The Mint

Copper Price per Lb: $3.05
Oil Price per Barrel: $78.31

Key Indicators for October 4, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $5.88
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.78%
FED Target Rate: 0.08% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,624 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.4%!!! UP UP UP!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,011

M1 Monetary Base: $2,052,100,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,511,300,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, Events, The Mint

A run on BNP, Europe’s Financial Collapse begins in earnest

September 22, 2011 David Mint

9/22/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

While it was a rough day for equity markets everywhere, in light of what is occurring, they (the markets) were amazingly resilient. A testimony to how fast the monetary spigots at the Central Banks are running.

There are two events that appear to be on a collision course with destiny today (No, neither of them is the NASA space junk hurtling towards the earth). It feels as if the world is reaching a sort of inflection point in modern history. Perhaps a great awakening is about to occur. Will people’s faith in Central Banking finally be broken?

The colliding events are the Palestinian bid for official recognition by the United Nations, scheduled for tomorrow, and the emerging institutional bank run on BNP Paribas.

The Palestinian situation needs no further discussion. It is clear to most that it is an explosive topic to which the bid for recognition threatens to detonate, much in the way the Israeli Declaration of Independence ignited war in Palestine in 1948.

The Institutional run on BNP Paribas is an event that is occurring as we write and it is unclear how it will play out. Reggie Middleton at the BoomBustBlog, is chronicling this event in real time. If you are interested, we highly recommend following the event there.

EU-flag — Real Money Fleeing the Continent!

We have read reports of Lloyds of London, the famous Insurance Marketplace, pulling a great deal of its deposits out of banks on the continent. We have also read reports of Siemens pulling deposits and parking them directly at the ECB.

Then there was the report of the ECB making an emergency loan of $500 million US Dollars to an unidentified bank (read BNP) with similar loans to other institutions in the cue. It is clear that the banking crisis in France is dwarfing the ability for the French government to deal with it.

There is no use pointing out the many lessons that society will learn from this, for only one is expedient at the moment. That lesson is that digital bits on a computer screen or numbers on a bank statement are worthless if the counterparty cannot make good on their commitments.

The run on BNP will intensify the focus on Western Central Banks, which have balance sheets that make BNP, BAC, and all of the other large sinking banks look good by comparison. This is important because a good part of the world is to some extent a counterparty to the Central Banks.

Need proof? Open your wallet. If you have US Dollars or Euros, you are a counterparty to (owed money by) the Federal Reserve or the ECB, whose management is currently buying every worthless paper asset on the planet with leverage that is unimaginable for mere mortals.

Dollar and Euros are about to become extremely hot potatoes, which makes trading them for potatoes, spuds, or anything real, a real good idea.

Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and that tomorrow passes uneventfully on all fronts.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $3.45
Oil Price per Barrel: $80.41

Key Indicators for September 22, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.50
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.72%
FED Target Rate: 0.08% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,736 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.4%!!! UP UP UP!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,734

M1 Monetary Base: $2,010,000,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,541,800,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, Politics, The Mint

Markets go up, Slovenia goes down, Dissing the State, Embracing Anarchy

September 20, 2011 David Mint

9/20/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The Stock market is absolutely resilient in the face of news ranging from bad to UGLY. Presumably, the slow motion debt market collapse occurring in Europe is priced in, and it may be this very collapse that is driving money into US equities. In the insane “debt is money” system, the money can only go so many places, and there is currently so much money sloshing around that it is a wonder everything isn’t going up in price.

Oh, wait, it is! The CPI came in at 0.4% for August. Nothing to write home about but at this pace the annual CPI could hit 5%, well above the FED’s 2% target.

And we haven’t seen anything yet. Tomorrow, the Federal Reserve will meet and be expected to “do something.” Lately, “do something” has meant that the FED offers to throw perfectly good Federal Reserve notes at various forms of bad paper issued by companies and governments who never intend to make good on them.

At this stage in the game, it is now a given that if perfectly willing market participants won’t buy the paper, surely the FED must do it. “So what?” say you, “Let the FED waste its own money!” If only it were that simple, fellow taxpayer.

Unfortunately, the FED’s money, by decree, is everybody’s money. Every bad decision by the FED reduces the purchasing power of every dollar holder on the planet, making nearly all of us involuntary shareholders of this worthless enterprise, and management at the FED has been making some very bad decisions with very large sums for about four years now.

As a concerned involuntary shareholder of the FED we are compelled to offer the following unsolicited advice: Why not just wait until January, when the 0% FED funds “trickle” their way down to Main Street? Then things will really be interesting. That is when the US Dollar in its present form will go the way of every other paper currency in the history of mankind.

Fellow taxpayer, prudence demands that one make immediate plans to replace anything that depends upon the value of the US Dollar with something real. By the time the FED gets around to doing it for you, by introducing a New Dollar, current inaction will have caused anyone with faith in the dollar to suffer horrendously tremendous losses in relative purchasing power.

Back in the rotting old world, to quote Nabokov, the Euro debacle just became more complicated as the Slovenian government failed a confidence vote. The President is now left trying to cobble together a government and the rest of the Eurozone will presumably have to wait at least 30 days to get Slovenia’s approval for the next round of good money to be thrown at Greece.

It is useless to point out that the Eurozone governments, like their American counterparts, are simply throwing good money after bad. As we have observed here before, throwing money at failing enterprises is their only solution. Besides, they have banking interests to protect. Soon they will be spreading propaganda that ATMs won’t spit out Euros and the world will end if the Greeks are not supported.

That may be true, but these unpleasant outcomes will eventually come to pass no matter what the Euro FEDs do.

