 Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is warning that Italy may have to take drastic actions if something is not done soon....

"People are in shock. Confidence has collapsed. We have never had such a dark future," he said. Indeed, the jobless rate for youth has jumped from 27pc to 35pc in a year. Terrorism has returned. Anarchists knee-capped the head of Ansaldo Nucleare last month. Italy’s tax office chief was nearly blinded by a letter bomb.
"If Europe refuses to listen to our demands, we should say 'bye, bye’ and leave the euro. Or tell the Germans to leave the euro if they are not happy," he said.

#18 It now looks like Cyprus is going to be the next European nation to need a bailout.
#19 Switzerland is threatening to implement capital controls in order to stop the massive flow of money that is coming in from banks around the rest of Europe.
#20 As I wrote about the other day, World Bank President Robert Zoellick is warning that "the summer of 2012" could end up being very similar to what we experienced back in 2008....

"Events in Greece could trigger financial fright in Spain, Italy and across the eurozone. The summer of 2012 offers an eerie echo of 2008."

#21 Germany’s former vice-Chancellor, Joschka Fischer, is warning that the entire EU could fall apart over this crisis....

"Let’s not delude ourselves: If the euro falls apart, so will the European Union, triggering a global economic crisis on a scale that most people alive today have never experienced"

When was the last time that we saw so much bad economic news come out all at once?
2008 perhaps?
We truly live in unprecedented times.
It will be exciting to watch what happens, but it is also important to keep in mind that the coming economic crisis will cause extreme pain for millions upon millions of people.
For example, the suicide of a mother and a son due to the deteriorating economy has absolutely shocked the entire nation of Greece....

A 60-year-old Greek musician and his 91-year-old mother jumped to their deaths from their 5th floor apartment, driven to despair by financial woes. This double death is the latest in a rising epidemic of crisis-induced suicides in Greece.
­Witness accounts vary – some say the mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, jumped first, screaming a prayer as she plummeted to her death. Other neighbors say the mother and her son jumped together, holding hands.
But the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the family had been struggling for a long time. The night before, Antonis Perris posted a suicide note of sorts on a popular Greek forum, saying he had no way of resolving the family’s financial issues.

“The problem is that I didn’t realize that I would need to have cash, because the economic crisis came so suddenly. Even though I have been selling our possessions, we have no cash flow, we have no money to buy food anymore and my credit card is maxed out with 22% interest rate.”

Perris continued to say that both his and his mother’s health deteriorated, and that he saw no solution to his most basic problems – getting food and medical help.

This is why it is so incredibly important to get prepared.

You don't want something like that happening to you or anyone in your family.

10 Things That We Can Learn About Shortages And Preparation From The Economic Collapse In Greece

When the economy of a nation collapses, almost everything changes.  Unfortunately, most people have never been through anything like that, so it can be difficult to know how to prepare.  For those that are busy preparing for the coming global financial collapse, there is a lot to be learned from the economic depression that is happening right now in Greece.  Essentially, what Greece is experiencing is a low level economic collapse.  Unemployment is absolutely rampant and poverty is rapidly spreading, but the good news for Greece is that the global financial system is still operating somewhat normally and they are getting some financial assistance from the outside.  Things in Greece could be a whole lot worse, and they will probably get a whole lot worse before it is all said and done.  But already things have gotten bad enough in Greece that it gives us an idea of what a full-blown economic collapse in the 21st century may look like.  There are reports of food and medicine shortages in Greece, crime and suicides are on the rise and people have been rapidly pulling their money out of the banks.  Hopefully this article will give you some ideas that you can use as you prepare for the economic chaos that will soon be unfolding all over the globe.

The following are 10 things that we can learn about shortages and preparation from the economic collapse in Greece....
#1 Food Shortages Can Actually Happen
Most people assume that they will always be able to run out to their local supermarket or to Wal-Mart and get all of the supplies they need.
Unfortunately, that is a false assumption.  The truth is that our food distribution system is extremely vulnerable.
In Greece, many people are starting to totally run out of food.  Even some government institutions (such as prisons) are now reporting food shortages.  The following was originally from a Greek news source....

