The "Recovery"

Everything is getting statistically better, right?  Look at the Stock Market.  Look at bond yields.  Look at GDP.  Look at the declining unemployment rate.  Look at Gold.  Look at Corporate profits.  They must be selling to someone.  Right?  Right?

How to justify the outlandish position that it's all a statistical mirage?

Well there's an old joke about a bar where ten underemployed temp workers are drinking dollar beers, when Bill Gates walks in and orders a 1000 dollar bottle of Dom Perignon.  Suddenly, statistically, everyone in the bar is a multi millionaire and the average bar patron is spending 100 bucks on expensive drinks.

What if that describes the US recovery?

What if the recovery consists of hedge fund managers shelling out 150 million dollars for a Jeff Koons Ballon Dog here, and 300 million dollars to buy another Hedge Funds managers' summer home in the Hamptons there.  It adds up.  A few hundred million here and there, spread around amongst 500 billionaires and you're talking real money.

Unfortunately none of it is Multiplying in the real economy.  How do I know that?  LOOK:





And even "lower" upper class dudes with only 100 million are spending wildly indiscriminate amounts on luxury vanity items that employ almost nobody, and create no new jobs.  Yet the purchases count towards GDP.

Meanwhile the Fed keeps pumping fantastic sums into the Banks where these people all work.

How can there be a real recovery when Wages and Salaries as a percent of GDP looks like this:



Maybe that's clear to you.  But not to me.

As far as I can see if you're in a business selling Vanity Massages to these top 1 percent - good for you.  You're in the recovery.  Everyone else: Not so much.

CUI BONO?

 

Shilling: expect 2 percent GDP growth to contiue for years

By Gary Shilling
In the third quarter, real GDP grew 2.8% at annual rates from the second quarter. Without the increase in inventories, the rate would be 2.0%, in line with the 2.3% average growth since the economic recovery commenced in the second quarter of 2009.

Furthermore, the step-up in inventory-building from the second quarter may have been unintended, suggesting cutbacks in production and weaker growth in future quarters.

Also, consumer spending growth, 1.5% in the third quarter, continues to slip from 1.8% in the second quarter and 2.3% in the first while business spending on equipment and software actually fell at a 3.7% annual rate for only the second time since the recovery started in mid-2009. 

Government spending was about flat with gains in state and local outlays offsetting further declines in federal expenditures. Non-residential outlays for structures showed strength as did residential building. The 16-day federal government shutdown didn't commence until the start of the fourth quarter, October 1, but anticipation may have affected the third quarter numbers.

Recovery Drivers
The 2.3% average real GDP growth in the recovery, for a total rise of 10%, has not only been an extraordinarily slow one but also quite unusual in structure. Consumer spending has accounted for 65% of that growth, actually below its 68% of real GDP, as shown in the second column of Chart 1. Government spending—which in the GDP accounts is direct outlays for personal and goods and services and doesn't include transfers like Social Security benefits—has actually declined. Federal outlays fell 0.4% despite massive stimuli since most of it went to welfare and other transfers to state governments. But state and local spending dropped 0.9% due to budget constraints.

A little perspective please

This is a picture of the gold price going back to 1800.  If you extend the chart back to 1800 BCE it would look almost identical.  The only reason it pops from about 1920 onward is because of the creation of the Central Bank System of paper money creation.

Money gets created out of thin air and placed in the pockets of the Member Banks and the Government-Favored Corporations who own and control the Central Banks.  Those who own and control the corporations and the member banks get most of that money.  Some of it trickles down - at times - when the money MULTIPLIES by changing hands rapidly through generalized economic activity. 

Right now gold is retracing some of its gains.  It could go down to $1000.  So what?  You don't own gold to get rich.  You own gold to protect yourself against a Loss of Confidence in the Global Central Banking System.

Central Bank Money Creation is still accelerating at an incredible pace.  But the money is getting stuck in the Member Banks and the Corporations with huge Government Favored status (Preferential tax, trade, regulatory status).  The money is NOT MULTIPLYING - except at the Luxury Level of Society.

This creates a deflationary pressure that combats the inlationary pressure of the money creation.  The two enormous pressures are currently at an incredibly delicate equilibrium.

But this incredibly delicate equilibrium can be and will be upset at any time by any number of Exogenous Events.  A massive bank collapse due to Fraud or Mismanagement.  A massive insurance collapse.  A a terror attack.  A drought.  A flood.  A War.  A sudden uprising.  Make up your own.   It doesn't matter what.

The point is that now that money has stopped multiplying, anything at any time can lead to a loss of confidence in the 99 percent of humanity that is getting royally screwed by the Central Bank Money Creation system.

