Financial Advice Fails - As Everybody Becomes Poorer, & More #News

Real Household Net Worth:

 Look Out Below?

In my last post I pointed out that over the last half century, every time the year-over-year change in Real Household Net Worth went negative (real household wealth decreased), a recession had either started, or was about to.  (One bare exception: a tiny decline in Q4 2011, which looks rather like turbulence following The Big Whatever.) Throughout, click for source. - 

The problem: we don’t see this quarterly number until three+ months after the end of a quarter, when the Fed releases its Z.1 report for the the preceding quarter. The Q2 2015 report is due September 18.

But right now we might be able to roughly predict what we’re going to see four+ months from now, in the report on our current quarter, Q3, which ends September 30. We’re a bit over a month from the end the quarter, and we have some numbers to hand.

The U.S. equity markets are down roughly 7% year-over-year

South Africa's economy contracts, risk of recession grows

PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa's economy shrank for the first time in more than a year during the second quarter of 2015, raising the risk that labour disputes and slowing Chinese demand for commodities could push it towards recession.

The economic strain will inhibit the central bank from raising rates further to protect a weak currency and target inflation, while also torpedoing government efforts to keep deficits in check and protect its credit ratings.

EU’s Migrant Crisis

A record 107,500 migrants crossed the EU borders last month to outstrip the previous monthly record in June of 70,000. During the first seven months there were nearly 340,000 migrants, up from 123,500 last year,

Warring Migrant Tribes, Grenade Attacks…What Is Going On In Sweden?

if you bring intolerant people into your country this is what can happen

Immigrants in Germany swell to record high 11 

million

 Information and Communication Technologies is radically changing the world

Not only how we deal with the world and make sense of it, or interact with each other, but also how we look at ourselves and understand our own nature, existence, and responsibilities. 

This is the IT version of my book The Great Field (available in Kindle books).

$2.1 Trillion Erased From U.S.Stocks In Six Days

The enormous losses reflect the deep fears gripping markets about how the world economy will fare amid a deepening economic slowdown in China.

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have all tumbled into correction territory, their first such 10% decline from a recent high since 2011.

The S&P 500 -- the best barometer for the biggest U.S. companies -- has lost trillions of market value in the six-day selloff through Tuesday, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

To put those losses into perspective, that's roughly equal to the combined market value of these corporate titans put together:

 Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Google(GOOGL, Tech30), Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), ExxonMobil (XOM), Facebook (FB, Tech30), Walmart(WMT) and 21st Century Fox (FOXA).

Learning Success: 

APPLY Tips From The Best

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group – Anyone who owns more than 400 companies and is worth billions of dollars is clearly doing many things right. I admire Richard Branson’s tenacity, and I admire his personal brand

Showdown For Greece This Weekend? - & More

Weekend deadline for Greece after negotiations draw blank

Greece’s creditors have set the country a weekend deadline to avoid default and stay in the eurozone, after more than 24 hours of non-stop Brussels negotiations at the highest level resulted in stalemate.

After talks between Athens and its creditors failed to reach an agreement on Thursday, a further meeting of eurozone finance ministers will be held on Saturday in a bid to achieve a breakthrough. With the German chancellor Angela Merkel insisting that a deal must be reached before markets open on Monday morning, Greece is now running out of time to secure an accord and make a €1.6bn payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday.

Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill

A decade in the making, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is reaching its climax and as Congress hotly debates the biggest trade deal in a generation, its backers have turned on the cash spigot in the hopes of getting it passed.

“We’re very much in the endgame,” US trade representative Michael Froman told reporters over the weekend at a meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on the resort island of Boracay. His comments came days after TPP passed another crucial vote in the Senate.

