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- Currencies Try to Rebound Today
- Superior Biotechnology Leads to Superior Drugs
- The Delusion of Regulating Risk
- Talk of a Greek Exit Gets Louder
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom, Part II
- Is Facebook the Rusty Hinge of the Stock Market?
- Fitch Downgrades Japan
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom
- Greeks Run on Banks as Euro-Confidence Wanes
Police did indeed give Occupiers free pot, new evidence suggests; DRE program suspended
Last Thursday, we told you about explosive allegations made by a new video report — that state patrol officers and county deputies have been giving drugs to young people hanging out near Peavey Plaza as part of the State Patrol’s Drug Recognition Expert program.
Later that day, Eric Roeske, State Patrol public information officers, said, “there’s been no evidence or no information that has been presented to us that would substantiate any of the allegations.” It now appears he spoke too soon.
In a press release issued earlier today, Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman announced that the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that a Hutchinson police officer provided marijuana to a DRE program participant last week.
According to the release, an officer from another law enforcement agency witnessed the activity. The witnessing officer, also a DRE participant, then reported the exchange to the Minnesota State Patrol.
Dohman also announced the immediate suspension of the DRE program, which has been ongoing in Minnesota since 1991. The program is intended to provide officers with intoxication-recognition training so they can surmise what substances have been used by intoxicated people encountered in the line of duty.
“Training law enforcement officers to detect drug impairment helps to keep our roads safe, but we need to ensure that all participants follow guidelines and operate within the law,” Dohman said. “I have suspended the drug recognition evaluator training pending the outcome of these investigations and until we revisit and review the curriculum for the program.”
In summation, it appears there is at least some fire under the billowing cloud of smoke created by the video report, which is the work of local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality.
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Break Up the Big Banks, Says the Dallas Fed
As the Supreme Court shows every sign of throwing out “Obamacare” and leaving 30 million Americans without health insurance, another drama is being played out in the quiet corridors of the Federal Reserve system that may affect even more of us.
Taxpayers will be on the hook for another giant Wall Street bailout, and the economy won’t be mended, unless the nation’s biggest banks are broken up.
That’s not just me talking, or the Occupier movement, or that wayward executive who resigned from Goldman Sachs a few weeks ago. It’s the conclusion of the Dallas Federal Reserve, one of the most conservative of the Fed’s regional banks.
The lead essay in its just released annual report says a cartel of giant banks continues to hobble the recovery and poses an ongoing danger to the economy.
Wall Street’s increasing power remains “difficult to control because they have the lawyers and the money to resist the pressures of federal regulation.” The Dodd-Frank act that was supposed to control Wall Street “leaves TBTF [too big to fail] entrenched.”
The Dallas Fed goes on to argue that the Fed’s easy money policy can’t be much help to the U.S. economy as long as Wall… Continue reading
Shouting Cameras Bark Orders At Residents To Leave Their Own Property
Residents of a block of flats in North London were outraged to discover cameras in their gardens barking out orders, telling them to leave the area immediately and that they were being monitored by the authorities.
In a scene that wouldn’t look out of place in the movie Robocop, one resident captured footage of the shouting cameras telling him “Stop, this is a restricted area and your photograph is being taken.”
The robotic American voice then warned that the images would “be sent for processing if you don’t leave the area now.”
Watch the footage below:
UK surveillance watchdog group Big Brother Watch slammed Camden council for using the cameras:
“This kind of technology may be acceptable in a police state or a science fiction film, but it is absolutely not in modern Britain”, spokesman Nick Pickles told the London Telegraph.
“The idea that a Robocop recording will tackle antisocial behaviour and crime is as laughable as it is a total invasion of privacy. Who knew councils had the authority to take your photograph simply because you walked into a communal garden?” Pickles added.
Camden council responded by claiming that the vocal element of the cameras was activated “by mistake”… Continue reading
Gold vs Gold Stocks – Goldman Releases “2012: A Gold Odyssey? The Year Ahead…”
As one can glean from the title, in this comprehensive report by Goldman’s Paul Hissey, the appropriately named firm deconstructs the divergence between gold stocks and spot gold in recent years, a topic covered previously yet one which still generates much confusion among investor ranks. As Goldman, which continues to be bullish on gold, says, “There is little doubt that gold stocks in general have suffered a derating; initially with the introduction of gold ETFs (free from operational risk), and more recently with the onset of global market insecurity through the second half of 2011. However, gold remains high in the top tier of our preferred commodities for 2012, simply because of the extremely uncertain macroeconomic outlook currently faced in many parts of the world. The official sector also turned net buyer of gold in 2010 for the first time since 1988, and has expanded its net purchases in 2011.” And so on. Yet the irony is, as pointed out before, that synthetic paper CDO, continue to be the target of significant capital flows, despite repeated warnings that when push comes to shove, investors would be left with nothing to show for their capital (aside from interim price moves of course), as opposed to holding actual physical (which however has additional implied costs making it prohibitive for most to invest). Naturally, this is also harming gold stocks. Goldman explains. And for all those who have been requesting the global gold cash cost curve, here it is…
- We feel there are some obvious solutions to the flight to physical gold ETFs. In order to entice investors away from the gold ETFs, producers
must- Reduce perceived operational risk
- Deliver to market expectations (which includes managing those expectations)
- Demonstrate volume- (not just price-) driven EPS growth
- Return cash to shareholders
- Continue to replenish resources and reserves
- It is also likely that some of the derating we have seen recently has been as a result of changing sentiment towards sovereign risk. With a skittish view toward equities in general, and a decreasing willingness to pay for future earnings, it appears as though the market is less inclined to favour exposure to companies in locations where the perceived risk is higher – rightly or wrongly (West Africa, Philippines, etc.).
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Oxford Economics: Academic Proof that Gold is an Important Diversification Against Inflation & Deflation
Oxford Economics have released a comprehensive and excellent report, ‘The impact of inflation and deflation on the case for gold’. It studies gold’s benefit to investment and pension portfolios in inflation and deflation. Founded in 1981, Oxford Economics is one of the world’s foremost global forecasting and research consultancies.
The report concurs with numerous other academic studies proving gold’s importance in investment and pension portfolios – for both enhancing returns but more importantly reducing risk.
The importance of owning gold has been proven conclusively in numerous studies. The importance of owning gold in a properly diversified portfolio has been shown in studies and academic papers by Mercer Consulting, Bruno and Chincarini, Scherer, Baur and McDermott and the asset allocation specialist Ibbotson.
Oxford Economics gold report shows how gold is a good hedge against inflation, as well as deflation.
It says that investors should allocate 5 percent of their portfolio to gold to best offset the effects of both inflation and deflation.
The analysis reflects a simple model including gold, cash, equities, bonds and commercial real estate. It goes on to add that the allocation rises (10%) in a higher inflation scenario, as well as for risk-averse investors in an environment of even weaker growth and lower inflation.
Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years
Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.
The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured.
“All the sales and inventory data that have been reported since January 2007 are being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought,” NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters.
“We’re capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out and we also discovered that some properties were being listed in more than one list.”
The benchmark revisions will be published next Wednesday and will not affect house prices.
Early this year, the Realtors group was accused of overcounting existing homes sales, with California-based real estate analysis firm CoreLogic claiming sales could have been overstated by as much as 20 percent.
At the time, the NAR said it was consulting with a range of experts to determine whether there was a drift in its monthly existing home sales data and that any drift would be “relatively minor.”… Continue reading