It happened 5 years ago.  The Central Banks took 18 trillion dollars from the 99 percent and gave it to the Banks.  Nobody said peep.  When it happens again, I doubt the will be able to engineer a similar theft without massive protest.

And when that happens Gold will help protect you from the chaos that ensues.

CUI BONO?

JUST ASKING:

Fed Cuts Bond-Buying Pace to $75 Billion a Month on Labor Market Outlook in Unwinding of Stimulus

 

Just asking: How is printing 75 billion dollars every month and pouring them into the Big Banks unwinding the stimulus?

Why wouldn't that be adding to the stimulus.  Adding 75 billion dollars a month.

If I am eating 80 lard filled doughnuts every day, and I cut back to 75 lard filled doughnuts, will I get thinner?

Early 14th Century ironic art: the Lamb of God

You might not think of the early Medieval period as being a hotbed of Irony.  You would be wrong.  The French nobility all learned Greek and it is not possible to learn Greek without becoming well versed in irony.  The word itself mean "to dissemble."  A later Medieval Greek scholar, Machievalli, wrote the definitive handbook on political dissembling; "The Prince."

The Coin/Artwork above was created by Philip IV of France, a Greek scholar in his own right, and a master of Irony.  He was the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time, and to prove it he moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, where he became, in effect, the Father to the Holy Father.  He then issued this coin, wherein he is depicted at the Lamb of God: the Humble Servant of Christ,  The irony is that everybody in all of Europe understood that this humble Lamb was in fact an all powerful Tyrant, with life and death power over the Pope, and all Christians.

Ironic, no?  And historically important.  And at $20,000 you could buy 3500 of them for the price of one "Balloon Dog." (see the last post.)  Oh, but 3500 don't exist.  In fact this example is one of two that have appeared on the market in the last 10 years.  Another might not appear for another decade.  Better save up for the thousands and thousands of Balloon Dogs that will be available over the next ten years.

Sculpture Modern vs Ancient

 

 Art pop indeed! Months and months of press by association with Lady Gaga has paid off. Last night artist Jeff Koons set an auction record at Christie’s. His “Balloon Dog (Orange)” was sold for $58.4 million ($62.6 million including fees.) The price smashed Koons’s previous auction high of $33 million. Not only that, it beat the auction house’s set price of $55 million. And it ended Gerhard Richter’s big sales record from last spring.

The Koons sale was the largest ever for a living artist.

Okay.  Balloon Dog Orange might be "Ironic" but then so is every joke on every television sitcom.  Especially the jokes uttered by precocious 9 year olds with dimples, braids, and snappy deliveries.   And maybe some of them get paid 58 million to deliver those jokes.  But those shows make back their money by selling products in paid commercial spots.  Anyone hoping to make back their money on this one-note ironic joke better hope that in a year or two people still value "irony."

Of course, the "irony" of the piece above is not really irony at all.  It tells a joke the says: "Hey, aren't people who value crass commercial culture stupid!  Ha ha.  Not like us sophisticates. Ha ha."  Actually, that's sarcasm, not irony.

Here's another sculpture for you (by the folks who invented irony):






This two-sided sculpture, signed by the artist Kimon in 410 BCE, just sold for about $700,000 in a recent Swiss Auction.   Again, much smaller than the Jeff Koons.  But I think you'll agree the level of craftsmanship is much higher.  But you might object: "What about Irony!"  And it's true the sculpture above is entirely lacking in the Sarcasm that passes for Irony.  But it is not lacking in true irony, which is a "joke": wherein the Hero is unaware of things of which the entire audience is fully aware.  In this case Acheluous the man-headed bull-God, symbollic of pastoral earth God culture, is blissfully unaware he is soon to be conquered by the Achaen Sky God-worshipping  hordes invading Greece.  

How Ironic.

And you can buy about 70 of them for the price of one Balloon Dog.  If there were 70 of them.  But there aren't.  Maybe there are a dozen or so, and none of the others in this condition.  Oh well, too bad.  Save up for the next Balloon Dog.  There are sure to be many thousands of those, all in perfect condition.

the "Recovery": Cui bono?

Median Household income:
2007: $55,627
2008: $53,644
2009: $53,285
2010: $51,892
2011: $51,100
2012: $51,017









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Modern Art Versus Ancient Art

Andy Warhol auction record shattered

The grisly Silver Car Crash (Doubled Disaster) is part of Warhol's death and disaster series.  It sold for $105m (£65.5m) in the US, breaking the artist's record by more than $30m.