This is how the State, which by definition can do nothing but destroy wealth, operates. Western societies, and dare we say, the entire world are now beginning to suffocate under the weight of the current form of welfare/warfare state which exists to make promises on behalf of its productive citizens to its unproductive citizens.

Then, after enslaving the productive citizens, the State then makes promises to support the banking and military interests in order to ensure that the productive citizens remain enslaved.

A_market_anarchism_flag — Is Anarchy the Answer?

At some point, each citizen decides that they are either better off becoming an unproductive citizen, working for the State taskmaster as a banker or provider of “security”, or fleeing beyond the State’s ability to enslave them. Western society is quickly approaching the tipping point where a majority of its productive citizens will be forced to make this choice.

Faced with such facts, an intelligent fellow taxpayer such as yourself is surely asking (or should be asking, if we may prompt you), “Isn’t there a better way?”

In other words, is the State really necessary? Today we read a brilliant essay on this very subject by Stefan Molyneux. We encourage you to peruse it at your leisure. You can see it by clicking on the link below:

The Stateless Society – An Examination of Alternatives

If you are limited on time, it is enough to say that Molyneux lays out compelling, logical arguments about how the free market would more effectively take care of the tasks which are currently relegated to the State. Specifically, he examines three activities which pro-State apologists claim that the free market will not solve on its own, making the State’s existence a necessity: Dispute Resolution, Collective Services, and Pollution.

After reading Molyneux’s arguments, it seems that now more than ever that embracing Anarchy is the answer to what ails society.

Much more than simply the answer, it is clear that the true chaos in not created by the Stateless Anarchist model, rather the present chaos is a product of entrusting the State with too much power.

How else can one explain how every present effort the Government uses to ”improve” its citizen’s lives serves to collectively impoverish them?

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $3.76
Oil Price per Barrel: $86.43

Key Indicators for September 20, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.90
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.94%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,805 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.4%!!! UP UP UP!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,409

M1 Monetary Base: $2,101,100,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,540,500,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, The Mint

The Disguise, Greece plays roulette with the Eurocrats, How inflation will express itself in USD Prices

September 12, 2011 David Mint

9/12/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The moment of truth is approaching for Greece. Today the headlines flashed that the markets were pricing in a 98% chance of the Greeks defaulting on their sovereign debt. A great lesson is about to be learned. Is anyone paying attention?

The great lesson is the following: Reliance on governmental and/or central bank action to stave off a default is not a sound strategy. You may get lucky once, twice, even three times. If one is particularly unfortunate, the strategy may even work many times in succession.

The government reliance strategy is like idly watching spins a roulette wheel with all your chips on red. With enough spins, the ball will eventually drop on a black. Think of it as the governmental version of a black swan.

In the case of Greece, who abandoned its 2,000 year old currency to join the Euro club, there seems to be a lack of political will to ink the rubber stamp which approves the Greek’s next ration of Euros. The taskmasters of the Eurozone are starting to realize that each time the stamp is inked, the sewage of Greek finances leaks a little further into their well.

The populace is starting to get sick to their stomach, as are large banks on both sides of the Atlantic. The French banking giants are queasy because much of the Greek debt is on their books. In the New World, where about half of Greek debt is insured, the banking giants are getting nauseas. It is the nausea of a drunk man realizing he will be stuck with the bar tab after his buddies sneak out of the tavern.

Meanwhile, as the politicians and central banks continue to bungle their way through this information, the market has already priced it in.

“Priced in?” Astute, shocked, and astounded readers are surely thinking, “Then where is the crash in stocks and bonds?”

Astute readers, of course, are right. There is a crash occurring right now in stocks and bonds. However, bond yields are down and the stock market is up because the crash is occurring against the backdrop of rapidly depreciating currencies and as such, the debauched currencies are disguising the crash.

The Disguise

Astute readers now have a collective light bulb in their head illuminating as they clearly see that inflation in consumer prices is set to accelerate in the near future. Naturally, this obvious inflation would not be tolerable and as such must be masked in order for the general public to peacefully accept it.

For this acceptance to peacefully take place, the inflation must come in disguise. Here is what is likely to occur once the loosened up monetary policies of the FED, ECB, BoJ, and BoE are in sync (with apologies to the 1990’s boy band):

A new dollar will be introduced with a convertibility ratio from old dollars of 10:1. In other words, each current dollar will be the equivalent of a new dime.

Voila! No inflation here. The new and improved dollar now buys more than ever!

Why choose a 10:1 ratio? There are two compelling reasons for the US Currency to go through a reverse 10:1 split. First and foremost, it is simple. Since a majority of the world’s commerce is conducted in dollars, the disguise must be mathematically simple. What could be simpler than moving a decimal place?

The second reason is less obvious but perhaps more compelling from the point of view of the monetary authorities. The disguise would immediately eliminate the need for pennies and nickels and increase the demand for dollar coins.

At this stage in the game, it costs the US Mint more to create pennies and nickels than they are worth. While we are not certain of the exact numbers as of today, some estimates have the value of the metals needed to create a nickel valued at $0.07 while the metals needed to create a penny are valued at $0.012. This is before considering the energy and equipment necessary to strike the coins and distribute them.

At current metal prices, which are unlikely to drop in the near future, the US Mint is producing nickels and pennies at a loss.

This embarrassing detail makes the purchase of nickels and pennies a better risk free investment than US Treasury Bonds, the world’s current safe haven of choice. The metal premium for Platinum, Gold, and Silver coins is widely known. At some point, nickels and pennies will disappear from circulation and their metal premium will take precedence over their face value.

Still, one may ask, “What difference does it make? This 10:1 switch sounds like a great idea. I’m sick of pennies!”

