Shadowstats presents what they claim to be the original methodology used by the government to calculate the rate of inflation in the U.S. but Shadowstats' John Williams is not calculating inflation any differently. He is not using the 1980s or 1990s methodology... [Instead,] all he's is doing is taking the CPI data and adding on an arbitrary constant to make it look like inflation is higher!

It is common for economists to offer a forecast for the stock market yet add a caveat to the effect that "If a war shock or terrorist attack occurs, then I would have to modify my outlook." As such, it would seem logical to assume that...they must have access to a study showing that such events affect the stock market, right? The answer is no, for the same reason that they do not check relationships between interest rates, oil prices or the trade balance and the stock market. The causality just seems too sensible to doubt.

The belief that earnings drive stock prices powers the bulk of the research on Wall Street but this glaring exception to the idea of a causal relationship between corporate earnings and stock prices challenges that theory. Let me explain.

For the moment, things are looking pretty good in the United States but...our financial markets are perfectly primed for a fall. Sadly, most people did not see the crash of 2008 coming, and most people will not see the next one coming either.

Huge growth patterns in markets -- more commonly known as "bubbles" -- have a remarkable timing signature common to every single one of them - they all have lasted 64 or 65 months from initial growth to blow-off top.

The Fed's buying of U.S. Treasuries by creating currency (paper money) out of thin air is inflationary (either now or long term) and those that do not accept this premise are, with all due respect, daft, and is sure to result in a momentous growth in the value of hard assets such as gold and silver. Here's why.

Right now the monthly chart of the S&P 500 Index (SPX) is crying out -- screaming, even -- for a 38.2% retracement to 1740. Here's why.

Since 2008 stocks have risen dramatically throughout every stage of quantitative easing but, when the various phases of quantitative easing have ended, stocks have always responded by declining substantially...only to eventually start rising again was a new round of quantitative easing. So what will happen this time?

Interest rates will not rise again in our lifetime. Why, you ask? Because the leverage in the system would collapse the very financial assets and governments which underpin the global financial systems. It is INFLATE or DIE and it provides the additional benefit of feeding insolvent welfare states and the socialist politicians to feed their "useful idiot" supporters. Today’s missive will put some meaning into that observation.

With two huge market declines in a the same decade, investors are constantly on edge waiting for the next crash, but we’re more likely to see cyclical, not secular, market drops for the simple fact that they happen more often. Here are the details.