I decided to split off my postings of economic links from Jim's Thoughts, so that I can get that topic back to what it was intended to be, a place for me to post trading ideas and thoughts I had that I felt could be of interest to the readers.

This topic is where I will post links to various economic articles, for those that find them interesting. If you want to read (or post) articles about the unfolding debaucle, this is the place to look. If you are a short-term daytrader or swing trader and have zero interest in the economy, you can now just read Jim's Thoughts and not have to wade through this type of dicussion.

At best I think this material only has a direct effect on longer-term plays, the bigger swings that make up the major legs of the bull and bear markets. I follow this stuff for that reason, and because I want to have a handle on things, if that is even possible in this era of lies and deception, so that I can make decisions on life issues.

For example, as I posted in the commentary on the website and discussed with many people well in advance, this was something that wasn't hard to see coming. I saw many people who told me as late as Oct 2007 that 'this thing is about to 'break out' to the upside, and that Dow 20,000, and then much higher, was 'just around the corner' '. The type of articles I am posting discuss the type of information that helped me form the viewpoints I had back then.

If this is far from over, as I suspect, we are in a similar postion now as back then. With the rally that is unfolding right now the talk is the bull is back, the bottom is in, and we are set. I'm not so sure. So, I try to weigh up all the factors and not get too sucked in by the hype. To that end, I will post things here I find interesting.

Too bad it may come to this...

http://www.youtube.com/v/_LZWqrHd3r4

I just keep hearing how this won't end so bad, and how this is a real bull market, supported by fundamentals of increasing growth and true organic corporate profits...

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/must-watch-stockman-explain-ratigan-how-thirty-years-america-spent-enough-debt-lbo-itself-an

http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/plot-enslave-you

Does anybody get it yet? I'm not talking about a weak economy and some knuckleheads that just don't know how to handle it properly. When the defecate hit the rotary propeller in 2008 and they did 100% the exact opposite of what they should have done if they wanted to help the people, it became clear that what is discussed above was the most likely case scenario. How far does it have to go before people see it? When you are in physical chains? When the super-rich are much richer and you work 140 hours a week for bread and water and can't keep up? When will people see what is happening??? When?

My hero, and the only guy who I think could save us...

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/14/congressman-ron-paul-end-the-fed/

And it's funny, I can't recall the exact state, it was MI or somewhere further south, maybe MS, anyway, it was all over Zero Hedge, state law enforcement I think it was, they circulated a list for the officers, ten things to watch for to tell if someone may be a domestic terrorist. Eventually there was so much outrage they pulled it back. Anyway, on the list was 'if they have a Ron Paul bumper sticker' and 'holding the belief that the Fed should be ended or that they were a bad thing'. Wow. The others were just as crazy. Imagine a cop pulling one of us over after reading that...

I've just finished reading Peter Schiff's "How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes":

http://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292401585&sr=8-1

I have read all Schiff's books, but this one really stands out. I truly recomend it to everyone who wants to understand how the economy really works. It's written in a fun and informative way and so easy to grasp that even a first grader should learn where the US economy currently is, why it got there and what would be the outcome.
In fact if it wasn't for the language barrier I would be giving away this book as a gift to my family and friends.

Read Stoneleigh's writeup at the beginning. Why this is interesting is that if you already read Lira's writings posted at Zero Hedge, you can see Stoneleigh's view on what Lira posts with some context. Both make good points. He (Lira) for immediate, imminent hyperinflation, she (Stoneleigh) for a sustained deflation, followed by the hyperinflation. He feels after it is all over, the U.S. may be back to business as usual, she feels maybe twenty years of hell, then a radically changed world after that.

I'm starting to wonder if the more likely scenario is hers. The deflation pressures will catch up as the European countries go default one by one, and the Eurozone breaks up. This would be very deflationary. It's all a hard read, at best. My reason for thinking hyperinflation is imminent is that I felt some default event or something would lead to a currency collapse, and it would all happen fast. Maybe it doesn't happen fast.

Anyway, it's all food for thought, for those that care. Bottom line, the one thing I haven't changed my view on is that going forward it is going to be hell, the world we know won't ever be seen again (enjoy the calm before the storm in here), and this run up in the stock market will be the joke of the century, or maybe of the millenium.

They'll look back on this, and all the talk at the time about what it meant for the economy and its recovery, and ask how was it that everyone didn't see it coming. In hindsight it will look more insane than anything to date, I think. We are in the second inning, and probably the very top of the second. Just one man's opinion, and ramblings.

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/12/december-15-2010-debunking-gonzalo-lira.html

And back to thinking a collapse of any major European bank could start a counterparty risk cascade (from those pesky $1.6 quadrillion in unregulated derivatives that, by some estimates, are out there) that no amount of printing could touch. I mean, sure, electronically, they could print a quadrillion dollars (a quadrillion is a thousand trillion, or a million billion) to cover some of it, but if they printed a million billion dollars, instead of 600 billion, you think the dollar would hold up? Instant currency crisis. In other words, worldwide default for all banks, instantly. That's my worry. I guess I'm back to my main worry being the fast reset, not the slow, controlled deflation.

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/12/december-18-2010-kicking-snowball-down.html

The corrupt game goes on, the TBTF (Too Big To Fail) scum are still at it, with more profits and more, and bigger, bonuses coming. Nice blood money, if you can live with yourself. And these guys live with themselves just fine. There are just too many shoes to drop, too many ticking timebombs everywhere. We are in the top of the second inning, in my opinion.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/what%E2%80%99s-going-credit-unions

If you have a little time to kill and you want to see two guys who I think are spot on, here's two places to go have some fun.

Do all eight videos here (eight at the time of this posting, perhaps more by the time you read this):

http://www.xtranormal.com/profile/4426011/

And check out as many of this guy's artworks as you can stand. Start on the political satire page. Beware if you use his arrow keys, as they stop at some point and skip some of the great ones. I wound up clicking on each title on the left to be sure I didn't miss any. I found this guy from an image I saw which I thought was great, then I discovered he does book covers, and it was the cover of a recent book on the Fed. I'll give that link, and then you can just surf from there. I looked over every last thing on the site, it's that good.

http://www.sl-webs.com/deesillustration/artwork.asp?item=489&cat=satire

Give me some feedback as to whether you all find these two as good as I do.

So, on that discussion of commodities falling instead of exploding, there's this. Although on the far extreme that few will even consider, I think it is possible. Imagine, too, based on the timeline given of 2-5 years for the full unfold, the stock markets blazing at new all-time highs, talk of nothing but how incredibly great things are, insiders still selling at a record pace, as they have been since Mar '09, and then the great unfolding takes place...

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/12/december-23-2010-about-that-90-drop-in.html

I forgot, I do have another hero to go with Ron Paul and David Stockman, and that's Nigel Farage. Here's his latest:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-17/farage-unleashed-you-are-common-criminals