Oh, if only the switch were price neutral, it would make no difference at all. How, then, do the stock, bond, and almost every other market continue to rally in the face of questionable macroeconomic fundamentals?

Tune in tomorrow.

Trust Jesus and Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $3.97
Oil Price per Barrel: $88.19

P.S. For more ideas and commentary please check out The Mint at www.davidmint.com

Key Indicators for September 12, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $7.34
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.93%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,814 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.5%!!! UP 0.7% IN ONE MONTH, 8.4% ANNUALLY AT THIS PACE!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,061 TO THE MOON!!!

M1 Monetary Base: $2,181,100,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,456,000,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, Jesus, The Mint

Forgiveness, the FED, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and ECB to coordinate actions, will they formally peg exchange rates?

September 9, 2011 David Mint

9/9/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Much ink is being spilled today in anticipation of what may or may not happen as the 10^th anniversary of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. Here at The Mint, we take the somewhat radical view of the Amish in response to tragic loss. We must forgive. An important part of forgiveness is to avoid making or observing a memorial to the offense. Memorializing an event is to keep it present before us.

As the US Empire is now conducting at least three extremely expensive military adventures which have their origins in the events that occurred that fateful day, forgiveness is probably not on many people’s minds this weekend. Meanwhile, millions of dollars are being spent to memorialize it.

We must forgive. It is our opportunity to choose the tree of life over the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To repair the fateful error made in Eden.

Under the cover of this memorial, we sense that an extraordinary event will occur which will impact the fortunes of many in the US, England, Japan, and Europe and others outside their borders with exposure to their respective currencies.

Debauchery

The Event which we refer to is the coordinated debauchery of their currencies.

For the past four years, the FED, BoE, BoJ, and ECB have been engaged in a desperate attempt to debauch (devalue) their currencies. They have had the predictably mediocre to poor results that one would expect from efforts made by this rare hybrid of an agency which combines the laziness of the banking class with the incompetence of the governing class.

The goal seems simple enough. Print money to pay existing debts and encourage people to spend and to take on new debt. So simple, that each of these Central Banks is currently running at their own pace down this calamitous path with little regard to how the outside world is reacting.

Guess what? The outside world is not reacting as expected.

What they did not take into account, at least until now, was that there is quite a bit of money to be made from the fact that they are all running at different paces down the same path. The nature of international finance is such that one Central Bank’s unbridled effort to debauch its currency leads to an opportunity to profit by borrowing in that nation’s currency and purchasing one of the other three currencies, which undermines the debauchery of the currency that is being purchased.

JuergenStark — Stark, as most thinking persons, cannot stomach the debauchery in his midst

This is commonly known as the carry trade, and these large Central Banks have taken all of the guess work out of it for the past four years.

We suspect that these four Central Banks see the immediate need to eliminate interest rate spreads amongst their currencies which will force those who ply the carry trade to purchase currencies outside of this group.

In effect, this ultimate coordination of interest rate policies will cause these four currencies to “peg” to each other, which should assure that the debauchery of their respective currencies will continue unchecked and likely accelerate.

According to Bloomberg, there is speculation that this type of coordination, a de facto currency peg to the dollar, could begin this weekend at the G-7 Meeting.

Will another stealth disaster befall the US this weekend? If these Central Banks somehow coordinate their collective debauchery of the currency, the economic devastation of millions will march on.

Perhaps this is why Juergen Stark has suddenly stepped down from the ECB. It will be more than any caring Bundesbank official can stomach.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $4.00
Oil Price per Barrel: $87.20

Key Indicators for September 9, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $7.26
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.92%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,856 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.5%!!! UP 0.7% IN ONE MONTH, 8.4% ANNUALLY AT THIS PACE!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,992 TO THE MOON!!!

M1 Monetary Base: $2,181,100,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,456,000,000,000YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, The Mint

The Swiss throw in the towel, Decide to Enter the Fiat Currency Battle Royal

September 6, 2011 David Mint

9/6/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We spent the weekend attacking sections of our yard that had, until now, remained a wilderness reserve due to our inner laziness. Trees, shrubs, ivy that had been allowed to grow unchecked all fell victim to our saw and lopper (which must be the best tool ever invented). The yard now appears more barren, if not civilized, than before.

Like everything, it came at a price. Our back may never be the same and working in such close company with the pines seems to have triggered a latent allergy which nearly floored us for the balance of the weekend.

Fighting nature is not a long term strategy, but it has provided a strange sort of satisfaction in the near term.

This is the same sort of satisfaction that the Swiss National Bank must be feeling after they arbitrarily decided to cap the Franc:Euro exchange rate at 1.2:1, effectively throwing their lot in with the doomed Euro. From the Wall Street Journal:

“The SNB said Tuesday that it would “no longer tolerate” the euro falling below the minimum rate. In a statement, it said it will enforce the limit with “the utmost determination and is prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities.”

While this type of action should come as no surprise to our readers, it is significant because the Swiss have traditionally been a sort of neutral safe haven on a number of fronts, not the least of which being money and banking.

Their abstention from joining the Euro in the first place was a testament to this. Their capitulation today simply gives more credence to the extraordinary pressures that the competitive devaluation of all fiat currencies is placing on those Central Banks which for one reason or another have chosen not to compete.

The Swiss currency has been under siege ever since its neighbors embarked on the Euro currency experiment. Being the ingenious people that they are, the Swiss, with their mountain bunker airbases and underground buildings, were able to hold out for a long time.

What finally sent them over the edge? We are not certain but we can only imagine that, as the Franc soared unwittingly towards parity with the Euro, the intelligent Swiss flocked across the border to purchase whatever they could from their unwitting neighbors who are all unequally yoked to the Euro’s fate.