Now, Andy Warhol is an interesting artist.   And much of his artwork has certainly stood the test of almost fifty years.  Fifty whole years.  Wow.  If something has not only retained value - but appreciated over 50 years, we can say for sure that by a certain narrow set of standards endorsed by a tiny group of experts it has been judged to be a worthwhile creative endeavor, as well as a solid investment.

But what about in oh, let's say another 50 years.  What will people think then?  Or say in 500 years.  Will anybody really care about this painting in 500 or 1000 years?  Who knows.  Chances are pretty dim.  It looks a lot like a lot of other Andy Warhol "paintings." And there are probably about 50,000 other genuine warhols and maybe that many fakes - which are damned hard to tell apart, since they look identical.

Of course, whoever shelled out 105 million probably doesn't care about the value of this painting in 50 years.  They only care that there might be someone to shell out 200 million in two years.  And there may be.  Possibly. 

But let's say you don't have a hundred million to throw around.  What about an artwork from 480 BCE?   Like the Athenian Dekadrachm (ten drachm piece) pictured below.  There are less than a dozen known.  And of those, very few in this extremely fine condition.  It sold for $375,000 three years ago.  It would probably cost twice that now. 

The Dekadrachm of Athens

Triton XIV, Lot: 124. Estimate $200000. Sold for $375000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee. Sure it's not as big a the warhol.  And not as grisly.  And you can't hang it on your wall.  It's only 42 grams and 31 milimeters.  Big enough to have some heft in your hand, but it may not  impress many of your friends.  On the other hand there are less than a dozen known.  And of those, very few in this extremely fine condition. And though there are a few fakes they are not that difficult to discredit. As for the question of what will people think of this artwork in 50 years - well, it's already been admired as a masterpiece for 2500 hundred years.  So in another 50 or 500 it's doubtful that opinion will change much.  But it was also used to commemorate the Battle of Marathon - one of history's greatest battles.  And it is emblematic of classical Athens - the city that invented Democracy.  The city that invented the entire system of political thought upon which our society is based.  That's kind of interesting too.  And you could sell the one Warhol above to buy 200 of these coins.  Oh, but only five or six exist in this condition.  And even if you wanted to buy one: None are for sale right now.  Too bad.  Maybe you'd have to settle for this coin: Triton XVII, Lot: 263. Estimate $15000.

This portrait of Dionysus reclining on a rock was done by some Kyzekene artist in 450 BCE.  It's being auctioned off in January.  It's estimated at $15000 but I'll bet you'll have to pay closer to $30,000   There are probably fifteen or so in existence - not terribly rare by the standards of Kyzekene Electrum coinage - But there are probably a couple hundred Kyzekene Staters in this near extremely fine condition.  Fairly common right?  (Though not quite as common as the 40-50000 Warhols.)  Still, there is an elegance, and dignity, and a decadence to the portrait, that speaks volumes about the importance of the entire Dionysiac Religious philosophy to the people of 450 BCE - a tradition that extends back to 3000 BCE.  Kind of interesting, no?

And will it be interesting still to people in 500 or 1000 years?  Pretty safe bet.

If we're in a recovery....

Just a few questions.

If we're in a recovery:

A) Why are Fed Funds rates still at zero?

B) Why are real rates still negative?

C) Why is the ten year still below 3 pecent?

D) Why is the Fed still pumping money into the banks at the rate of  85 billion $ a month?

C) Why is the Fed still buying 90 percent of all new Treasury issues?

D) Why is the participation rate still at 20 year lows?

E) Why is household income still falling and back to where it was in 1990?

F) Why is household income adjusted for inflation back to where it was in 1970?

Sure, analysts who make many millions of dollars a year see that the economy is pretty good.  Because for them - and all their friends - it is.  

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE US BAN?

Baidu Stops Accepting Bitcoins After China Ban

By Bloomberg News - Dec 7, 2013 2:59 AM ET

Baidu Inc., China’s biggest search engine, stopped accepting Bitcoins after the nation’s central bank barred financial institutions from handling transactions, triggering a drop in the virtual currency.
Bitcoin fell more than 20 percent and was quoted at 4,250 yuan ($863) as of 3:25 p.m. Shanghai time on BTC China, the most active online exchange where it’s traded. It lost 30 percent to $575 on Bitstamp, another web platform where the digital money is exchanged for dollars and other currencies.

Faber on gold

Marc Faber: World Bankers Are Going To Bankrupt The World

December 4th, 2013

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In a recent interview with Equity Management Academy, Dr. Marc Faber and Patrick MontesDeOca outlined how he believes that central banks around the world, by printing money, are setting up the global economy for collapse.