The financing for many prisons has decreased to a minimum for some months now, resulting in hundreds of detainees being malnourished and surviving on the charity of local communities.
The latest example is the prison in Corinth where after the supply stoppage from the nearby military camp, the prisoners are at the mercy of God because, as reported by prison staff, not even one grain of rice has been left in their warehouses. When a few days earlier the commander of the camp announced to the prison management the transportation stoppage, citing lack of food supplies even for the soldiers, he shut down the last source of supply for 84 prisoners. The response of some Corinth citizens was immediate as they took it upon themselves to support the prisoners, since all protests to the Justice ministry were fruitless.

#2 Medicine Is One Of The First Things That Becomes Scarce During An Economic Collapse
If you are dependent on medicine in order to survive, you might want to figure out how you are going to get by if your supply of medicine is totally cut off someday.
In Greece, medicine shortages have become a massive problem.  The following is from a recent Bloomberg article....

Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.
“When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.”
The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines. Even when drugs are available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

#3 When An Economy Collapses, So Might The Power Grid
Try this some time - turn off all power to your home for 24 hours and try to live normally.
Sadly, most people simply do not understand just how dependent we are on the power grid.  Without power, all of our lives would change dramatically.
In Greece, authorities are warning of an impending "collapse" of the power grid.  If it goes down for an extended period of time in Greece, the consequences would be catastrophic....

Greece’s power regulator RAE told Reuters on Friday it was calling an emergency meeting next week to avert a collapse of the debt-stricken country’s electricity and natural gas system.
“RAE is taking crisis initiatives throughout next week to avert the collapse of the natural gas and electricity system,” the regulator’s chief Nikos Vasilakos told Reuters.
RAE took the decision after receiving a letter from Greece’s natural gas company DEPA, which threatened to cut supplies to electricity producers if they failed to settle their arrears with the company.

#4 During An Economic Collapse You Cannot Even Take Water For Granted
If the power grid goes down, you will soon no longer have clean water coming out of your faucets.  That is one of the reasons why it is absolutely imperative that the power grid stay operable in Greece.
Sadly, most people don't understand just how vulnerable our water system is.  In a previous article, I quoted from a report that discussed how rapidly our water supply would be in jeopardy in the event of a major transportation disruption....

According to the American Water Works Association, Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day. For safety and security reasons, most water supply plants maintain a larger inventory of supplies than the typical business. However, the amount of chemical storage varies significantly and is site specific. According to the Chlorine Institute, most water treatment facilities receive chlorine in cylinders (150 pounds and one ton cylinders) that are delivered by motor carriers. On average, trucks deliver purification chemicals to water supply plants every seven to 14 days. Without these chemicals, water cannot be purified and made safe for drinking. Without truck deliveries of purification chemicals, water supply plants will run out of drinkable water in 14 to 28 days. Once the water supply is drained, water will be deemed safe for drinking only when boiled. Lack of clean drinking water will lead to increased gastrointestinal and other illnesses, further taxing an already weakened healthcare system.

What will you do when clean water stops coming out of your faucets?
You might want to start thinking about that.
#5 During An Economic Crisis Your Credit Cards And Debit Cards May Stop Working
Most people have become very accustomed to using either debit cards or credit cards for almost everything.
But what would happen if the financial system locked up for a period of time and you were not able to use them?
This is something that the citizens of Greece are potentially facing in the coming months, and this is something that all of us need to start thinking about.
#6 Crime, Rioting And Looting Become Commonplace During An Economic Collapse
Big corporations are already making extensive plans for how to protect their stores in the event that Greece switches from the euro to the drachma.
The following is from a recent Reuters article....

British electrical retailer Dixons has spent the last few weeks stockpiling security shutters to protect its nearly 100 stores across Greece in case of riot.
The planning, says Dixons chief Sebastian James, may look alarmist but it's good to be prepared.
Company bosses around Europe agree. As the financial crisis in Greece worsens, companies are getting ready for everything from social unrest to a complete meltdown of the financial system.

