STILL SOME PROFITS THERE

The ploy is usually almost always the same. They're from the government or some quasi-government agency and they're here to help (protect) you. And just as usually that means getting those bad boys and girls who choose to play outside the foul lines. Their foul lines.

One such quasi-government clutch is the International Monetary Fund or IMF. They thrive on spreading bad news so you will feel an urgency to keep this behemoth bureaucratic den of deception and international loan sharks around. Their leader is Christine LeGarde.

Here's an excerpt that discusses the situation better than we might from thedailybell.com/news-analysis/protect-yourself-against-those-running-the-worlds-economy-for-your-benefit

The IMF is back at work spreading fear. That’s not what we are supposed to think of course. We’re supposed to believe that the IMF has our best interests at heart and that its ranks are filled with caring, decent people.

But in this article we want to review important financial facilities along with the banking elite itself to reemphasize that they are not what they seem.

We’ll remind you of why they are not to be trusted and how the current economic system worldwide has been rigged to collapse, and to take you down with it.

The IMF, the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, the larger central banks and top banking elites are all complicit.

In the world of high finance, nothing is as it seems. Each element in engaged in subtle interplay with the others. The goal is always destabilization along with the ruin of the middle classes and the enrichment of just a few, worldwide.

This has been going on since the Great Depression and then again since the end of World War II.

Let’s examine main players.

The IMF is part of a financial tag-team that smashes whole countries on the shoals of sovereign debt. First the World Bank lends to irresponsible government leaders and then the IMF offers additional funds.

But those funds come at a price. The IMF insists on imposing high taxes on already impoverished people. And it often forces countries to sell off valuable national enterprises to Western multinationals.

The IMF and the World Bank deal with political leaders and business tycoons. Central banks have a different role to play and the largest ones are directly involved in fine-tuning the world’s monetary system.

Secret deals are a constant occurrence when it comes to the world’s central-banks. That’s because central banking is a legalized monopoly and central bankers are supposed to conspire together. The Bank for International Settlements acts like a Mafioso Kingpin, supervising the secret arrangements.

The most recent secret deal was negotiated in February at the G20 meeting. Here, top central bank officials agreed to boost the Chinese economy via interest rate manipulation.

It was hoped this would help the doomed Chinese economy while not further damaging Western economies. In fact, the damage from decades of massive credit flows has so injured the world’s economy that no matter what central bankers do, it’s not going to be any good.

Ideally, they would step out of the way. But they won’t. They’ll just make things worse.

Their remedies are laughably simplistic anyway. They either print money or they don’t.

If they print money by creating more credit, then they will contribute to asset bubbles. If they tighten, they will puncture those bubbles prematurely and add trillions in further debt to a world already catastrophically over leveraged.

One country that is over leveraged to the point of bankruptcy is Greece. Just recently a transcript leaked showing top IMF officials mulling over some sort of “economic event” that would destabilize Greece and force Germany back to the negotiating table.

What arrogance! Powerful individuals in high places ought not to be conspiring to make others miserable  – even for the cause of economic stability.

But the Greek controversy was nearly extinguished by the most recent leak, a gargantuan one of more than ten million emails hacked from a Panamanian law firm.

The leak has come in for an enormous amount of scrutiny because it exposed a number of very important politicians and business people to various kinds of legal jeopardy including tax evasion charges.

As it has turned out, many of the individuals exposed seem in some sense opposed to the current Western-supervised financial system or its leading interests. In other words, the leak was a titanic false flag aimed at attacking enemies of transnational leadership facilities.

These two recent leaks show us once again how closely the world is controlled at the top. IMF officials can plot the further ruination of a whole country. And elite banking interests apparently can cause a financial law firm to be hacked with such exquisite accuracy that their most serious foes are targeted.

Just as world leaders cannot be trusted, neither can markets themselves.

As we can see from the IMF’s warning at the beginning of this article, Asian markets are fragile and on a downward course.

And recently, Business Insider posted an article explaining that, “One of the best signals in the stock market is saying it may be time to sell.”

This is the trailing 12-month price-to-earnings multiple.  Once stocks in aggregate looked cheap. Now, we learn, “based on the same indicator, it looks as if the market is nearing the top.”

The article concludes, “stay tuned.” But we don’t need to. We already know how this story ends. Badly for you, better for a handful of others.

The response in Iceland was the correct one. But there's a larger point here as we pointed out in our recent blog,SO WHICH IS IT? What deal was cut?  If you think such is an isolated event, know that you do so at your own peril.

Greed is about the fear of missing out on more, not about taking some profits. The financial shock jockey, the Howard Stern of this presidential election, The Donald, has it right. Don't put any more money into this market. In fact, take some of the table while there's still some profits there.

SOME QUESTONS FOR YOU

Here's a question for you irrespective of your age: Is the world more screwed up today, more dangerous than any time in your recall?

Now that covers a lot of ground from countries facing unsustainable debt obligations to wars and famine, elections and the like. It's also a question you need to ask and answer for yourself if your considering buying gold.