In other words, why shop in Geneva when your Francs go further in France?

Having seen enough, the SNB is has now crossed the ropes and is entering the Battle Royal of fiat currency devaluation. Who will be standing at the end?

Battle Royal 1 — Fiat Currencies Battle for Devaluation

This is a trick question, as our equally intelligent fellow tax-payers will quickly point out. There are no winners when something with no value is widely recognized as such. Only mayhem, yelling, pile drivers, body slams, blood, and drama.

Most investors are now waking up and realizing that it is time to hold currency reserves (household savings) in Gold, Silver, Pork loins, anything but fiat currencies.

Get out of the arena and avoid the ensuing traffic jam. This sort of mayhem is better enjoyed from the comfort of one’s home and the quicker one gets there the better!

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $4.06
Oil Price per Barrel: $86.49

Key Indicators for September 6, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $7.47
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.98%
FED Target Rate: 0.08% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,880 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.5%!!! UP 0.7% IN ONE MONTH, 8.4% ANNUALLY AT THIS PACE!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,139 TO THE MOON!!!

M1 Monetary Base: $2,108,800,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,473,600,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Economics, Jesus, The Mint

The Move to a European Government, Caesar can keep his money!

August 16, 2011 David Mint

8/16/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The markets seem to be enjoying a relative calm after the record setting volatility they experienced last week. It turns out that one would have hit a home run by buying the VIX as the debt ceiling debate was dragging on. We’ll keep that recommendation tucked away for a later date as the conditions which created last week’s tremors still exist and continue to intensify.

A headline caught our eye today, from Bloomberg: German, French leaders propose European ‘economic government’

This caught our eye because it is further confirmation of what we have long suspected here at The Mint. Specifically that giving up the right to coin currency (seigniorage) essentially means giving up a nation’s sovereignty. Any sort of puppet government may be set up to give the appearance of sovereignty. They may even give the people the right to vote for their own government. No matter how the government is chosen, the puppet will move in accordance with the way its strings are pulled.

In practice, the monetary authority becomes the sovereign.

We have further speculated that the current sovereign debt crisis in Europe would serve to erode the sovereignty of the governments being bailed out. It now appears that even wise users of the Euro, such as Germany and the Netherlands, will have to give up the illusion of budgetary authority to save the currency. Think of it as guilt by association.

What happens next in Europe will be the true test of the Euro’s ability to exist. Can Greeks and Spaniards manage finances to German standards? Can they alter their production and consumption patterns to the German standard? If the answer is yes, then we will have confirmation that a shared fiat currency (and by default fiscal policy) is all that it takes to break down borders and achieve world peace.

If the answer is no, then the Euro, the latest entrant in a long line of doomed experiments in fiat currencies is…doomed.

The leaders in the Eurozone are dealing with a problem that has no solution. What is unfortunate is that they are taking a considerable amount of time and other people’s money in a vain attempt to solve it.

The problem is simple enough. A fiat currency, such as the Euro, is a faith based currency. One needs faith that the currency will maintain its value and continue to be accepted in trade. The bedrock of this currency faith is that credits must be created which are repayable in the currency. This gives people, who naturally want to improve their circumstances by attending to the most urgently felt need, the incentive to productively trade in the currency.

If the currency is something tangible and can be produced in sufficient quantities, this is all that is required for something to be accepted as currency in society. Production and circulation of the currency would occur organically as the needs of the economy dictated.

: The Euro’s faith based currency is doomed

On the other hand, if the currency is a fiat, faith based currency, such as the Euro, much heinous effort is required for it to be accepted as currency. The first requirement is a decree that all taxes must be remitted in the fiat currency. This is what Jesus referred to when he told the spies of the Chief Priests to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to the Lord what is the Lord.”

Once it is decreed that taxes will be remitted in the fiat currency, the fiat currency must be produced in sufficient quantities without the guidance of the free market signals (known today as monetary policy). Finally, the system of taxation and redistribution of the tax revenue (known today as fiscal policy) must be perceived as either inconsequential or fair in order for those subjected to the fiat currency regime to continue to assent to using the currency.

The Eurozone’s incurable ailment is that its single monetary policy cannot respond to the multitude of fiscal policies that are operating in the currency zone. If the currency were tangible, production in the economy would properly adjust and fiscal policy would be less pervasive and dictated by reality. But because the Euro is simply a faith based currency, fiscal and monetary policy have no chance of harmonizing themselves.

The Euro is doomed and its handlers must at least suspect it by now. Their only hope is to quickly form a unified fiscal government in the Eurozone which is what in theory they are doing. In practice this may be nearly impossible.

The US Dollar faces a similar problem which has been slower to manifest itself because its problem is on a global scale.

As Jesus said, the fiat authority only owns the coins, scraps of paper, or electronic bits that consist of money. True ownership of real things, and especially people, ultimately is the Lord’s.

How important this simple teaching will be in the years to come.

Stay tuned, Trust Jesus, and Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $3.99
Oil Price per Barrel: $87.14

Key Indicators for August 16, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $7.14
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.21%
FED Target Rate: 0.10% TIGHTENING? NOT!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,787 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.2%!!! PULL OUT THE HELICOPTERS!!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,406 TO THE MOON!!!

M1 Monetary Base: $2,140,300,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,404,000,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Bernanke fires up the Helicopters and Precious Metals Blast off!

July 13, 2011 David Mint

7/13/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today Bernanke went before the US Congress and gently laid down the gauntlet. If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling soon (by August 2^nd, we are told), it could have catastrophic effects on the economy.

Given that nearly the entire banking system on the planet depends upon the US Treasury being Grade A debt, Mr. Bernanke may again be credited with the understatement of the year!

