Banking

Love it or hate it, cash is playing an increasingly less important role in society. In some ways this is great news for consumers. The rise of mobile and electronic payments means faster, convenient, and more efficient purchases in most instances...However, there is also a darker side in the shift to a cashless society. Governments and central banks have a different rationale behind the elimination of cash transactions, and as a result, the so-called “war on cash” is on.

There is a misconception about the uncanny ability of very profitable U.S. companies, like Microsoft and Apple, to park their profits overseas in order to dodge U.S. taxes: the money from these profits that are parked “overseas” isn’t actually overseas. Words: 338

8 years after the credit crisis, most big American banks and almost all big European banks are relapsing in spite of extraordinary central bank efforts to liquefy and engineer profits for them. However, as long as they pose colossal risks to the global economy and draw tens of trillions of dollars of central bank spending (which they mostly hoard on their balance sheets to survive and thrive) away from productive economic use, global growth will continue to stagnate, until it contracts dramatically and implodes the big banks all over again.

Deutsche Bank’s catastrophic derivative exposure has hammered down its stock price from $135 in 2007 to only $17/share today - ergo a heart-stopping price loss of -87%. Furthermore, DB’s stock price appears to be hell bent for leather to follow Lehman Brothers’ lethal path to Wall Street’s graveyard due primarily to its oppressive derivative’s exposure. As Warren Buffett has said: “Derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.”

As the dollar strengthens gold weakens & as the dollar falls, gold rises - .and it is my firm belief that the dollar is toast. If the dollar falls to the same magnitude which it has in previous interest rate cycles, we could see gold rally by 50%.

American balance of trade deficits will start to hurt and haunt the U.S. as the world migrates to a series of arrangements for trade beyond the USD (although the USD will continue to function as the lead foreign exchange/reserve and trade currency for sometime yet) and the introduction of an IMF-SDR basket of currencies.

Then the next time you hear the word "trillion" used in relation to government debt, the financial markets or the latest corporate takeover price take a step back. Then think again about the foregoing comparators. Finally, think again about the economic, business and financial markets content you are hearing, reading or seeing and the humongous numbers that are being bandied about without context.

On April 19th China introduced a yuan-denominated gold benchmark on the Shanghai Gold Exchange in a move to become an even bigger player in the global gold market. Gold transactions to be conducted without dollars, separate from the New York and London metals exchanges that have dominated the gold market for decades. Will that be bullish for gold as so many analysts think?]

I believe we’re much more likely to see another round of quantitative easing before we see a rate hike. John Williams of the San Francisco Fed hinted at this when he said the Fed could “clearly” lower rates again if needed, and use other tools “if necessary.”

With interest rates being at all-time lows the market is putting an all-time low value on silver. Economic decline is the trigger that will bring a change in the prevailing interest rate trend and it has already started and will soon accelerate, causing a massive spike in the silver price.