Rising Food Prices are No Laughing Matter

Posted on October 12, 2012 by MN Gordon

The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday that wholesale inventories rose 0.5 percent in August.  What’s more, according to the Commerce Department sales at wholesalers rose 0.9 percent in August…the first increase since April.  What this means exactly we don’t quite know.  But the experts have some ideas…

Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BMP Paribas in New York, says it’s a sign “companies want to stay cautious ahead of the Presidential election.”  Peter Newland, of Barclays, reviewed the same report and concluded it “offered an encouraging sign that demand is beginning to rebound.”

In other words, no one really knows what these numbers mean.  Yet even if they did, what good would they be?

For the life of us, we can’t comprehend what value these numbers have.  What we mean is the integrity of economic data has become as questionable as the sincerity of a John Edwards paternity admission. Continue reading →

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Mandated Scarcity in the Land of Fruits and Nuts

Posted on October 9, 2012 by MN Gordon

Last Wednesday night, following the Presidential debate, we stepped outside our back stoop and were greeted with the displeasure of a sulfurous odor.  It singed our nose hairs.  It burned our eyes.  We could practically taste it.

At first we thought it was migrational tailings of the gigantic egg President Obama had just laid in Denver wafting over the Rocky Mountains, through the inland desert states, and across the Los Angeles Basin…before settling over Long Beach and the San Pedro Bay.  But after a little reconnaissance we learned a hiccup at one of the gasoline refineries in the harbor had belched forth the foul odor.

By Thursday morning the air was fresh.  Yet on our way to work we learned that a series of hiccups at refineries across the state had resulted in rapidly escalating gas prices.  A power outage at Exxon Mobile’s Torrance refinery limited its service all week.  Plus, Chevron’s Richmond refinery has been at reduced production after an August 6 fire.

When we left work Thursday evening prices had jumped to $4.40 per gallon for regular unleaded gas. Continue reading →

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When Owning Gold Made You a Target for Execution

Posted on October 5, 2012 by MN Gordon

When Owning Gold Made You a Target for Execution
By Doug Hornig, Hard Assets Alliance

They sewed the gold into their clothing, grabbed only what they could carry, and hoped they weren’t caught…

Vietnam 1975: As the Communists marched south, countless terrified Vietnamese – mainly middle-class business families who were ideologically opposite to the approaching forces – fled for their lives.

The well-to-do, the well-informed, and the well-prepared had seen the writing on the wall earlier than most.  They arranged safe passage and had already moved themselves and their assets out of harm’s way.

Now though, as their country looked set to fall to communism, it was the middle classes who feared imprisonment, torture, and execution if they stayed in their homeland.

They were pouring out of the country in any way they could.

Many left had to be airlifted out – 125,000 of them in the spring of 1975, just prior to the fall of Saigon.  Before they left, those with possessions of worth – primarily the middle-class business community in Saigon – sold everything they had.  Every vehicle, every stick of furniture, piece of art, and family heirloom.  Sold. Continue reading →

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When the Gravy Train Jumps the Tracks

Posted on October 2, 2012 by MN Gordon

The future consequences of all that has been done to the financial system and the economy over the last four years – from late 2008 to the present – are largely not understood.  There seems to be some broad impression that the stability of the pre-Lehman default era is gone forever.  But it’s not generally acceptable to talk about in front of polite company.

At present the task falls squarely on the shoulders of oddballs, cranks, and killjoys.  We, of course, are part of this sour cast.  We don’t dwell on it.  Rather we get to it, like we get to most things…with a sharpened pencil, questioning spirit, and the stubborn persistence of a pack mule.

No doubt, by the November 4, 2008 presidential election night, the financial crisis had accelerated the economy’s ride down the highway to hell.  Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, and a bank that had been in business since before the Civil War, had vanished from the face of the earth less than two months prior.  About this time, the finance world watched in horror as black swans relentlessly descended upon the LIBOR like common ravens upon fresh Southern California road kill. Continue reading →

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