We pity Mr. Bernanke. He is like a pilot flying an Airbus aircraft that is stalling at extremely high altitute. We don’t know much about aircraft but we understand that Airbus aircraft, with their European design slant, do not give a pilot much freedom to override the plane’s automated systems. It assumes that all of the necessary corrective actions can be pre-programmed and, if the plane begins to stall, the computers take over to attempt to correct the problem.

Actual Airbus pilots are free to dispute the merits of our oversimplification. We just needed a metaphor.

Back to Bernanke, with the autopilot mechanism failing, the pilot does not know what to do. If the US Congress had dutifully raised the debt ceiling as it had 94 times in the past, as the Airbus autopilot manual said it would, Bernanke’s reaction to the most recent US jobs report would have been to simply propose a third round of quantitative easing (read: money printing or counterfeiting of currency).

On the Airbus, he would get on the intercom and say “please fasten your seatbelts until we pass through this patch of rough air.”

However, the failure of the US Congress to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling has thrown a wrench in his plans. What is his plan now? Think helicopters, Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono.

Mr. Bernanke is going on a safari!

Yes, fellow taxpayer, with each day that passes, it is becoming clearer to the majority that Mr. Bernanke is unwittingly following in the footsteps of none other than Gideon Gono. Some may recall that Mr. Gono, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, was forced to “do extraordinary things that aren’t in the textbooks,” meaning that he oversaw the printing of large amounts of his country’s currency which produced an amazing modern example of hyperinflation.

In an interview with Newsweek in early 2009, Gono offered an explanation for his actions and predicted that the US would do the same, as it has:

“I’ve been condemned by traditional economists who said that printing money is responsible for inflation. Out of the necessity to exist, to ensure my people survive, I had to find myself printing money. I found myself doing extraordinary things that aren’t in the textbooks. Then the IMF asked the U.S. to please print money. I began to see the whole world now in a mode of practicing what they have been saying I should not. I decided that God had been on my side and had come to vindicate me.”

The hyperinflation in Zimbabwe led to shortages of real goods and destroyed the economy. Why would Mr. Bernanke’s experiment end any differently?

Meanwhile, over in the Eurozone, the Airbus is in rapid descent and everybody on the plane is offering ideas as to what went wrong and how to fix it. Its auto-pilot has not been programmed to deal with the failures the plane is experiencing and as the pilots and passengers engage in a heated debate, none are able to grab the controls much less safely land the aircraft.

it will not be long before impact and the smarter passengers are starting to grab for the parachutes made of Gold and Silver. Gold closed up almost 1% to a record of $1,583 and Silver gained nearly 6% on the day.

Back in the US, whether or not Congress passes legislation to raise the debt ceiling is irrelevant. The US Treasury will borrow and the FED will print even without Congressional approval. That is what makes modern Government fun, if you don’t like a rule, just ignore it and claim that you were exercising “Leadership.”

All of the countries in the Eurozone will soon surrender their sovereignty to Germany and the IMF in exchange for the “privilege” of using Euro as currency. The ideological divide that is being exposed in the US may eventually lead to civil war.

But these events may be small compared to what is occurring in the Middle East. Iran opened its own international Crude Oil exchange today which is akin to declaring war on the western governments and banking interests.

And keep your eyes on Palestine. The UN vote on Palestinian statehood in September is eerily similar to the vote 62 years ago when the UN accepted Israel as an independent state. Our guess is that this vote will spark events there that will capture the attention of the whole world.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $4.35
Oil Price per Barrel: $97.83

P.S.

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Key Indicators for July 13, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $7.26
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.89%
FED Target Rate: 0.07% JAPAN HERE WE COME!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,582 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.2%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,492 TO THE MOON!!!
M1 Monetary Base: $2,020,000,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,112,300,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

*See the MINT Perceived target Rate Chart. This rate is the FED Target rate with a 39 month lag, representing the time it takes for the FED Target rate changes to affect the real economy. This is a 39 months head start that the FED member banks have on the rest of us on using the new money that is created.

Italians to join Europe’s needy, the parable of the Chiropractor

July 11, 2011 David Mint

7/11/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Investors woke up today and wasted little time in marking down Italian sovereign debt, along with Spanish and Portuguese debt issues. Why? The story of the Italians is eerily similar to that of the Greeks, the Portuguese, and the Spanish. Their government spends more than it takes in.

At this point, all readers of The Mint know that it is impossible for any Government to produce value. Yet somehow, in our upside down, insane monetary system, it has become acceptable for the western governments to run a reasonable deficit to help pay for their role as the Robin Hood in the current welfare state model. The European Union even went so far as to attempt to define what constitutes a reasonable deficit as 3% of a nation’s GDP per year.

Now if the government takes in 25% of national income in the form of taxes, which is not an unheard of (if anything it is a low estimate) and then borrows an additional 3% (which has proved an elusive target), then 28% of the welfare state’s economy is devoted to income “redistribution.”

While the term “income redistribution” does not fly well with most voters, the Government’s “investment” decisions are cleverly disguised as Social Security, Health Care, Defense, and Education. Most will recognize that these are important investments, which leads us to the logical question:

Why leave these investment decisions up to the Government?

This question is rarely asked, and most seem content to let the Government continue in their collective role as Robin Hood. It should come as no surprise, then, that a great deal of time and what would otherwise be productive energy goes into influencing Robin Hood’s decisions as to whom the poor are at the moment. Bill Bonner at The Daily Reckoning calls this outsized effect of Government in the economy a “Zombie Takeover.”

