By John Rubino
Your ringside seat to the coming global financial collapse
What can you say about crypto-currencies that hasn't been said already. However, Kerry and I are proposing a new form of crypto backed up by Tulips, preferably the Dutch variety. After all, Tulip prices only go up, right? And what...
Terrorist attacks have become a regular occurrence in England. What can be done about it? Seems like there's always a reason why they didn't stop the guys from carrying out the attack, even though they were well aware of them...
Employment numbers came in highly negative. Full time employment down, bartenders and part-timer employment went up. This is bad news for the economy and gold/silver is going up as result. Illinois's debt was downgraded to slightly above junk. The emerging...
Trump's first overseas trip have proved and unmitigated success. While it looks good now, we've never been able to figure out the right move in the Middle East. It won't be settled anytime soon and expect periodic flare-ups. But defense stocks are...
It's no secret that finding the mother lode keeps getting harder and harder to do. A new generation of miners is entering the industry. They are younger, creative and don't hesitate to utilize the best new technologies that are revolutionizing the industry....
Kerry and John discuss - News from China says that the world's largest aluminum producer, China Hongqiao Group, is on the brink of insolvency. This is a company that's nearly twice the size of Alcoa. It's been showing amazing growth and...
Debt is still growing way faster than GDP. Therefore, we're just digging a bigger hole. For most of the past 6 months it looked like we had a real recovery going. But that was an illusion. The Atlanta Fed has...
Inflation is back, thanks to the past year's global debt and money printing binge. Meanwhile populist politicians are gaining traction in Europe, threatening both the European Union and the eurozone. The world has never seen this combination of excessive financial...
The news is slow. Not much coming out of Trump. Not much coming out of Europe. Outside of the Academy Awards debacle last night, there's not much going on. We're due for something to happen shortly. Could it be the...
A new administration means new policies. But the only up to a point. Debt will continue to soar, which means financial instability will only intensify. And the business cycle will do its thing regardless of who's in office -- which...
Since the presidential election, US equities have been soaring – which is reminiscent of 1999 and 2006 when investors decided that “this time it’s different” and were therefore willing to buy stocks at pretty much any price. Like those previous...
It's rare for the world to worry about Italy. But Sunday's referendum has the global Establishment on the edge of its seat. The worst case scenario -- from the Establishment point of view -- is the vote going against the government, causing...
The presidential campaign is just about over, which means the US will soon start reversing out the surprisingly good numbers it has reported lately. Gold is still looking for a bottom and could find one before year-end. And the groundwork...
Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, the Italian banks...it's getting ugly across the pond and the worst is yet to come. Here's a brief explanation of why that's so, including derivatives, ridiculous capital rules, dumb lending practices and, of course, negative interest rates....
Last week the Fed found out what will happen if it raises rates: The global financial markets will melt down. So this morning a new member of the central bank's seemingly endless army of talking heads said some soothing words,...
It's becoming clear to a growing number of people that the world's central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, have no idea what they're doing. Yet they keep on making threats, predictions and other nonsensical statements, most of which are...
Normally, when one asset class is expensive others are cheap, making it reasonably easy to use historical relationships to decide where to invest. That's not the case today. Every major asset class, including stocks, bonds and even precious metals, are...
Terrorists and other crazies have figured out that they don't need guns. Trucks, axes and machetes will do just fine. Meanwhile, political parties around the world are imploding or otherwise descending into chaos. Welcome to the new normal, where excessive...
Brexit looked like the end of the world -- until people figured out that central banks would have to ease in response. Then markets turned positively jubilant with US stocks, for example, hitting record highs. The result: A world of...
Italian banks are collapsing, with Germany's Deutsche Bank not far behind. Anti-euro parties now lead polling in France and Italy. Interest rates around the world are plunging. Add it all up and it's clear that the developed world is heading...
Expect the UK to drop out of the headlines as it grapples with the nuts and bolts of choosing new leaders and untangling itself from the EU. The big news going forward will be the trend Brexit started, as other...
Brexit is dominating this week's headlines, but the event itself is less important than what it signifies, which is the increasing loss of faith in governments and central banks. Voters no longer trust big institutions to act in their best...
With the terrorist attack in Orlando world markets have headed down. It’s looking more and more likely that there will be a Brexit. What impact will it have? Will other countries follow? The system is ripe for a further unraveling....
John and I discuss the upcoming referendum in California, where barring a conservative reformation in the state, will certainly pass. Recent polls show 60 percent of the public in favor. This provides and interesting contrast in constitutional views of the...
Watch Brexit, the Movie, to understand why Britain might just leave the EU -- and why other members should leave as well. Meanwhile, the Saudis are apparently out of money, the bricks and mortar retailers are out of customers and Wall...