#7 During A Financial Meltdown Many Average Citizens Will Start Bartering
During this economic depression, alternative currencies have already been popping up in Greece.
When things fall apart on a global scale, will you have things to barter for the things that you need?
#8 Suicides Spike During An Economic Collapse
When you think of the Great Depression of the 1930s, what do you think of?
Many people think of images of people jumping out of buildings.
Well, something similar has been happening in Greece.  Suicide statistics in Greece have been absolutely soaring during the last couple of years.
Once prosperity disappears, many people feel as though life is not worth living anymore.
#9 Your Currency May Rapidly Lose Value During An Economic Crisis
Just remember what happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic and what has happened recently in places like Zimbabwe.
The truth is that it can happen anywhere.
Right now, Greeks are pulling their money out of the banks because they are worried that their euros will be turned into drachmas which would rapidly lose value.
If I was living in Greece I would definitely be concerned about that.  The return of the drachma seems to get closer with each passing day.  Just check out these screenshots.
#10 When Things Hit The Fan The Government Will Not Save You
Has the government of Greece come to the rescue of all of those that are deeply suffering right now?
Of course not.  The truth is that the Greek government can barely take care of itself at the moment.
History has shown us that governments simply cannot be counted on when things hit the fan.
Just remember what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In the end, the only one that can be counted on to take care of you and your family is you.
So you better start preparing.
Unfortunately, as I wrote about the other day, time is rapidly running out for the global financial system.
Even some of the top economic officials in the world are warning that another major crisis could be on the way.
Just check out what World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the other day....

"Events in Greece could trigger financial fright in Spain, Italy and across the eurozone. The summer of 2012 offers an eerie echo of 2008."

He also compared a potential exit of Greece from the eurozone to the collapse of Lehman Brothers back during the last financial crisis....

"If Greece leaves the eurozone, the contagion is impossible to predict, just as Lehman had unexpected consequences."

So what are some things that the average person can do to get prepared?

Well, a recent article on SHTFplan.com entitled "The List: A to Z Survival for the Abysmal Times Ahead" contains hundreds of ideas for preparing for the chaotic economic environment that we are heading into.

Preparation is going to look different for every family.  No two situations are exactly the same.

But there are some practical steps that nearly all of us can take to better position ourselves for what is coming.  Now is the time to get educated and now is the time to take action.

Or you could be like all of those that laughed at Noah while he was building that big boat.

In the end, things did not work out too well for those folks.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury......the world is a darker place without you......

Such a great mind and a political one at that.  Fahrenheit 451 is a political tome that still resonates today.  He had a good run lasting a well-deserved 91 years......but damn......men who inspire and give so much through their work shouldn't have a defined shelf life.  They should get a free pass for immortality.
Damn, it's getting dusty in this office.......

Why Do Economists Say that Ron Paul Would Be the Best President for the Economy?