With the Zombies creatively destroying a minimum of 28% of GDP in a modern welfare state, perhaps it is a testament to the resilience and productivity of the citizenry that any real progress can be made under such circumstances.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for those in the zombie class) the insanity is coming to an end. As the government’s destruction of wealth accelerates, even elected officials will have to admit that the bad decisions that all of this accumulated debt represents do not go away just because one denies that they exist.

In fact, attempts to solve the problem of too much debt by creating more currency are futile, as each unit of currency creates a unit of debt which must be dealt with at a later date. This is the glory of modern monetary theory. It binds the world together in slavery. It is also its Achilles heel, which is now exposed, waiting to be stricken.

How and when will this finally occur? It will be like the man with back pain who finally goes to visit the chiropractor. The gradual spinal realignment that he had hoped to achieve by doing simple stretching exercises (austerity) is not taking place, in fact, his back problems have gotten worse. Once in the exam room, he will be laid down swiftly on the chiropractor’s table.

Then chiropractor will move into place, interest rates will rise, and a series of pops will go off in the patient’s spine. Naturally, the popping sounds are the troubled EU nations defaulting on their sovereign debt in unison, which is what is about to occur.

Will the patient then get up and go on his way, sore but better off for the treatment? Or perhaps the better question is; do zombies even use chiropractors?

Meanwhile in the US, the political theater that is the debt ceiling negotiations may be the catalyst that sends the US Treasury market into a much deserved tailspin. We have speculated about this almost incessantly and still cannot believe that it may happen.

But while the EU goes to the chiropractor, the US may prefer to rely on the prescription drugs of fiscal and monetary stimulus for as long as they appear to work in a futile attempt to reassure the zombies that all is well.

The US will simply destroy the value of the currency, completely and irreversibly. Why else would they pick a fight with Iran at this point?

That makes each dollar that one holds like holding an M80 firecracker with a lit fuse.

How long will you hang on?

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $4.32
Oil Price per Barrel: $94.99

Key Indicators for July 11, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.81
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.92%
FED Target Rate: 0.07% JAPAN HERE WE COME!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,554 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.2%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,506 TO THE MOON!!!
M1 Monetary Base: $2,020,000,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,112,300,000,000 YIKES!!!!!!!

Huddled Masses of European Capital Fly to US Shores

July 6, 2011 David Mint

7/6/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The crisis in the Eurozone is getting too big to ignore. The gig is up, the Greek Government is in default, and Portugal and a host of private lenders, amongst them the ECB itself, are on their way there as well. So certain is this fact that Moody’s even went on record and took the small step of downgrading Portugal’s debt.

Naturally, the Europeans can’t believe it. Don’t they pay good money for these ratings?

Whatever Moody’s reasons for stating the obvious, the news is having the effect of sending money fleeing across the Atlantic to US Markets any which way it can. Commodities, Stocks, Bonds, even Real Estate are being bid up today as the European Bond Market collectively exhales capital.

For the moment, inflation on this side of the pond is only moderately accelerating as much of the cash is trapped on the Ellis Island of the US Banking system at the FED member banks.

statue of liberty — Send me your tired, wadded up Euro capital looking for a home!

But as any banker knows, if you can’t lend the money then excess cash begins to crush your balance sheet. This is why it is probable that the US will participate in a Eurozone bailout. Even the threat of US intervention should get this newly immigrated capital looking for a new home shortly after arriving.

The trillion dollar question is now begging to be answered, will the US avoid default and keep the mushroom shaped debt sponge intact or will the current stalemate in Congress finally put the squeeze on the debt sponge and unleash the 500 year inflationary flood onto American shores from which there is but on escape (buy gold, silver, or anything real)?

We may know the answer sooner than we think!

Stay Fresh!

Copper Price per Lb: $4.30
Oil Price per Barrel: $97.21

P.S. For more ideas and commentary please check out The Mint at www.davidmint.com

Key Indicators for July 6, 2011

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.47
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 3.10%
FED Target Rate: 0.08% JAPAN HERE WE COME!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,529 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,626 TO THE MOON!!!
M1 Monetary Base: $1,954,300,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,098,400,000,000 YIKES!!!

Economics, The Mint

What is so Complex about a Default? The Greek Bailout Highlights The Shortcomings of Debt as Money

July 5, 2011 David Mint

7/5/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Another day, another Euro. It appears that it is still all systems go for the Greek bailout. Athens will get another shot of hot money in mid July and the charade will keep going on.

In the old communist days, the joke went “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” In the current socialized monetary system, the joke goes “we pretend to cut back and they pretend we will pay them back.”

As our astute fellow taxpayers are already aware, the Greeks have no intention of changing their ways. Parliamentary promises and austerity measures are of little value when 90% of the population is against them. It is doubtful that the money lenders in Germany and France will step out of their high rises to come repossess the Parthenon.

No, they will leave that to foreign militaries as they march on Palestine.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Our topic of the day is why the Euro/IMF and now, reluctantly, the private sector are “thrashing” (which must be somewhat harsher than mere hashing) out an aid plan for Greece tomorrow in France. From Reuters:

International banks and insurers will meet on Wednesday to thrash out a plan for the private sector to contribute to Greece’s bailout effort as fears grow that the proposal will be derailed.
The Institute of International Finance (IIF) lobby group said it will chair the meeting of private-sector creditors.
It needs to resolve how a deal can get past credit rating agencies without it being termed a default, and how accountants will deal with it.
A lot of work remains to be done and Wednesday’s meeting will not be decisive, several sources said.
“It’s a process. The new French finance minister said today it will take weeks, over the summer. It’s complex. It can’t be settled overnight,” a French private sector source involved in the talks said.
He said there was unlikely to be a single “one-size-fits-all solution” but rather several options, given the number of different bondholders and stakeholders involved.
“The issue is so complex that we need more time,” a German banking industry source added.

