Business

Hoo boy. Newell Normand, the Republican sheriff of Jefferson Parish (suburban New Orleans), seeing the complete disaster that former Gov. Bobby Jindal and the GOP-run legislature made of the state’s fiscal situation, is volubly repenting. Excerpts:

“The state budget, what a mess,” Normand said. “Bobby Jindal was a better cult leader than Jim Jones. We drank the elixir for eight years. We remained in a conscious state. We walked to the edge of the cliff and we jumped off and he watched us.

In his latest must read presentation, Citigroup's Matt King continues to expose and mock the increasing helplessness and cluelessness of central bankers, something this website has done since 2009 knowing full well how it all ends (incidentally not in a deflationary whimper, quite the opposite).

Submitted by Axel Merk via Merk Investments,

Gold never changes; it's the world around it that does. Why is it that we see a renewed interest in gold now? And more importantly, should investors buy this precious metal?

Key attributes in a 'changing world' that may be relevant to the price of gold are fear and interest rates. Let's examine these:

Gold & Fear

Regular readers know Tim Leissner.

Leissner was the powerful Goldman banker responsible for financing Malaysian PM Najib Razak’s giant slush fund, known as 1MDB.

After yesterday's strong 2Year auction, there was some confusion how today's issue of $34 billion in 5 Year paper would transpire, especially after the previously reported "technical difficulties" which prevented the NY Fed from conducting today's MBS POMO - something that has not happened in years. Well, the results are in and the auction was an absolute blockbuster.