The true irony here is the Mr. Reed’s father lost his entire savings in the bank failures of the 30′s and he said that his father would die again if he knew he was working for a bank. No, I think his father is turning over in his grave because the deal his son was involved in negating all safeguards to protect saving accounts, and now, 401ks and IRAs as well. Oh, the irony! Mr. Reed says “We got carried away.” No one will take any responsibility for anything. It’s the American way.

The best part of the show was at the end, when Bill responds to an email from a viewer regarding last week’s show. Groovygirl has a renewed hope in America news reporting. Mr. Moyers responded that his job is to report what has/is happened, not modify his story to get a party elected or not elected. It seems Mr. Moyers has grasped the reality of the situation, we are way beyond political parties saving the day.

Groovygirl loves Bill Moyers!!

Missing funds, now not missing, but vaporized. Could be more than $1.2 billion. Surprised?

Because money simply vaporizes. Which means one of two things: i) the “vaporization” is merely the phrase that so called investigators use to avoid the far more troubling sounding “stolen” as it would imply guilt, something which the former NJ governor and Goldman CEO (and not to mention JP Morgan which most likely was on the receiving end of the $1.2 billion + transaction) will, under guidance from counsel, sternly disagree with, or ii) the capital markets are such an unprecedented and manipulated fraud, that nobody has any clue at any moment, where any client money is, and that any residual capital still “invested” in mythical representations of “assets”, which are likely rehypothecated so many times, that not even Bank of America’s robosigning division would have a clue where to start unraveling, will promptly be converted into tangible manifestations of capital. So when someone asks what happened to stock market volume, and to investor confidence in the “stock market” feel free to use just that phrase: “it vaporized.”

Click here for Martin Armstrong’s latest entitled Biggest Profit Margins in History dated January 28, 2012 (2 pages).

GG has been doing some financial dissecting of her bills the last 3 years. Some conclusions of her personal experiences:

• Food is up 30%
• Utilities (including water) are up 15%
• Out of pocket health expenses (co-pays and Rx) are up 43%

Upon further dissecting, even if the cost of unit of utility was the same or only slightly higher on average, the fees and taxes went up. Groovygirl has mentioned this before. Even if we should have a sudden deflation in all energy commodities (but gg thinks not), US infrastructure major maintenance costs and federal, state, and local demand for fees and taxes will make living expenses go up.

Mr. Bernanke may not call that inflation, but groovygirl does. Especially when you are making .01% interest on cash in the bank.

- Net of Involuntary Inventory Build-Up, GDP Growth Was 0.8% Instead of 2.8%
- Durable Goods Orders and New Home Sales Still Show Stagnation
- Fed’s New PCE Inflation Target Is Inconsistent with Plans for Ongoing Easing

Final revised GDP is 1.7%. Click here. Just a reminder than the US bank “stress tests” required at least 2%, which after final “revisions”, we haven’t seen.

Some good interviews over at KWN with Gerald Celente and Jim Rickards.

Burning talks about Neil Howe’s work on generational theory, mass propaganda and perception. It is a long post, but very interesting.

A snippet:

Neil Howe is an expert on interpreting how generations react to events. I expected him to be impressed by the courage and fortitude of the Millenials leading this protest against Wall Street gluttony and audacious criminality. This is the new GI Generation and I anticipated him perceiving these protests as a prelude to greater feats ahead by this generation. Instead he described them as naive adolescents being led down a phony path by anarchist Boomers. As an example he referenced the fact that many of the protestors were wearing Guy Fawkes masks, the most famous anarchist in history. He found this distasteful and dangerous. My interpretation of the Guy Fawkes masks was more in line with the movie V For Vendetta and the theme of a corrupt evil government keeping the public living in perpetual fear.

Neil Howe’s impression of the movie centered on the terroristic aspects of blowing up Parliament, not on the symbolism of citizens rising up and casting off the yoke of a malevolent oligarchy that has used propaganda, fear and intimidation to manipulate and control the population. Howe is a Baby Boomer and I’m Generation X. We are each viewing the Occupy Movement through the prism of our life experiences and perceptions about the intentions of these protestors. The existing social, economic, and political structure is dominated by Boomers. Neil Howe views the Occupy Movement as a threat to the system he believes in and supports. As a cynical Xer with no allegiance to a corrupt government, a crony capitalist economic system or a greedy self centered society, I see these young revolutionaries as our last great hope.

Lots of true stats and proof of the propaganda in Burning’s link. Excellent read!

