US Government bails out Afghanistan’s Central Bank in Kabul. Who’s the largest shareholder in the Central Bank? None other than one of President Hamid Karzai’s brothers, Mahmoud Karzai. His other brother, Amhed, is one of the largest warlords in the country having control over the southern provinces’ opium production and strategic transport routes used by private contractors.

Where will all of the dollars come from for a textbook hyperinflation scenario?

Right now, there are two forms of paper currency: Actual dollars, and Treasury bonds. One is a medium of exchange, the other a store of value. But if Treasuries—the ultimate store of value—now tanked? If the last sure-thing in paper-based stores of value took a hit, where would people go to both store value, and have ready access to that value? Commodities.
If Treasuries tank, and the markets all barrel into commodities, then prices will rise for regular consumers—this should not be a controversial inference. What would consumers do, with suddenly much higher gas prices, and soon much higher food prices? Simple: They’ll bust open their piggy banks. The first wave of dollars in a hyperinflationary event will come from people’s savings accounts. (Hayden’s Note: Excellent article, highly recommended)

Most Americans are still operating under the delusion that this “recession” will end and that the “good times” will return soon, but a growing minority of Americans are starting to realize that things are fundamentally changing and that they better start preparing for what is ahead. So what can we each individually do to somewhat insulate ourselves from the economic problems that are coming?…. hit the link to read more!

The truth is that this is not a short-term downturn in the housing market. During the past two decades, an insane amount of debt fueled an artificial housing bubble that drove home prices to ridiculous levels. Now the U.S. housing market is trying to correct itself, and no matter how many trillions of dollars the U.S. government throws at the problem the fundamentals of the marketplace are still going to have their way eventually.

This might sound odd, but: Ben Bernanke is a genius. He was considered a child prodigy in grade school, scored 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs, attended Harvard, then MIT and was a tenured professor at Princeton University by the age of 31.

So why is he wrong so much of the time? Why does he act surprised at the outcome of his own policy decisions? And why is Ron Paul always so right?

Could there be some corruption at play here? (duh!)

Yields are low, unemployment up, CPI numbers are down—in short, everything screams “deflation”. Nevertheless, the next leg down in the Global Depression will be a hyperinflation. Here’s why it will happen, how it will happen, and what to do about it.

Today we got our first Hindenburg Omen confirmation. The number of new highs was 136, and new lows was at 69 (per the traditional WSJ source). Granted this particular criteria set was a little weak as the 69 is precisely on the borderline for confirmation (the 2.2%), and the new highs number was not more than double the new lows (although it was close). Less gating were the McClellan oscillator which was negative at -83.6, and the 10 week MVA, which rose, which were the two remaining conditions. The first omen was spotted on August 12 – a week later the H.O has been confirmed. The more confirmations, the scarier it gets from a technical perspective, not to mention the conversion into a self-fulfilling prophecy (like every other technical indicator).

When one understands how Elites view economy, and realizes their primary motivations, the fact that they purposely triggered a collapse is perfectly logical. Nothing besides all out war inspires more fear and desperation in a society than a financial upheaval. Such elements on a mass scale allow changes in our collective psychology that were never possible before. Most people tend to falter under such an overwhelming threat and turn towards any authority (or fake authority) to save them from harm. Some people scoff at this idea, but it is likely they have never actually been in the wake of a real national catastrophe before. Men, especially those who know little of themselves, can change quickly in the face of calamity. The Elites recognize this, engineer tragedy, then waltz into the aftermath to merrily lord over the rubble.

China began reducing its holdings of U.S. government bonds again in June, and in fact cut just its holdings by the largest 1-month amount ever.

Several tons of gold imported into the UAE by traders and investors turned out to be fake on closer inspection, resulting in millions of dirhams in losses and high levels of stress to the victims. A tonne of gold will cost approximately $40 million. Merchants estimated that the minimum loss of fake gold imported by local traders is nothing less than $200 million.