Faber is the author and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report,which highlights unusual investment opportunities, as well as several books on investment. He was managing director of Drexel, Burnham Lambert, and has lived in Hong Kong since 1973.

Faber believes that demand for gold will continue to be high and, if anything will increase. He said, “In Asia it has always been traditional to own gold….It was illegal to own gold in China until about ten years ago. Now the government is actually encouraging people to own gold.” Therefore, he said, demand is “very strong” and, with increasing numbers of wealthy people in Asia, “demand is rising very rapidly.” Furthermore, Faber believes that if the Chinese economy slows down, the government in China will do what governments everywhere else in the world have done, and print money. If that happens, then “gold demand from China would actually increase and not decrease.”

n the long view, Faber discussed that shift in the economic balance of power from the Old World, which is Western Europe, the United States and to some extent Japan to Asia, and especially China.  Much of the recent growth in the world economy has been in Asia. 

However  Western Central Banks still own about 21% of all the gold in the world, if they still have it, which is “the big question Eric Sprott has raised on numerous occasions” in interviews with EMA and others. China has about $3 trillion in reserves, but only 2% or 3% of it is in gold. Faber argued that if China follows the pattern of other emerging economies, it will slowly increase its gold holdings, which will further increase demand.

He said, “I prefer to own physical gold and to store it outside the United States.” He stressed that where you store your gold is an important issue, given the possibility of government intervention in the personal ownership of gold. Wherever you store it, however, he said, “I prefer to own physical gold because I think the entire financial system is going to collapse at some point in the future.”

As many experts have said before, he said, “I’ve been arguing for a long time that US monetary policies are a disaster. You cannot purposely create bubbles to grow the economy.  If do, get bubbles….[and the] Damage to the economy is far greater than the earlier benefit.”

 

He said, “They all say Mr. Bernanke saved the world in 2008-2009, when in fact Mr. Greenspan and Bernanke almost destroyed the world.”

Keeping interest rates artificially low punishes savers, who have saved all their lives for retirement. Money in the bank returns next to nothing, so savers are forced to speculate and, Faber said, “it will end very, very badly.” He does not know when it will end, but the longer it goes on, the farther the economy will fall when it ends. There is, he said, no end of such policies in sight. In November 2008 when QE was introduced, there was talk of an exit strategy. “You never hear such talk now,” he said. “We are going to go to QE99, because when governments introduce new programs under the excuse of an urgent need to fix something, usually these programs stay in place for a very long time. Maybe they’ll do a cosmetic tapering at some point…but as soon as there is any sign of a crisis, they’ll go to $150 billion a month or more.”

But How will a handful or underpaid regualtors police as army of super rich bank lawyers?

Regulators Set to Approve Toughened 'Volcker Rule'

Agencies Plan Votes Next Week After Adding More Restrictions on Hedging by Banks

 

Scott Patterson

connect

Updated Dec. 3, 2013 8:36 p.m. ET

U.S. regulators are expected to approve next week a toughened version of the Volcker rule, ushering in an era of stricter oversight for Wall Street with restrictions on the trading banks can do with their own money.

Four of the five agencies wrestling over the rule since it was proposed by President Barack Obama in January 2010 said Tuesday that they will vote Dec. 10 on a finished version of the trading curbs. The fifth agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is likely to take action "on or about" the same day, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said.

Enlarge Image

The trading crackdown is named after former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, shown at a conference earlier this year. Bloomberg News
 

Barring a last-minute surprise, the votes will result in tighter restrictions on certain trading activities that go beyond what regulators had agreed to just a few weeks ago, according to people familiar with the matter. Since then, regulators have been locked in tense negotiations that threatened to upend the provision.

Under the final rule, regulators are expected to closely track trading activities with an eye on whether certain trades known as hedges are designed to post a profit rather than offset risks that accompany trading with clients.

The finished version of the Volcker rule is likely to require that hedges be designed to reduce specific risks, according to a portion of the proposed rule reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Hedging activity should shrink or alleviate "one or more specific, identifiable risks" such as market risk, currency or foreign-exchange risk, and interest-rate risk, the language says.

"This is the new era of Big Brother banking," said Michael Mayo, an analyst with CLSA Americas. "Now banks' fortunes are more closely tied to the government."

Critics say the Volcker rule leaves the U.S. financial industry more vulnerable to competition from other countries and could harm the broader economy. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., GS -0.02% J.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.53% & Co. and Morgan Stanley, MS +0.16% three Wall Street giants affected by the Volcker rule, declined to comment Tuesday on the likely approval of the finished rule.

