It is amazing how people, companies, and governments still completely fail to ignore the risks and downfalls of derivatives. Even worse is the growth of derivatives and the fact that they are used by market participants to move markets rather than invest or make a profit in a given thing. When the government loses they end up printing or taxing costing the people. When government protected entities go under they end up charging it to the government which includes a growing number of formerly private markets. In the end, government is disrupting and perverting the private economy at a frightening pace and doing so increasingly with derivatives. Like all countries going away from free market capitalism, it will not end well.

Nice assessment and absolutely spot on. The issue everyone talks about is how to deal with the temporary liquidity crisis and not the fundamentals driving these crisis. Government intervention only increases the debt and the intrinsic instability while degrading the value and purpose of capital given it is made on a whim rather than acquired through a capitalist market of providing others with goods and services. This destabilizes the entire theory of capitalism and adds to the distortions in the economy given people are now chasing after sources of money not made by producing anything of value. An economy of banks and government making and distributing money is not an economy at all, it's more like communism.

How do they inject Oxaloacetate, from Cigarettes? I don't see many cigie smokers living longer? I would be happy to see all the Marijuana plants turned into something positive to consume, but am very skeptical of any tobacco funded research. On the author's side, I do like mitochondrial research and think that holds the key to healthier more useful older age living. There was a recent study on infusing old people with young people's blood which had something to do with improved mitochondria. I'm sure this will cause hell for blood banks if it is proven and demanded by elderly people.

What does Jackson Hole have to do with Hunger Games which is a rip off of a Japanese flick called Battle Royale. At least Battle Royale makes more sense pitting kids from the worst school against each other to discourage bad grades and poor performance. The only thing in common is there is no democracy and there are a lot of scoundrels and skullywags interested in themselves more than their country or anyone else but themselves and the rich bankers they support. What is dissimilar is they could care less about public opinion, the leaders of the countries they represent, or the public of the countries monetary system they run, thus there is no reason to kill kids or put on a event. Rather they try to hide when they meeting. They are after adults assets not kids. And they use devaluation of money (even if there is no inflation immediately) or withholding of money their weapons not guns and pistols. They also don't use fear to fight. They use debt to enslave. But the biggest difference is one is fiction and the other is not.

Comex's indulgences have gotten the sight of China. China apparently loves the obvious paper money gold press so much they will start their own gold market. Keep some gold, write mountains of paper backed by it which can't ever be settled, and then refuse to ever let it go. It's just like a secondary fiat money machine that generates interest to pay off your primary fiat money machine. The inventive American Financial system's ability to play with derivatives never ceases to astound and rip off. Watch out, China wants part of this game too. At this rate lets just go back to the gold standard and the lies that brought it down. Oh why? You can have this fraud at the same time you have the fiat money game going at the same time. Does this make the present financial system worse than the past even though they claim the present is better? Indeed it does. Now governments have 3 ways to rip off people, fake gold certificates and loans, devaluation by printing fiat currency, and taxes. I wonder if they will revert to debasing the gold as well with lead or something else. Why wouldn't they? It seems like there is no ethics in this business at all.

1) It is amazing how gas prices are holding up even as oil per barrel is dropping. This has been a big catalyst to prevent runaway inflation. 2) The US dollar is not rising on strength but foreign conflicts and problems. Even so, foreigners continue to dump bonds forcing the Treasury and US citizens to buy them. The simple fact is if his accelerates the US is in trouble as well. 3) Gold is indeed consolidating. It amazes me how pundits say a strong economy is bad for gold as well as a weak economy is bad for gold. Give it up guys. I think gold is found a trading range and it is hard to tell which way it will go when it breaks out. Given Comex gold holdings are not looking very good and China is trying to get in on the gold exchanges, we may find a world where it is less easy to manipulate gold but a world where a lot of exchanges are minting unbacked paper gold as lies just like before the world exited the gold standard which leaves a question. Just how much better and divorced are we from gold in reality? In reality every developed nation keeps about 1-3% reserves in gold and governments refuse to give up their reserves even when they go broke like Italy. Likewise, governments use it to issue gold paper to the point it backs more than it actually has and refuses ever to give up its gold making the backing as suspect as the past. Gold continues to be a commodity used to perpetrate huge fraud for governments. This is not any dark covert plot or insidious manipulation behind the scenes. It is much too obvious to be that. It is governments making money whatever way they can because laws don't apply to them until they utterly collapse like they have before. Then since everything is hell in a hand basket they just start all over again and blame it on fate. But Fate has little to do with it. It is intrinsic in nature and way too obvious and repeated to be an act of god.

The chart looks like a bounce back from 0% growth more than a strong upward trend. This has been going on since 09 with a lot stronger upward blips that turned out to be nothing. In reality more housing built means that much longer it will take to rid banks of the hoard of housing they still hold on their balance sheets at artificial prices. At this rate they will all rot and decay which may be good for the market, but its a dreadful waste of assets and efficiency and one reason why you shouldn't let banks keep assets at the price they bought them back without forcing them to adjust to mark to market. There are a lot of things running against strong housing recoveries, namely the US government has a chokehold on them through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac making housing the most socialized part of our market right now. Stay away.

The Federal Reserve has become essentially a captured central bank due to their own grousing for power and the ability to dole out liquidity to TBTF banks to keep them in check (it's hard to go bankrupt when you get all the money you want for free). Their zirp rates have nothing to do with economic reality and 100% to do with enriching and supporting State banks called TBTF and pleasing those in political power. Their behavior borders on socialist and their money supply is destroying the real economy even if it doesn't spark sudden inflation. You can't have increasing amounts of bankers getting richer than anyone else producing nothing and refusing to pass on the liquidity to the market. Furthermore, you can't have an economy dependent on artificially low rates and a government dependent on the central bank to buy their own debt at artificially low rates. This is not just a planned economy, but a badly run and broken planned economy that is failing to see and address its real issues. Sadly, at this rate, we are better off without a Federal Reserve than one that has such little regard for capitalism and free market economies. The way we are going they might as well start printing Rubles.

In general, it is understandable that the government act similarly to protect its businesses from scalpers and opportunists while it is in this crisis. Security and stability should be their first priority. We will see how free market oriented they are when the dust clears and they don't have a cold war army slipping in and out of their border. Please, give poor Ukraine a break. They are fighting the forefront of aggression trying to sweep up Eastern Europe and start a new cold war.

I abjectly disagree that the economic morass we have is due to the rich getting richer. The simple fact is, in a normal environment, increased wealth is created by the production and distribution of new and more goods and services. The slow growth of the US is not due to the rich getting richer so much as the fact this economic rebound is being perpetuated not from the economy taking the next step and reallocating resources to new and greater quantities of goods and services but the supporting of the old with government and central bank printing. This not only enriches the underserving, it prevents the economy from advancing and encourages even more misbehavior through artificial rewards. The economy has gotten off the free market track and it is becoming evident. Even the wealthy are next in line to take the brunt of the hit, because in a socialist economy wealth is created increasingly from the government and central bank and thus there is little incentive to save and negative or close to negative interest rates. It is not that there are richer people, it's that the few richer people are getting this way through economic cheats rather than through the rightful pursuit of wealth through meeting the consumers needs. The cry for more government to balance the market is asking the wolf that's eating your lunch to protect your food supply. The simple fact is that we are going the complete wrong direction and it is hurting the wealthy and poor just like any socialist regime that gradually abandons the free market.