Submitted by David Howden via The Mises Institute,
Last year was a tough one for investors. Gold was down 10 percent. The Dow Industrials fell 2.5 percent, and most bond indexes finished down by at least that much.
Submitted by Shane Obata & Richardson GMP
The Golden Age
Some people say that gold is dead. They point to deflationary pressures and a bear market that started back in September of 2011. The bulls have been wrong for years; however, that may be about to change…
At present, there a multiple reasons to consider gold:
If there’s one thing China hates, it’s a nefarious “manipulator” spreading innuendo, and fear in an already nervous market.
When these evildoers are Chinese citizens, the problem is easily solved. Beijing simply arrests them and beats a confession out them or else simply locks them away in the bowels of the Politburo for the remainder of their days. This is what we saw late last summer when Xi moved to crackdown on what the government claimed were multiple bad actors creating volatility and exacerbating the stock market rout.
Crazy, right? Perhaps not. For the first time since the financial crisis credit conditions have tightened for two consecutive quarters, something which have never happened without preceding a recession. That's all well and good, however, most problematic is its extremely tight correlation to nonfarm payrolls through the cycle... and that is flashing the 'reddest' since 2009.
We have seen this pattern of last ditch desperation hiring before - at the peak in 2007...
Submitted by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,
Remember the mass layoffs of 2008-2009? The US economy shed millions of jobs quickly and relentlessly, as companies died and the rest fought for survival.