It isn't clear if the final version of the rule will contain identical language from the proposal, but the five federal agencies have largely reached agreement on how to define hedging activities, according to people familiar with the discussions.

China postioning itself long term to supplant the US$ as reserve currecny. Then how do we finance our debt?

Chinese Yuan Surpasses Euro, Becomes Second Most Used Currency In Trade Finance

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/02/2013 22:08 -0500

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Slowly but surely the Chinese currency is catching up to the world's reserve and moments ago, according to SWIFT, the Yuan just surpassed the Euro in trade (remember trade: that's how countries once upon a time would generate capital flows in a time when central banks weren't there to literally print domestic funding needs) finance usage leaving just the USD in front.

• YUAN OVERTAKES EURO IN TRADE FINANCE USAGE: SWIFT
  
• YUAN IS SECOND MOST-USED CURRENCY IN TRADE FINANCE: SWIFT

More from Bloomberg:

• Chinese currency had 8.66% share in letters of credit and collections, or trade finance, in Oct., Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications says in statement today.
• Euro’s shr in trade finance was 6.64% in Oct.
• Top 5 countries using yuan for trade finance in Oct. were China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and Australia
• Yuan mkt shr in global payments was 0.84% in Oct. vs. 0.86% in Sept.
• Yuan payments value rose 1.5% in Oct. vs. 4.6% growth for all currencies: Swift

And so while the "developed" world is busy crushing its fiat through trillions in annual currency dilution and debasement in an attempt to make its exports cheaper and outtrade its peers through beggar thy neighbor policies (not to mention inflate away its debt), the leader of the "emerging" world, China, is doing just that.

Ancient portraiture

Even today portrait art is meant to glorify the subject.  The person portrayed is somehow worthy of having their image publicly disseminated.  Cameras and social media have compromised  technique as anyone can take a great portrait shot and post it anywhere.  Images are all commonly reduced to worthless noise.

2500 years ago, images were the province of the technically gifted.  Painters, Celators, Sculptors labored for months to produce extraordinarily artful renditions.  And before Alexander the Great Portraits were the province of Deity.  If men were depicted, they were depicted as Heroes: Gods on Earth, and portraits conflated their features with those of the Gods.

It was not until after the death of Alexander the Great that men were realistically portrayed on coins.  The first portraits were of Alexander himself.   Executed in the workshops of Philip III, (Alexander's half brother), they portrayed Alexander in order to establish Philip's right to the throne through Lineage.  However, once the taboo on human portraiture had been broken, the artists working at Philips's various mints began to execute an array of portraits, all of which have yet to be identified:


For example, who might this fellow be above?  Certainly not Alexander.  Could it be Philip III?  Or perhaps a favorite uncle of the celator?  Tough to say, though I would guess it's more likely to be Philip.

In Egypt, Ptolemy, one of Alexander's most powerful generals, began to mint coinage with his own image.  Some extraordinary pieces were singed behind the ear by proud artists (like the portrait coin below signed by the artist D)  This tradition continued throughout the course of Ptolemaic Egypt and yields some of antiquity's great gold portait coins.  The famous Cleopatra VII if depicted on several coins of her era.


In Thrace Lysimachus, another powerful General of Alexander,  also minted coins with the portrait of Alexander.  Yet he too issued coins with other portraits, as did other rulers of Thrace right down to Roman times.    They are all described as portraits of Alexander, but some clearly depict other unidentified officials.

For example, who might this be?  It doesn't look much like Alexander.  Yet the fine style clearly suggests a specific individual.  Could it be Lysimchos?  Or could it be Lysimchos' features conflated with those of Alexander.  It's certainly fun to speculate.

Seleukos, another of Alexander's generals,  took the Eastern provinces, and he also issued portrait coinage, mostly depicting Alexander.  But his son Antiochus began to issue coins with the image of Seleukos; and there is an entire line of Seleuked portrait coinage, which, alas, is all extremely rare, for reasons that are not entirely clear.


It is quite extraordinary to be able to see portraits of these men who shaped the course of history.  It must have been far more extraordinary at the time for common men and women to be able to see portraits of their rulers on these convenient, portable artworks.  How strange it must have been to people for whom the only other images available would have been those depicting religious and mythological scenes in temples, and perhaps in the villas of the very rich.

World's Biggest Criminal Lauded to the Heavens

-

The smiling Guru pictured above, a Hero of film, television, countless books, eulogies, elegies, newspaper and magazine articles, is certainly responsible, more than any other human, for the degradation of the Modern Mind - and the destruction of American Youth.

