Does China believe that we are on the verge of a major global crisis? The communist Chinese government has always been very big into planning, and it appears that they have decided that now is the time to hoard food, gold and other commodities. Of course in recent days the fact that China is completely cutting off U.S. agricultural imports has made headlines all over the globe, but at the same time China is dramatically increasing the amount of food that it is importing from the rest of the world. The end result is actually a substantial surge in Chinese imports, and this is starting to show up in the official numbers. For example, we just learned that Chinese soybean imports in July were actually up 8 percent compared to last year… (Read More...)
Commodities
10 Quotes From Financial Experts About The Effect That QE3 Will Have On Gold And Silver
Do you want to know what QE3 is going to do to the price of gold and the price of silver? Well, you can read what the financial experts are saying below, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is likely to happen. During QE3, the Federal Reserve will be introducing 40 billion new dollars that have been created out of nothing into the financial system each month. So there will be more dollars chasing roughly the same number of goods and services, and that means that more inflation is on the way. In an inflationary environment, investors tend to flock to hard assets such as gold and silver. And it is important to remember that a lot of the money from QE1 and QE2 ended up pumping up the prices of various financial assets. This included commodities such as gold and silver. The same thing is likely to happen again with QE3. In addition, investors now have an expectation that the Fed will continue printing money for the foreseeable future and that the U.S. dollar is going to steadily decline, and that expectation will also likely give further momentum to the upward movement of gold and silver. Of course when it comes to investing, there is never a “sure thing” and as the global financial system falls apart in the coming years we are likely to see wild swings in the financial markets. So there is definitely an opportunity when it comes to gold and silver, but anyone that wants to invest in gold and silver needs to be ready for a wild ride. (Read More...)
10 Shocking Quotes About What QE3 Is Going To Do To America
Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish. The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity. But that didn’t happen with either QE1 or QE2. Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money. As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending? Of course not. In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs. As I showed in a previous article, the employment level did not jump up as a result of either QE1 or QE2. So why will this time be different? But what did happen under both QE1 and QE2 is that a lot of the money ended up pumping up the financial markets. So once again we should see stock prices go up (at least in the short-term) and commodities such as gold, silver, food and oil should also rise. But that also means that average American families will be paying more for the basic necessities that they buy on a regular basis. The most dangerous aspect of QE3, however, is what it is going to do to the U.S. dollar. Most of the rest of the world uses the U.S. dollar to conduct international trade, and by choosing to recklessly print money Ben Bernanke is severely damaging international confidence in our currency. If at some point the rest of the world rejects the dollar and no longer wants to use it as a reserve currency we are going to be facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before. The real debate about QE3 should not be about whether or not it will help the economy a little bit in the short-term. Rather, everyone should be talking about the long-term implications and about how QE3 is going to accelerate the destruction of the dollar. (Read More...)
Will The Death Of The Dollar Lead To The Birth Of A New World Economic Order?
There is no getting around it. The U.S. dollar is dying. U.S. government debt continues to grow at a very frightening pace and the Federal Reserve is now buying up most of the new debt that is being issued. At this point there is simply not enough money in the rest of the world to continue to feed the U.S. government’s endless thirst for more debt so the Federal Reserve has had to directly intervene in order to keep the Ponzi scheme going. Other nations are rapidly losing faith in the U.S. dollar as they realize that there is simply no way that the U.S. government will be able to service this soaring debt for much longer. Even now we are watching the U.S. dollar rapidly fall against a vast array of hard assets. Virtually all major agricultural commodities have exploded in price over the past year, the price of gold is over $1400 an ounce again and last week U.S. crude oil prices topped $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to print dollars as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government continues to spend dollars as if the party is never going to end. Yes, we are most definitely witnessing the death of the dollar. (Read More...)
47 Statistics That Indicate That Economic Stress Points In 2011 Could Be Setting The Stage For A Global Economic Meltdown In 2012
Is the world approaching a devastating global economic meltdown? Right now there are a large number of factors that are creating economic stress points all over the globe. All of the crazy money printing that the Federal Reserve and other central banks have been doing is putting inflationary pressure on agricultural commodities, oil and precious metals. Massive floods, horrific droughts and extreme weather patterns all over the globe are ruining crops and creating food shortages. Some nations are now actually hoarding food, and in other nations rising prices have sparked food riots. The price of oil has been moving back towards $100 a barrel, and if it stays at a high level for an extended period of time that is going to have very serious consequences for the global economy. In addition, the growing sovereign debt crisis could erupt again at any time. Half a dozen nations in Europe are on the verge of insolvency, Japan’s national debt is now well over 200 percent of GDP, and the global financial system is growing increasingly concerned about the exploding national debt of the United States. The truth is that the entire world financial system is a house of cards balanced on a razor’s edge and it could come down at any time. (Read More...)
Food Crisis 2011? 14 Disturbing Facts That Make You Wonder If The Coming Global Food Shortage Has Already Begun
Will 2011 be the year that we point to as the beginning of the great global food crisis? Food prices are soaring, supplies are very tight and already we have seen some very intense food protests flare up around the globe this year. When people don’t have enough to eat, they tend to become very desperate, and unfortunately it looks like the global food situation is not going to improve much any time soon. Right now the world is really struggling to feed itself, and with each passing day there are even more mouths to feed. It is being projected that the population of the world will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050. There are already way too many people starving to death around the globe, and unfortunately starvation is only going to become more rampant as food supplies get even tighter. Some of the key food producing provinces in China are facing their worst drought in 200 years. Flooding has absolutely devastated agricultural production in Australia and Brazil this winter. Russia is still trying to recover from the horrific drought of last summer. Global weather patterns have gone haywire over the past 12 months, and this is putting immense pressure on a global food system that was already on the verge of a major breakdown. (Read More...)
9 Signs That The Price Of Oil In 2011 Will Soar Well Beyond 100 Dollars A Barrel
Will we see the price of oil rise significantly in 2011? Unfortunately, that appears to be precisely where we are headed. Despite stubbornly high unemployment and a very sluggish economy in the United States, the price of oil continues to creep upward. Part of it can be attributed to the fact that the U.S. dollar and other major currencies are continuing to lose value relative to all commodities, and part of it can be attributed to the continuing rise in the global demand for oil. But those factors alone do not explain what we are seeing. Expectations are a very powerful thing, especially for financial markets, and right now there is an overwhelming consensus that oil prices are going to rise in 2011. The big oil companies, the big oil exporting nations and the big investment banks are nearly all in agreement that a higher price for oil is coming and the speculators smell money and are starting to jump on to the bandwagon. (Read More...)
The 2010 Commodity Bubble
Over the past several decades, the world financial system has produced a seemingly endless series of bubbles. For example, there was the “dot com bubble”, the “housing bubble” and the “yen carry trade”. So what bubbles are being created currently? Well, nobody wants much real estate right now and investors are still a bit wary of the stock market. Instead, money has been flooding into U.S. Treasuries and into commodities. In 2010, agricultural commodities have been going crazy, precious metals have been setting records and even the price of oil is now starting to move up. All over the globe, there is a growing lack of trust in paper currencies, and that is helping to fuel the move towards commodities. Unfortunately, “the 2010 commodity bubble” is going to have a very real impact on American consumers. As the prices of wheat, corn, pork and oil continue to rise on world markets, it is inevitable that those price increases will be passed on to the rest of us. (Read More...)