By Jeffrey P. Snider, Alhambra Investment Partners When commenting on any weakness in the US economy, it has become common even shorthand for any outlet or author to affix the conventional explanation. Suspiciously low growth rates and far too many outright contractions, especially in manufacturing and industry, are blamed on overseas weakness and the dollar as … Continue reading
By Salman Rafi Sheikh, Asia Sentinel The acknowledgement by Xu Shanda, a retired Chinese deputy director of the State Administration of Taxation, last week regarding potential losses of Silk Road projects has drawn widespread attention as it challenges the prevailing myth of an indomitable and inevitable system in which ultimately all roads will lead to Beijing. The … Continue reading
By Jason Simpkins Six of the world’s central banks (Europe, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, and Hungary) representing 29 countries have taken interest rates negative. They range from -0.05% in Hungary to -1.25% basis points in Sweden. As a result, other countries, plagued by the same low commodities prices and a soft global economy, are now … Continue reading
By Marc Chandler, Marc to Market Blog Yesterday, China announced one of the most important tax reforms of the past twenty years. It is replacing a business tax on gross revenue for non-manufacturing companies with a VAT. Manufacturing companies have been subject to a VAT approach for a few years. The reform extends it from manufacturing … Continue reading
By Mike Gleason, Money Metals Exchange Mike Gleason: This is Mike Gleason with Money Metals Exchange. We are fortunate today to be joined by Frank Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer at U.S. Global Investors. In 2006 Mr. Holmes was named Mining Fund Manager Of The Year by the Mining Journal. He is the co-author of … Continue reading
By Egon Von Greyerz, GoldSwitzerland Investors around the world are blissfully ignorant of what will hit them in coming months and years. Virtually no one understands the risks in the world and less than ½% of investors have protected themselves against the destruction of their financial assets. It is of course wonderful to live in Shangri-La … Continue reading
By Pepe Escobar Major turbulence seems to be the name of the game in 2016. Yet the current turbulence may be interpreted as the calm before the next, devastating geopolitical/financial storm. Let’s review the current state of play via the dilemmas afflicting the House of Saud, the EU and BRICS members Russia, Brazil and China. … Continue reading
By Edwin Nieves On July 7th 2014, the Hong Kong Nicaragua Development Group (HKND) announced the approval of a plan to build a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through Nicaragua, roughly one hundred years after the United States completed the Panama Canal[1]. The Nicaraguan enterprise would be the largest civil engineering feat in … Continue reading
By Pepe Escobar Soon after the impeachment motion against President Dilma Rousseff was approved in the Brazilian Congress by what I chose to call Hybrid War hyenas, President-in-Waiting Michel “Brutus” Temer, one of the coup’s articulators, dispatched a senator to Washington as special paperboy to deliver the news on the coup in progress. The senator in question … Continue reading
By Alasdair Macleod Saudi Arabia has been in the news recently for several interconnected reasons. Underlying it all is a spendthrift country that is rapidly becoming insolvent. While the House of Saud remains strongly resistant to change, a mixture of reality and power-play is likely to dominate domestic politics in the coming years, following the ascendancy … Continue reading