My daughter is 12.  She used to read for hours.  For fun.  I kept her away from video games and extended exposure to the Idiot Box.  She loves - or loved - to read.  She says she still does.

But because of the Satanist pictured above, she now has access to a tiny little delivery device that promises to addle her mind, and is very hard for a parent to police.

Her phone is certainly the most effective brain addling tool ever invented.  All thanks to the Evil Bastard pictured above.  I hope he rots in hell.  Because my poor daughter no longer needs permission to watch the idiot box or play on her computer.  Her Mind Numbing Device is portable, tiny, and impossible to monitor for a parent.  Good job, Steve Jobs, you're destroyed the youth of America.  And America loves you for it.


These were the hottest sellers this black Friday:

Candy Crush Saga

The combination of ancient adventure and easy gameplay turned Temple Run 2 in another popular game among Android users. You can cross great distances and can easily overcome various obstacles in the temple to achieve your goals, and in the new version you have available new types of power-ups and obstacles. However, the difficulty increases gradually until you might be tempted to pay to use the skills with which help you to get to the next level.

Temple Run 2

It is no surprise that a racing game occupies a leading position among the most popular Android games and the Fast & Furious game has earned a reputation for good part of the film series of the same name. The action takes place on the streets of London, where you have the mission to earn a reputation in various races, but also to end the domination of a criminal organization composed of trained mercenaries. As you advance in the “career” to unlock cars, they are becoming more powerful in order to get into a position to make it faster.

Fast & Furious 6: The Game

Real Racing 3 for Android
Pure car Games could not miss from this article, especially if they are free. Real Racing 3 especially impresses by the graphics and the actual selection of cars and tracks. For example, you can climb behind the wheel of official Porsche, Lamborghini, Dodge, Bugatti and Audi cars, and you can try out your skills on circuits that have become legendary in the world of motorsports, such as Spa-Francorchamps, Silverstone, Laguna Seca or Hockenheim. However, to avoid long waiting times for repairing cars or buy new ones faster and stronger you have to pay real money and this limits somehow the enjoyable game experience.

Real Racing 3

Fruit Ninja is another popular intuitive game for Android where speed of response is the most important skill to progress rapidly. As the name implies, the game requires you to cut various fruits that appear in the landscape in a short time. There are three game types, namely Classic, Zen and Arcade, and a bonus Dojo section which includes new types of swords, the game environments and power-ups.

Fruit Ninja Free

We stay in the racing car domain, but this time choosing a less common adventure, because, as the name suggests, Hill Climb Racing puts you in the shoes of a driver who should go with his car over the hills. You have 10 vehicles, from classic cars to trucks and tanks, and in the process you have to collect coins in order to improve their performance. The objective is to go through the 11 levels of the game that will carry on country roads from the desert to the Arctic ice to finally reach the moon!

Hill Climb Racing

I could not write this article about popular Android games without mentioning Angry Birds, probably the first successful game for Android. With a simple and intuitive graphics, the game throws you into a world where you have to kill pigs using a slingshot to catapult birds. Sure, as you get to higher levels you will encounter various birds and obstacles, and if you get bored you can try many other games in the Angry Birds series, of which we mention here only Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Star Wars or Angry Birds Friends.

Angry Birds

The subway is my preferred ride, so it is not surprising to me, as the other 50 million users liked Subway Surfers. In this popular Android game you aim to run the metro network in various cities of the world (including Beijing) to earn coins to improve skills and, especially, to escape the pursuit of an inspector and his dog that will give you permanent headaches.  Are you ready for adventure?

Subway Surfers

FIFA Soccer Games and Football Manager Handheld type are quite costly, which is why Top Eleven has earned a good reputation because it is free Android game. Even if doesn’t excel in graphics, Top Eleven Football Manager is a complex game, you have to take care of your own team: doing exercises, setting strategies, upgraded stadium and managing budgets. But perhaps the main advantage is that you play against real players in various competitions that mimic the Champions League, a national championship and cup.

Top Eleven

Cut the Rope – Time Travel for Android

[video ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEWputinvRA[/video]

Trivial as it sounds to cut a rope, it has proved a popular game. In this game version you will travel to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Stone Age and you can be a pirate on a ship, but your goal remains the same: to feed two monsters with sweets.

Cut the Rope: Time Travel

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And for Adults:

RetailMeNot (available for Android, iPhone): This app lets you search for coupons from your favorite stores, so you can instantly save 10 percent, 20 percent or even more on a single item or your entire shopping cart. You can scroll through the list of hot deals on the home page or search for a specific store.