PhD Economists Endorse Ron Paul

A number of well-known economists – such as Nassim Taleb, Marc Faber, Thomas Woods and Paul Craig Roberts – support Ron Paul, believing that he would help the American economy more than any other presidential candidate.
Why?
I interviewed one well-known Ron Paul supporter – Dr. Walter E. Block – to find out.
Block is an Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans, received his PhD in economics from Columbia University, and is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He has written 8 books and more than 300 scholarly articles and reviews, and co-edited dozens of books on economics.
Block just published a book called Ron Paul for President in 2012: Yes to Ron Paul and Liberty.
We asked Professor Block 10 questions related to Ron Paul. [Our follow-up comments are in brackets.]
1. Ron Paul doesn’t support government bailouts for the big banks. But if the big banks fail, won’t it drive us into another depression?
[WEB] No. In the Austrian economic view, depressions are caused by big banks (the Fed) artificially lowering interest rates.
[Austrian economists believe that lowering interest rates too far gives a false signal to businesses to gear up production and invest more, which causes a "misallocation" of resources and unsustainable bubbles ... which always lead to crashes when the bubble bursts.
In addition, top economists have said that failing to let the big banks fail when they make bad bets which lead to insolvency is preventing economic recovery.]
2. Wasn’t the Great Depression a “liquidity crisis” which was made much worse by so many bank failures?
[WEB] Read Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression on this.
[This has never been a liquidity crisis; it has always been an insolvency crisis.]
3. Paul wants to end the Federal Reserve, or at least reduce its powers. But isn’t the Fed – as the “lender of last resort” – critical for keeping us out of a depression by providing stimulus to the economy when consumers and small businesses are tapped out?
[WEB] The fed as lender of last resort is a buttress of sorts, but only because we have fractional reserve banking.
If we have 100% demand deposit banking (see below) this function wouldn’t be needed
[We agree with professor Block. And it should be noted that we no longer even have fractional reserve banking ... we now have fictional reserve banking.]
4. Isn’t the best chance of prosperity for the most people available when the government somewhat plans the economy, and operates the “levers” of economic policy to push more money into the system when things are getting tight?
[WEB] No, that’s central Sovietized planning. Prosperity comes from laissez faire capitalism.
[While many may assume that laissez faire capitalism is a bad thing, and is the cause of our problems, the truth is that we don't currently have real capitalism at all. Instead, we have - depending on the label one uses - crony capitalism, fascism, communist style socialism, kleptocracy, oligarchy or banana republic style corruption. In fact, both liberals and conservatives despise crony capitalism.]
5. Isn’t the Fed – an independent governmental agency – vital for overseeing the big banks as a watchdog, and acting “independently” of the temptations of politicians to promote monetary policy which will help them get re-elected?
[WEB] “Independent govt agency” is a recipe for disaster. Suppose they make a mistake … there would be no market forces that can force them into bankruptcy?
[Indeed. Moreover, the Fed is neither independent, nor even a government agency.]
6. Paul is a “non-interventionist”, who wants to avoid wars that President Obama and Mitt Romney say we need to fight. But isn’t war a necessary form of “military Keynesianism” … i.e. a vital way to stimulate our economy and so keep us out of an even deeper recession? Wouldn’t cutting military spending destroy our economy?
[WEB] Read my new book on this:
Block, Walter E. 2012. Ron Paul for President in 2012: Yes to Ron Paul and Liberty. Ishi Press; http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871873234; http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ron-paul-for-president-in-2012-walter-block/1110505571?ean=9784871873239.
[Many top economists say that the claim that war is good for the economy is a myth made up out of whole cloth.]
7. “Austerians” – as Paul Krugman call them – want to reduce our national debt. But isn’t it true – as both liberal and conservative economists have said – that “debt doesn’t matter”? And don’t we have to spend a little more now to get our economy out of the ditch, and then we’ll be more frugal later … when things are stable?
[WEB] We monetize that debt, which creates inflation, lowers interest rates, created booms and then busts.
8. Isn’t the “business cycle” largely responsible for the bad economy? Aren’t “booms” and “busts” part of the nature of things, like seasons?
[WEB] No, they emanate from the Fed. In the fully free society, there would be no such thing as the business cycle. See Rothbard’s Depressions: Their Cause and Cure.
9. Radicals think that we should let our most important companies fail if they’ve made dumb bets, or even that we should put Wall Street executives in jail for “fraud”. But wouldn’t both things undermine people’s trust in our economy, and depress our economy even more?
[WEB] No business should be too big to fail. Trust in the economy is highly overvalued. I oppose putting executives in jail for losing money, unless they are guilty of actual fraud.
[Happy talk and band-aid fixes cannot fix the economy. Blind trust in the stability of banks which have made foolish gambles is not helpful. But restoring trust in the honesty of one another - by prosecuting financial fraud - is vital. Conservative free market advocates and liberals both agree on this basic point.]
10. The May jobs report is a disaster. Paul Krugman (who – like the chairmen of the Fed – advocate blowing bubble after bubble in order to minimize the damage from the bursting of previous bubbles) and other Keynesians blame a failure of the government to spend more, and to do more quantitative easing and other monetary stimulus of the economy.
Do you think that government spending and stimulus are the solution to unemployment? Do you think that the government should blow another bubble in order to increase unemployment?
[WEB] These bubbles only cause inflation. They do nothing to rectify our problems. the Fed should stop this. We ought to end the Fed, and adopt a 100% dollar back gold standard.
[Even the "Central Banks' Central Bank" - the Bank for International Settlements - slammed the Fed and other central banks for blowing bubbles and using other "gimmicks" which only make the economy worse.]