Side musing: groovygirl found it odd that a sociologist and studier of history like Mr. Howe was so bias.

On another side note, gg finds it very interesting that Ron Paul is invisible again. Even after taking the majority of the independent vote and the under-30 vote in NH. This demographic represents the swing voter and will be the major influence in this election. Will split the vote or not vote at all if Paul is not on a ticket? I don’t think we have seen the real impact yet of Dr. Paul’s ideals, since the focus is on the Republican vote only at the moment.

Click here for Martin Armstrong’s latest thoughts on inflation, deflation, and gold, dated January 27, 2012. Martin lays out his computer daily gold model.

Click here for Jim Sinclair’s comments on Martin’s thoughts.

Groovygirl’s thoughts: whoever is trading gold and silver at this stage of the game doesn’t get it. Please leave that to the professionals. Groovygirl stopped trading gold at $1200. We are in a risk-on investment environment in every sense of the word (from the Fed’s actions to the European debt crisis to debasement of the dollar to the 100xs paper gold market to MF Global). Regardless of where the gold price goes next week, you trade at your own risk.

Buy as low as possible the hold physical gold and silver (but don’t freak if you didn’t buy the lowest low). Let physical gold and silver be at least 20% of your total wealth. Then relax, physical gold and silver are going higher long-term. There will be a time to sell, but we are far from that time.

Click here for summary.

According to LEAP/E2020, 2012 will in fact be the year of the world’s great geopolitical swing: a phenomenon which will without any doubt be the bearer of serious difficulties for most of the planet but which will also allow the emergence of geopolitical conditions favourable to an improvement of the situation in the years to come. Contrary to the previous years, 2012 will not be a “wasted” year, stuck in the “world before the crisis”, through lack of audacity, initiative and imagination on the part of the world’s leaders and because of people’s great passivity since the beginning of the crisis.

…..

The great swing of 2012 is also the accelerated collapse of the Western banks and financial institutions’ power which is a reality described in this issue, contrary to the current populist chatter which forgets that the starry sky that we look at is an image of a long-gone reality. The crisis is such a speeding-up of history that many have not yet understood that the power of the banks which they worry about is that which they had before 2008. It’s a subject with which we deal in detail in this issue. At the same time, one continues to see investors flee the stock markets and financial assets particularly in the USA (12).

A couple of notes from groovygirl on Martin’s use of the word inflation. Inflation can have a lot of definitions. One is the velocity of money, another is the debasement of a currency, another is the scarcity of a commodity or the demand of a commodity.

Inflation in consumables (especially oil) that are denominated in dollars will rise in price, because the Fed is debasing the dollar in relation to other fiat global currencies. Since inflation in assets and capital is NOT occurring, as Martin points out, because the extreme deflation in debt, wages are falling in relation to dollar debasement. This puts the squeeze on wage earners and their rising living expenses. Investors have a little more flexibility to invest in non-dollar currencies (including gold), stocks, or speculation to stay ahead of the dollar debasement, thus preserving the purchasing power of their capital.

In addition we have the next speculation bubble: raw materials and consumables. This will affect the wage earners as well. It will look and feel like inflation to them, even as debt continues to deflate.

John Williams states that hyperinflation in the US will happen when dollars held abroad come back to the US en mass, when the globe abandons the dollar and dollar-priced assets, such as oil. This move has little to do with banks lending money or not or their perceived or real debt level.

Please remember that Martin looks at the global impact and capital moves, not always from a national/local level.

That is just gg’s 2 cents.

Ann Barnhardt brought this new development to our attention. Thanks, Ann.

The CME is offering over-the-counter swaps for agricultural products next month. Click here. Groovygirl was rolling on the floor laughing when she read: “As part of our commitment to provide customers with flexible risk-management tools”. And that is just the first line!

This will not end well.

From Ann:

This arrived in my email box from CME Group this morning and it made my blood run cold.

OVER THE COUNTER agricultural products? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

So help me, anyone in the ag sector that is stupid enough to trade this crap will deserve EVERYTHING that they get. If they are raping and pillaging without compunction in the old school contracts, what do you think they’re going to do OVER THE FLIPPING COUNTER?

Click here for her site.

This is so scary. Do not invest in these OTCs. And read the prospectus of every company-bank that you are investing in to discern if they are using these instruments of mass destruction. You will need to study the foot notes carefully and research the sources of income and losses in previous annual reports. OTCs are on the “off-balance sheets” of companies for a reason….to hide risk from investors.