S&P moves UK outlook from

 stable to negative on EU 

referendum

Away from Greece and S&P has revised the outlook for the UK from stable to negative, while keeping the country’s credit rating at AAA. It points to the possible departure of the UK from the EU, with the forthcoming referendum:

• 12-Jun-2015 17:10:21 - S&P REVISES UNITED KINGDOM SOVEREIGN CREDIT OUTLOOK DOWN TO NEGATIVE FROM STABLE; CURRENT RATING IS AAA
• 12-Jun-2015 17:12:11 - S&P - POSSIBLE U.K. DEPARTURE FROM EU ALSO RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FINANCING OF THE ECONOMY’S LARGE TWIN DEFICITS AND HIGH SHORT-TERM EXTERNAL DEBT
• 12-Jun-2015 17:12:29 - S&P - U.K. GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO HOLD REFERENDUM ON EU MEMBERSHIP SHOWS ECONOMIC POLICYMAKING COULD BE MORE EXPOSED TO PARTY POLITICS THAN EXPECTED

Americans households have the highest

 credit card debt since recession

On average, American households are $7,177 in debt, according to a CardHub study. That's a lot of debt, but not necessarily an unconquerable amount. Now's a good time to start digging your way out of it.

Federal Reserve System a Run Away 

Machine-G. Edward Griffin 

On war, Griffin contends, “War is primarily a psychological weapon. The threat of war, the fear of war, that is more useful to governments than actual war. Machiavelli said years ago said that the best way to keep people content and overlook the miseries they have to suffer under their own governments is to embroil the people in wars or rumors of wars. So, they would be so afraid of an enemy that they would tolerate any insult to their liberties as a means of preventing this thing they dread so much. That is certainly the prime operative today.

Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America 

In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” (link is external) where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel brought a snowball (link is external) into the chamber as evidence that climate change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name the vice president (link is external), it is beyond dispute that critical thinking has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be our downfall.

Gold: Will This Summer’s Rally Mark A 

Cyclical  Turning Point? 

It was another volatile week in the markets. The interest rate decision by the U.S. Fed on Wednesday was a non-event with no change in the Fed’s monetary policy. The market reacted with a spike in stocks, bonds, and precious metals, while the U.S. dollar took a dive. Also, the unfolding drama in Greece spooked markets and metals; stock markets are nervous while metals mostly get bids each time the Greek crisis flares up.

Collapse, Part 4: Loss of Faith in Public 

Institutions

Public institutions are now devoted to serving their own vested interests or the interests of private financial Elites.

Though we may think of collapse in terms of ATMs not working and rampaging mobs, collapse actually starts with the intangible loss of faith in public institutions:elected officials, law enforcement, the justice system and the agencies of financial regulation (anti-trust, etc.).

Unsurprisingly to those who discern the structural rot of the status quo,Americans No Longer Believe In Their Institutions:

“Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one,” a Gallup spokesman said in a news release. All in all, it’s a picture of a nation discouraged about its present and worried about its future,More  and highly doubtful that its institutions can pull America out of its trough.

More Top Headlines

1. Twice as many Americans now forced to delay marriage, college, kids
2. MERS Prompts Fiscal Stimulus in Korea as Confidence Falls
3. Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Mounts With Key Deadline Just Week Away
4. Muni Buyers Bedazzled by Junk-Bond Yields Let Protections Slip
5. Sacramento region hit hard by CalPERS health plan rate hikes
6. Greece’s businesses buckle after months on brink of bankruptcy
7. Goldman Sees Ukraine Default in July as Debt Standoff Holds

 Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

The Extinction Debate

WALL ST Now Panicky Over #Greek Default Risk

Greek default? Wall Street Says Don't Risk It!!!

NEW YORK — Top executives on Wall Street and senior policymakers in Washington are warning their European counterparts not to let Greece default and leave the Eurozone, fearing the market reaction at a time of sluggish growth in the U.S. and instability in the global economy.

Some say they are not as freaked out as they were in 2012 about the prospect of always-in-crisis Greece getting kicked out of the Eurozone, which could happen if a deal isn’t reached quickly. Some would even like to let the Greeks go and move on with life. But then people mention Lehman Brothers. And the Russian default. And even an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914. And theoretical discussion of how better prepared the world is for a Greek exit quickly turns into fevered rumination on how it still might spark global financial Armageddon. Read More.

Greeks Seem To Be A Bit Unnerved TOO!

Platinum Wealth Partners - Top Investors Edge

It is understandable that Wall St is on edge because the global financial system is so interconnected - a proverbial house of cards. But the problem child does not show any signs of change and could quickly tumble the Eurozone; thereby trigger a roaring ripple around the globe.
.
In the end, Wall Street is not the only one suffering from anxiety attacks.


International Offices
April 28, 2015