Of course, the issue is not complex. The Greeks have promised more than they can deliver. Anyone can do this for a time but if too much time passes, actions (overspending) speak louder than words (austerity measures).

Besides, for a socialist tax collecting entity such as the Greek government, austerity measures starve its customer base of revenue, lowering its own tax revenues, which in turn demand’s more austerity, etc.

For a generally unproductive country that has made the mistake of outsourcing its money printing operations like Greece, austerity is collective suicide. Even credit ratings agencies and accountants can no longer ignore this dubious state of affairs.

greek flag — Greece, Where the Euro pays tourist prices

Yet paradoxically, the international bankers seem intent on forcing the Greeks, against their collective will, to starve themselves. Why? Even in the parallel universe of our current monetary system this course of action makes absolutely no sense.

And that is precisely why it must be done. Somehow, the banking cartel must put on the charade of solvency. Most people, accountants and ratings agencies amongst them, have a vague understanding that saving money is equal to solvency.

How right they would be, if silver and gold were still money. In the current insane “debt is money” socialist monetary system, savings remove the lifeblood of the currency regime.

Don’t be deceived by the Euro and IMF’s words, Greece is a lost cause. It has problems that not even Christine Lagarde and her $550K pay package cannot solve.

But that won’t stop them from trying! As the explanations become more and more ludicrous across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, keep your eye on The Mint’s Key Indicators, which are still pointing at raging inflation with no end in sight in dollar land.

The only protection for savings is anything real that is not a dollar (or a promise to pay a dollar in the future, such as dollar denominated bonds). How is that for investing made simple? So many options!

Stay Fresh!

P.S. For more ideas and commentary please check out The Mint at www.davidmint.com

Key Indicators for July 5, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.30
Oil Price per Barrel: $96.83 A FAILURE TO INFLATE, WILL TREND LOWER

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.80 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 3.14% WITH THE FED OUT, THE SKY’S THE LIMIT
FED Target Rate: 0.07% JAPAN HERE WE COME!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,516 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.00%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,570 WINDOW DRESSING FOR 401K PORTFOLIOS
M1 Monetary Base: $1,954,300,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,098,400,000,000 YIKES!!!

72 Hour Call for July 5, 2011 (Adieu to the 72 Hour Call for now)

July 5, 2011 David Mint

Today’s Call: NO CALL, taking a break as we revert to the mean.

Rationale: The 72 Hour Call is being mothballed for the moment. It has been a great experiment and has led us to one inescapable conclusion: There are no sure things in the day to day gyrations of the markets. One is best off calling long trends and picking logical entry and exit points for trades, adjusting them as the data relevant to the long trends change. Please continue to watch our Key Indicators at the end of each Mint. Thank you for following and drop us a note if time permits!

Result of Call for June 29, 2011: Euro to fall vs US Dollar. Was $1.4311:1€., Currently $1.45336:1€. Good Call.

Calls to Date: Good Calls: 33, Bad Calls: 30, Batting .524

Key Indicators for Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.30
Oil Price per Barrel: $96.83 A FAILURE TO INFLATE, WILL TREND LOWER

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.80 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 3.14% WITH THE FED OUT, THE SKY’S THE LIMIT
FED Target Rate: 0.07% JAPAN HERE WE COME!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,516 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

The Mint Finger Puppet Theatre

72 Hour Call for June 29, 2011

June 29, 2011 David Mint

Today’s Call: Euro to fall vs US Dollar. Currently $1.4311:1€.

Rationale: With the Greeks passing austerity measures in the face of widespread protests, the Euro got a temporary boost today. These types of jumps usually pull back in the short term. The Euro just double peaked on a triple top vs. the USD and is generally in a bear trend which should be reinforced post June 30^th.

Result of Call for June 24, 2011: 10 year US Treasury Bond yield to fall (price to rise). Was 2.87%, Currently 3.108%. Bad Call.

Calls to Date: Good Calls: 32, Bad Calls: 28, Batting .543

Daily Default: PMI Group, Inc., third largest guarantor of US Mortgages.

Key Indicators for Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.20
Oil Price per Barrel: $94.93 A FAILURE TO INFLATE, WILL TREND LOWER

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.98 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 3.11%
FED Target Rate: 0.08% UH OH!

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,511 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.25%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,261
M1 Monetary Base: $1,895,400,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,086,900,000,000 YIKES!!!

The FED to Drop Money From Helicopters

June 26, 2011 David Mint

With consumer credit in a long term downtrend, the US Congress unable to come to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, and the Euro system on the verge of collapse, The FED appears desperate. Our speculation is that they are now plotting something we call “Helicopter Phase.”

Helicopter Phase happens when money is literally showered on the American people in a desperate attempt to keep the currency regime from disintegrating. Ben Bernanke attempts to describe it in his own words in the latest edition of Mint Finger Puppet Theatre:

Helicopter Phase will most likely take the form of the stimulus checks that have been mailed out to taxpayers in the past as giving away money to the banks, defense contractors, and other special interests has failed to create any long term growth.

In rural areas, however, we suspect that Ben Bernanke‘s famous helicopter method is likely to prove useful:

So keep your eyes on the sky and Stay Fresh!

Waiting for a Default, the Search for Knowledge, Final Prices, and What do Schlitz and the US Dollar have in Common?