- Amazon and RedLaser (available for Android, iPhone, Windows): These two apps let you check prices online, for those retailers that will match cheaper prices you find in hopes you'll buy on the spot.

- Cartwheel by Target (available for Android, iPhone): Target's app has coupons for everything from electronics to toys to cereal. Once you find a coupon you want to use, you tap the add button. Then present the cashier with a single barcode that has collected all the coupons you selected.

- Flipp (available for iPhone): This app helps you find and track newspaper circulars. You can leave the paper behind, as Flipp has digital versions with the coupons in them.

Reagan's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy thinks the US dollar is doomed:

The Dying Dollar

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
November 23, 2013

Since 2006, the US dollar has experienced a one-quarter to one-third drop in value to the Chinese yuan, depending on the choice of base.

Now China is going to let the dollar decline further in value.  China also says it is considering undermining the petrodollar by pricing oil futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange in yuan. This on top of the growing avoidance of the dollar to settle trade imbalances means that the dollar’s role as reserve currency is coming to an end, which means the termination of the US as financial bully and financial imperialist.  This blow to the dollar in addition to the blows delivered by jobs offshoring and the uncovered bets in the gambling casino created by financial deregulation means that the US economy as we knew it is coming to an end.

The US economy is already in shambles, with bond and stock markets propped up by massive and historically unprecedented Fed money printing pouring liquidity into financial asset prices.  This month at the IMF annual conference, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that to achieve full employment in the US economy would require negative real interest rates.  Negative real interest rates could only be achieved by eliminating cash, moving to digital money that can only be kept in banks, and penalizing people for saving.

The future is developing precisely as I have been predicting.
As the dollar enters its death throes, the lawless Federal Reserve and the Wall Street criminals will increase their shorting of gold in the paper futures market, thereby driving the remnants of the West’s gold into Asian hands.

PBOC Says No Longer in China’s Interest to Increase Reserves
By Bloomberg News – Nov 20, 2013
The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policymakers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation.
“It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Slower Growth? Gee - you think? Well, that's why you guys make the big bucks

Fed Reveals New Concerns About Long-Term U.S. Slowdown

By Rich Miller - Nov 26, 2013 7:25 PM ET

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues are suffering through their own form of cognitive dissonance: revealing new concerns about the economy’s long-term prospects even as they forecast faster growth in 2014.
Worker productivity, a key component of an economy’s health, has risen at an annual clip of 1 percent during the last four years, as the U.S. has struggled to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression. That’s less than half the 2.2 percent average gain since 1983, according to data from the Labor Department in Washington.

 

Bernanke has portrayed the past few years’ deceleration in productivity as temporary. In an argument also espoused by Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, nominated to succeed him next year, he suggested companies were forced to add workers even though economic growth was slow because they cut payrolls so much during the recession.

In a Nov. 20, 2012, speech in New York, Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said the financial crisis and its aftermath probably “reduced the potential growth rate” as discouraged workers dropped out of the labor force and businesses held back on investment.

“Slower growth in productivity might have become the norm,” the central bankers noted at their Oct. 29-30 meeting, according to the minutes released last week. That’s a switch from past comments by Bernanke that the deceleration probably was temporary and would end as the expansion continued.
A combination of forces may be at work. Chastened by the deep economic slump, corporate executives have reduced spending plans for factories, equipment, research and development. Startup businesses have been held back as would-be entrepreneurs find it harder to get financing from still-cautious lenders. And out-of-work Americans have seen their skills atrophy the longer they’re without jobs.

“We’re in a slow-growth period of unknown duration,” said Edmund Phelps, a professor at Columbia University in New York and winner of the 2006 Nobel prize in economics.

How rare is rare?

How rare are rare coins and medals?

To the collector moving from US coins into Ancients, the rarity factor of what you're collecting is hard to understand.  According to the PCGS rarity scale a US coin with 2500 examples known is considered "Ultra Rare."  This would qualify to collectors of ancients as "Very Common."  For ancients, Ultra Rare means perhaps five or ten examples are known to exist.

There are now many collectors moving from US coins to ancients.  This is because of the NGC grading program which has given confidence to US dealers and collectors alike that there is a standard of uniformity to grading and authenticity.  What US dealers and collectors will not be able to understand without some prolonged experience and exposure to ancients is that coins of the same grade and "type" can be of vastly different quality - and rarity - to experienced collectors.  This is because grading does not take into account Die Types and the Quality of the Dies which vary greatly even within the same mint issue. 