Macy's reports horrendous earnings and Italian banks finally reveal their non-performing loans. Share prices plunge accordingly. China, meanwhile, admits that it's over-leveraged and promises to stop borrowing. In other words, wherever you look, a global slowdown is coming and a...
China's most recent borrowing binge didn't work. Japanese and European negative interest rates resulted in their currencies going up, not down as they hoped. Global growth is slowing. Inflation is nonexistent and debt keeps rising. Only gold and silver are...
Combine record-high stock prices with weak corporate earnings, a too-strong dollar and rising turmoil in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and the result is a dangerously vulnerable market. Time to go "risk-off", in other words. But don't forget to keep...
Goldman, Morgan Stanley and IBM release numbers that look, well, depression-like. Housing starts plunge, gold and silver spike, China's bond market seizes up, and Deutsche Bank prepares to name names in its gold manipulation scandal. And US stocks keep rising...what's...
Most US companies will report earnings this month, and most analysts think the results will depressing. That's bad news for stock prices and might add to the (already considerable) pressure on governments to step up their stimulus programs. Gold and...
Between the "Panama papers" and the DC Madam's customer list, we might be witnessing the end of personal (and corporate and government) privacy. The result? Less financial and geopolitical risk-taking and more gold buying. But don't get burned by failing...
It's just about official: With corporate sales and profits shrinking and consumer spending flatlining, the US economy will grow hardly at all this year while the rest of the world will probably drop back into recession. The result: Massive policy...
If easy money has stopped working, then what's left? Massive deficits, of course. Pressure is building on governments around the world to increase spending and pay for it with borrowed funds. Sound familiar? It should, since it's what they've been...
What do record corporate share repurchases, the rise of Modern Monetary Theory, China's attempts to support its currency and Europe's political turmoil have in common? They're all examples of big players on the global stage repeating the same behaviors while...
Over the next couple of weeks the Chinese, European, US and possibly Japanese central banks will say things that move the markets. None of this will change the fact that the global economy is slipping into a deflationary depression, but...
Gold just finished its best two months in several years, and a prominent gold mining analyst has finally turned bullish. Meanwhile, the European Union continues to suffer the death of a thousand cuts, with Britain threatening to leave and other...
Money is pouring out of banks and into home safes, leading to calls for the elimination of cash. Britons are thinking of leaving the EU, sending the pound sterling down and gold up (in pound terms). Silicon Valley unicorns are...
Another Monday, another extreme market move. This time, though, underlying conditions are changing in an especially serious way. European banks are running into various kinds of trouble that, if not resolved in a hurry, might lead to a replay of...
A few weeks of falling stock prices have led the world's central banks to respond in their usual way, with lower interest rates and easier money -- in other words with the same policies that failed to prevent the ongoing...
Last week's dead cat bounce ended with a thud on Monday. Oil plunged, stocks retraced more than half of their bounce, and a couple of manufacturing reports reinforced the sense that the US is tipping into recession. Meanwhile, political systems...
On Monday, stocks tanked around the world and so did oil, breaking $27. On Tuesday things looked better. Central banks were jawboning, with Mario Draghi making noises about intervening. The Chinese were also busy buying stocks. The true test is...
For US stock markets, last week was the worst start to a year EVER. And lots of other countries were hit even harder. What happened? In two words, debt and China. We've borrowed way too much money in the past...
The sound money community woke up this morning to a world finally behaving rationally — which is to say cowering in abject terror at the prospect of insane levels of debt, criminal incompetence at most major governments and geopolitical turmoil...
2016 is off to an eventful start. Already, Iran and Saudi Arabia have blundered into a Middle East confrontation while China has had to close its stock markets to prevent a melt-down. On Monday the turmoil spread to the developed...
Gold is down in the US but rising in most other places. Could this be the start of the next bull market in precious metals and mining stocks? Meanwhile, the shape of next year's monetary policy is becoming more clear,...
The Dallas Fed just announced the Texas numbers and they are terrible. The manufacturing report is abysmal at negative 20. Texas is heading into a recession due to the oil price implosion. What's really bad is that the Oil Patch...
Three smaller stories -- a debt default by a Mexican construction firm, Spain's recent election of an anti-euro government, and Brazil's replacement of its finance minister with an easy-money political operative -- combine to paint a picture of a world...
John writes, "Sometimes one big event dominates the landscape, like last week when the Fed raised interest rates. Other times a bunch of less-universally-significant-things add up to a meaningful story. And the story that follows here is, of course (given...
Interest rates were finally increased after many years of threats/promises by the Fed. Economic numbers coming out of the Philadelphia Fed are decidedly negative and portend more economic weakness. Oil prices are going lower and there's stories of tankers full...
John writes, "For a while there, companies deemed to be highly risky were nonetheless able to borrow money for less than 6%. And borrow they did. Frackers, ultra-high-leverage retail chains and various other close-to-the-edge entities slurped up trillions from yield-starved...