Five Land Mines of Disinformation In The Global Infowar Against Bilderberg

1. Bilderberg Is Just A Talking Shop.
The record of history proves to the contrary. Bilderberg is the West’s foremost policy hub. As Paul Joseph Watson writes, “Bilderberg is not merely a talking shop but an active consensus-making forum for people in positions of power.”
Bilderberg has been instrumental in setting up the European Union, ensuring that the U.S. dollar remains the world reserve currency, controlling the global oil market, and constructing America’s pro-terrorist Middle East policy. In the past, Bilderberg attendees have recommended that Washington and London prop up Islamic extremists to take down secular nationalists in Middle Eastern countries and intimidate Russia. And there are so many world events that Bilderberg conspirators have caused, from the false flag 9/11 events to the Federal Reserve-engineered global financial crisis.
2. Secrecy Is Necessary For The Survival of Civilization And The Planet.
Secrecy and power don’t produce good results for the vast majority of humanity. Those who wield power secretly for their own private ends are tyrants. And they deserve the fate of tyrants. Secrecy is not necessary for the survival of the human species, human civilization, and the planet. It is only necessary for the survival of the corrupt transnational military-industrial-bankster complex that has taken Washington and the Western world hostage.
The Bilderberg Group is not interested in saving the Earth, but in saving themselves. Allowing them to exercise power behind closed doors for their own benefit will lead to the death of civilization.
3. Bilderberg Is Good, And The People Are Bad.
The Bilderbergers are not the elite of the Earth, they are the scum of the Earth. They are dishonourable thieves and liars. They have no sense of morality, honour, and humanity.
The degenerative Western corporate “elite” don’t want to raise the people out of the darkness, out of poverty, and out of the gutter, but keep them down there like rats and shove mud in their mouth and souls. The belief that the stupid masses deserve to be impoverished, cheated, deceived, and destroyed is demonstrative of a cowardly, criminal, and hateful state of mind. Bilderberg is a low-life group of criminals who hate the free market, the rule of law, the spirit of independence, human enlightenment, the spread of evolutionary knowledge, truth, peace, kindness, generosity, and all of the human values that most of us cherish as the bedrock of a decent, positive, and successful society.
4. The Bilderberg World Coup Plotters Have Already Won So There Is No Point In Protesting.
There is this idea that: “What’s done is done. Everything is written in stone. An authoritarian and technocratic global government is inevitable. This is evolution. This is about survival. The powers that be are going to win, so why should I risk my life and career exposing them and protesting what they do in secret? I can’t make any difference.”
This is a coward’s answer to tyranny. New media journalists and activists have made a huge dent in the “invisible” image of the Bilderberg group. They are no longer invisible. Before, these snakes plotted mankind’s destruction in the dark, but dedicated activists have exposed their evil war on humanity and that is a positive development that cannot be denied and dismissed. Now, the world can’t say, “We didn’t know.” Thanks to politically conscious activists and new media journalists, the world has been warned of the threat to humanity and civilization posed by the Bilderberg oligarchy.
5. People Who Protest Against Bilderberg Are Not Heroes, But “Conspiracy Theorists.”
The Huffington Post’s article on the 2012 Bilderberg conference called,“Bilderberg 2012: Global Leaders Gather For Shadowy Conference At Virginia Hotel,” began with the ritualistic and propagandistic label “Conspiracy theorists.” This label is used by the official media organs of the totalitarian governments of the West to erase the existence of millions of people and deny them their humanity. But the trick of words no longer works. People are waking up. 9/11 has been exposed as an inside job. The rotten Bilderberg criminals and conspirators have been outed by new media journalists who are live streaming the media revolution and the Bilderberg apocalypse.
The label “conspiracy theorist” no longer applies to 9/11 truth activists and Occupy Bilderberg protesters. The label “hero” is a more honest description.