Another tricky facet to ancients is that the most recently discovered hordes give the perception of relative availability for certain issues when the hordes will be easily assimilated over the course of a year or two and then the issue disappears off the markets for decades.  Right now the markets is so tiny compared to US coins that even the availability of 20 or so specimens can seem as though the market if "flooded."  At the same time a horde of 50 coins can be managed so that only two or three appear a year and sell at tremendously inflated prices, until collectors realize that these rare coins keep appearing year after year for a decade.

However, as more and more US collectors are drawn into the market these relative issues of rarity will seem insignificant. 

Yet, there is another huge market that US collectors have hardly begun to access.  This is a market where specimens are often so rare that that a single specimen may be located once or twice every few years and still be considered "scarce."  This is the case with rare medals.   According to Puddester's Rarity Scale an Ultra Rare (exceedingly rare) specimen is one where less than 6 are known to exist - which for Puddester meant tracing every known specimen back to the mint over hundreds of years.   In other words 6 specimens have been observed over that last 200 years.  This says nothing of how many may exist now.

 A "scarce" specimen which in US collecting means that only 10 million or so are known to exist, in medals is one that "When one tries to find a specimen is seems very illusive."  Even the most "common" specimens, according to Puddester, may take several months to track down.  At auction, British Firms that often carry medals, will call a specimen "scarce" that on Puddester's rarity scale are represented by less than 50 known specimens.

200 specimens of  the French Napoleonic gold marriage medal pictured above are known from records to have been minted back in 1811.  This is considered quite a common gold medal.  This is only the third example I have seen over the last 10 years.  I may have missed a couple. 

In the US, most collectors still collect US coins.  But with the advent of the NGC Ancients grading program it is inevitable that US collectors will soon discover this rich market, and from there, they will move into other historically interesting markets, which, right now, are still extremely undervalued.

BAIL IN

Did An Obscure IMF Document Start A Global Bail-In Revolution?

by Daniel R. Amerman, CFA
When revolutions start, it's not uncommon for almost nobody to notice. It may take years or even decades before historians can look back, point a finger and say "that's where it really began."
An obscure International Monetary Fund "Staff Discussion Note" may have already started a "Bail-In" financial revolution that could transform the global investment world.
In this quite remarkable document, the staff discusses a world where risks to the global financial system have not gone away – but are worse than ever. As candidly discussed, the "SIFI" (systemically important financial institution) problem has not been improving, but instead has been getting worse than ever – and there doesn't appear to be any solution under existing contract law and bankruptcy law.
More risk than ever is concentrated in fewer financial institutions, while there is no way under existing law to unwind a failure of one of these institutions without risking triggering global financial chaos. Moreover, there is a deadly feedback loop between these "too-big-to-fail" institutions and sovereign governments. That is, as the IMF staff discusses, the bailing out of these massive institutions can bankrupt sovereign governments, and sovereign governments going bankrupt can wipe out the "too-big-to-fail" institutions.
So the IMF staff has come up with an audacious plan for how the globe can emerge from this seemingly impossible situation. The key word is "insurance".
The proposal is to take selected classes of investments, and retroactively decide that these assets aren't really assets at all. Indeed, the owners of these assets have – without realizing they've done it – agreed to provide insurance for the global financial system. So if a major crisis arises, the global financial system merely goes to these unknowing "insurance" providers and helps itself to their assets effectively, and the crisis is dealt with. It's a miracle solution!
Now there is the issue that some investors might actually object to this taking of their investment assets for the greater good of society. Which is exactly why the IMF staff recommends that this be done by way of statutory law, in a manner that overrides contract law – and is involuntary, with no investor permission needed. It would also be retroactive as needed, thus applying to people who already own these classes of investments.
After the bail-ins of the Cypriot banks and the Polish retirement system, the development of bail-in procedures is spreading rapidly around the world, including the EU, Canada and the United States.  What is fascinating and troubling - though perhaps not surprising - is how global politicians are in practice completely changing the "bail-in" concept, setting aside the IMF-proposed changes that could have forced genuine banking reforms and potentially increased global financial stability, and instead are creating a broader threat to investors.
Moody's Investors Service has already lowered the credit ratings of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon in anticipation of possible future bail-ins.  Moody's accompanying statement explained: "Rather than relying on public funds to bail out one of these institutions, we expect that bank holding company creditors will be bailed-in and thereby shoulder much of the burden to help recapitalize a failing bank."

A World At Risk

The IMF Staff Discussion Note is titled, "From Bail-Out To Bail-In: Mandatory Debt Restructuring Of Systemic Financial Institutions".  Originally released in 2012, it could be viewed as a source document for the global movement to bail-ins.