June 22, 2011 David Mint

6/22/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We search for answers, yet the questions are trumping them right now. This phenomenon is inherent to human existence. People are always chasing after knowledge. In the Bible, the book of Daniel speaks of our times when the Angel tells Daniel in his vision:

“But you, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

Daniel 12:4, King James Version

A little bit of knowledge sparks a thirst for more knowledge, which, once quenched, sparks an even greater thirst for knowledge. Like Carmex, which soothes one’s chapped lips for a time only to dry them out again, which appears to create a perpetual “need” for to the product, knowledge provides answers and understanding which lead the enquirer to even more questions, and the cycle repeats itself.

The phenomenon expresses itself in markets in the form of a search for a “final price”. In a free, unfettered marketplace, this price, in money terms, represents all that is known about the value of the good that is being exchanged for money at that point in time. However, this “final price” is in and of itself a new data point to be considered, as is the exchange of goods which it represents. This changing data necessarily creates a new “final price” which, by definition, takes into account all factors know about the value of the good and so on.

Ever since we decided to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the chase for knowledge has continued and will continue until Jesus returns.

But what does this have to do with the US Dollar, let alone Beer?

We are glad you asked as we were getting a bit side-tracked. Our personal search for knowledge has brought us to the most recent of the endless questions that need to be answered:

When will Central Bank Currency Regimes and Sovereign Governments admit they are bankrupt and be allowed to default?

This is an URGENT and very important question as the entire financial world cannot progress until this question has been answered.

To be clear, most western governments and their Central Bank run currency regimes are now technically in default. They have been ever since they began to “solve” liquidity problems via money printing or “Quantitative Easing” (QE for short).

The acts of Quantitative Easing, which have been embarked upon by the US, Euro, and Japanese Central Banks is only necessary when the faith based currency regime in question has failed. The necessity to print money which is not demanded by the market nor provided at market prices provides concrete proof that people are no longer willing to further enslave themselves by incurring additional debt.

As we have explained in this space before, debt is the lifeblood of the currency regime. In these mindless confiscatory monetary systems where the only way to create money is to coax someone else into incurring debt, shrinking debt is the equivalent of someone pushing the currency regime’s self destruct button.

But instead of recognizing this fact for what it was, a failure of the system, much of western civilization continues in willful denial. Soon, however, everyone will be rushing for the exits.

But we promised you a beer, fellow taxpayer, so crack yourself a cold one (on your own dime, of course, this is, after all, a free newsletter) and see if you tell us what the Federal Reserve Notes that we currently use as money and Schlitz Beer have in common?

Schlitz Bottle — What do Schlitz and the Federal Reserve Note have in Common?

Need a hint? Think quality, or lack thereof.

Give up? Here are the answers, as always, we invite inquiring fellow taxpayers to add to this list by commenting below.

First, both Federal Reserve Notes and Schlitz were once the gold standards of their product class (currency and beer, respectively). Federal Reserve Notes took the place of US Dollars in 1913 and maintained the US Dollar’s tradition of quality and enjoyed increased market share until finally overtaking the British Pound Sterling as the world’s currency of choice. In the beer industry, Schlitz rose to overtake rival Pabst as the most popular beer in the world in 1902.

In the 1970s, the Schlitz brewing process was changed to make use of high temperature fermentation in order to further speed production. This change and subsequent changes in the formula had disastrous results which came to a head in 1982. On the US Dollar front, then President Richard Nixon began to tinker with the US Dollar formula in the 70s, namely making the US Dollar no longer convertible into gold. This watering down of the dollar supply had disastrous effects which also came to a head in the early 1980’s.

Both Schlitz and the US Dollar then continued to generally decline in status for close to 30 years.

In 2008, however, the old Schlitz formula was discovered and has been revived by Stroh’s Brewing Company to give new life to an old beer that everyone had left for dead.

Circa 2011, the US Dollar is still yearning to return to the “gold convertibility” formula that made it so insanely popular for the first half of the twentieth century.

Is there anyone who can find it?

Stay Fresh!

P.S. If you enjoy or at least otlerate The Mint, please share us with your family, friends, and colleagues.

Key Indicators for Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.10
Oil Price per Barrel: $95.06 A FAILURE TO INFLATE

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.07 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.99%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% FED IN PERMANENT DESPERATION MODE

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,549 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.25%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,163
M1 Monetary Base: $1,921,900,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,084,400,000,000 YIKES!!!

*See MINT Perceived Economic Effect Rate Chart at bottom of blog. This rate is the FED Target rate with a 39 month lag, representing the time it takes for the FED Target rate changes to affect the real economy. This is a 39 months head start that the FED member banks have on the rest of us on using the new money that is created.

72 Hour Call for June 22, 2011

June 22, 2011 David Mint

Today’s Call: Yield on 10 US Treasury to fall, price to rise. Currently 2.99%.

Rationale: The combination of the FED downgrading the economic assessment and announcing no further stimulus along with no clear progress on the debt ceiling will cause, paradoxically, talk of a fiscal stimulus package so that authorities can claim to be “doing something.” Problems in Greece will cause most funds to repurchase US Treasuries by default to stay away from the Euro.

Result of Call for June 17, 2011: Dow Jones Industrial Average to rise. Was 12,004, Currently 12,163. Good Call.

Calls to Date: Good Calls: 30, Bad Calls: 25, Batting .545

Key Indicators for Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.10
Oil Price per Barrel: $95.06 A FAILURE TO INFLATE

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.07 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.99%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% FED IN PERMANENT DESPERATION MODE

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,549 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.25%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,163
M1 Monetary Base: $1,921,900,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,084,400,000,000 YIKES!!!

*See FED Perceived Economic Effect Rate Chart at bottom of blog. This rate is the FED Target rate with a 39 month lag, representing the time it takes for the FED Target rate changes to affect the real economy. This is a 39 months head start that the FED member banks have on the rest of us on using the new money that is created.