Getting Real, Real Fast

Your blissfully unaware family and friends notwithstanding, the global financial "situation" appears to be deteriorating rapidly. I hope you have prepared accordingly.
First this morning, I suppose we should address this month's BLSBS. As you know, the period between 8:25 EDT and 8:35 EDT on the first Friday of the month is the only time all month when I actually watch CNBS. Today, the usual crowd of misfits populated my screen. There was The Shill happily expecting glorious growth. The Coug was prowling and LIESman was stuttering, as usual. Then, the party ended when we went "Live to Hampton Pearson at the Labor Department". No real reason for me to rehash the dismal numbers with you as I'm sure you've had enough of that already. I don't wish to add some color, however.

• The media will tell you today that gold is rallying on fresh "hopes" on more QE. Bunk. This is not true. Gold is rallying on fear. If gold was rallying on QE, why are stocks down? Why is crude down? Additionally, gold is rallying and extending gains because of a squeeze in the massive spec short position that has been built up over the past month or so.
• The last commercial I saw before the numbers were released was a promo for a CNBS program that promises to "show you how you can profit from the declining euro". Looks like the bottom is close there.
• The printed NFP was +69,000 but the "birth/death adjustment" was +204,000. This means that, without the BLS statistical make-believe, the actual number might be -135,000. I wonder how shiny LIESman's head will get as he attempts to spin that? Chances are he won't even try.
• The 10-year note is now at 1.47%. This is incredible! Even using the nonsensical and worthless CPI, the 10-yr now has a -1.0% real (inflation-adjusted) annual return.
• The 30-year Long Bond is at 2.55%. Never in my life did I think I would see the day when the Long Bond yield fell below the stated rate of inflation. Well, OK, maybe I thought it was possible that the Long Bond might yield 10% when the CPI was 12% but parity? At 2.5% Amazing!
• And crude is now down over 20% in the past month alone. This in spite of the ongoing, geo-political risk in The Middle East.

Speaking of crude, anyone thinking of buying some had better take a long, hard look at the chart below.

(I just snuck a peek at gold here at 10:10 EDT. UP to $1610. Wow! Continuing to rally post the PM fix. Very surprising.)
As stated above, the metals soared on the BLSBS and are continuing to rally. Fear, short-squeezing and QE anticipation are driving things higher. For gold, a move through and close above $1610 would be very exciting. Your short-term target to watch in silver is $29.

I mentioned negative, real interest rates above. Remember, negative real rates are a hugely positive indicator for the precious metals

Europe Will Trigger US

The European mess proceeds with no reasonable solution possible. The problem countries are hopelessly bankrupt. Saving them is unlikely and may bankrupt the rest of Europe.

Tyler Durden expresses his opinion of the options:

From here on out, the alternatives have been discussed to death and are clear as day: either the ECB, and the global central bank syndicate, inflates away the debt, which can only happen if Germany gives the ECB a carte blanche to print up the the $3-5 trillion required to backstop the European financial system, or we proceed straight to an instance of “Odius debt”/debt moratorium/write down, which however with trillions in daisy-chained, rehypothecated, partly submerged within the broker-dealer mediated shadow banking system, liabilities permeating throughout the global financial system, the outcome would be a tremor that shakes the very foundations of the financial system, in the process also impairing the $1 quadrillion OTC derivative credit money pyramid. In other words: nobody wants to, pardon, nobody dares to do anything, and the best Europe, and by implication the world, can hope for is to survive day to day, without launching the terminal financial D-Day. Pritchard’s summary of next steps is expected: “The result of Europe’s policy paralysis is more likely to be a disorderly break-up as Spain – and others – act desperately in their own national interest. Se salve quien pueda.” Only it is not only Europe. It is the entire world. But it will start in Europe. And specifically Spain, which unlike Greece is too big to be swept under the rug. It is also a place where the zombies are now congregating.

Ultimately Europe will fail, although the hemlock they choose is still in doubt. Ultimately too, the interconnectedness of financial markets will bring the failure across the ocean to the US. Then we too will follow suit.
The inevitability of this results from the fact that all Western economies are paper-mache models of real economies. All are inflated to be bigger than they are by debt that cannot be supported.