Gold is like the wayward one in a family; it gets a lot of discussion, not much respect. Is it or does it, for example, provide a store of value and if so against what? If you're a fiat currency fan, you probable have an attitude when it comes to gold.

People who don't like it argue it doesn't pay or yield any return while your holding it. That sounds much like one of my ex-girl friends. If you know how many central banks today around the globe have invoked negative interest rates in an attempt to either avoid or stimulate their economies from a slowdown in growth, does gold return anything in those situation? and what about your check books and savings accounts? Or those COLAs for social security recipients for the next two years?

Are gold bugs, a pejorative term to be sure, just some looney tooney farts, mostly old and out of touch like that term and those who toss it around suggest?  Would you bother to pick it up if you found a piece laying on the ground? Would those who say it's a fraud compared to paper assets the world now reveres bother to pick it up?

We will spare you all the shopworn debates about whether it's a safe haven, yields anything, storage costs and the rest. What we have noticed for some time now, fewer and fewer bother to pick up pennies when they come across them in the street.

Are pennies symbolic of fiat currencies? A fellow named Ben Franklin once thought so much of them, he argued one saved is one earned. Now Ben's been missing for a longtime, but plenty of others who once subscribed to that belief are still around. It goes by another name, purchasing power.

How many nickels and dimes and quarters and fifty cent pieces play an intricate part in your financial world today?  Better yet, when is the last time you even saw a fifty cent piece?  There was a time when they had actual silver in them and they made a distinctive ringing sound when dropped on the table or floor. If you can find one around today drop it and see what sound it makes.That should tell you something about inflation and if there's really any around.

Does the piece of paper you hold called an insurance policy on your abode or your car pay anything year after year you keep buying it unless something you never want to happen happens? We call those insurance policies put options. Also decaying assets. They have a time limit, like you and me. And they usually yield nothing in the way of income and wind up going to zero, something gold in your lifetime or mine or even in its history has never done.

Those policies with few exceptions are pretty illiquid. You might not like the offered price, but we're willing to bet push versus shove time, you could get something for that gold. Not so sure about those policies. So the next time you read some wanna be pundit citing the reasons gold isn't worth holding, doesn't yield anything and never grows in value like fiat assets, think about some of these questions.

And, oh yea, you might want to see if any of those coins we mentioned have returned to their previous glamour and place in your daily financial world. We're willing to bet some gold with you--if you have any--that they haven't.

The stock market topped out in 1929 in August. The real damage didn't start until October of that year. Though there were some rallies along the way off the 1932 nadir, it took 25 years before the market surpassed it August 1929 Dow high.  Back then there was no S&P 500. A lot of cemeteries got filled up during that time.

In the early 1980s when gold hit its high above $800 an ounce, the U.S. Mint as is its wont floated some commemorative one ounce gold coins named after an American Indian lady. Lots of people purchased them for their gold content at $700. $690, $550 $300 right on down to where the price of gold bottomed years later in the $200 range.

It took quite a while before gold started up again, settling into what became a 12 year bull run. We haven't priced what a one ounce set of those coins goes for today based on just their gold value let alone any added collector value they night have. But we're willing to bet if any of those people are still around most of them are more than even given gold's current price just above $1200 an ounce.

In this same 1980s there was something called the Asian Tigers, the most famous of which was the Japanese Nikkei. It just kept rising and though it traded at nearly 40,000 at its top, perceived wisdom frequently said at the time 80,000 was a realistic top. In fact, there was what many bull markets illustrate near their end an air of arrogance and certainty.

  Japan NIKKEI 225 Index decreased 18 points or 0.11% to 15715 on Wednesday April 6 from 15733 in the previous trading session. Japan NIKKEI 225 Index lost 3926 points or 19.99 percent during the last 12 months from 19,640.54 points in April of 2015. Historically, the Japan NIKKEI 225 Stock Market Index reached an all time high of 38915.87 in December of 1989 and a record low of 85.25 in July of 1950.

As you can see the old Nikkei high hasn't been exceeded since, a 25 year period so far. Land is scarce in Japan. But you get the idea about burials along the way of those waiting to get even.

As for that yellow metal, here's a look at it.

 

 

 

Here a preface to the next chart.
If you’re someone who’s skeptical of government-reported numbers, you’ll find the following chart confirms your suspicions. And if you’re someone who’s attracted to value, you’ll love the chart.   

There is a lot of criticism of the government’s CPI number simply because it doesn’t really seem to reflect what the average person experiences. Even with gas prices in decline, other segments of our society have seen prices accelerate. Healthcare and college costs are two biggies, rising far more than the current 0.2% reading. And many food items have scary trajectories—ground beef has more than doubled since 2010.

Meanwhile, the gold price has fallen by roughly a third over the past three-plus years and been flat for the past four to five months. But is it a good value at current prices?
Since 1980, the CPI formula has been modified at least a dozen times. Heck, they even implemented a new “estimation system” this year. Most nongovernment economists (like you and I) think those changes have made the reading less accurate, not more. So I asked John Williams of Shadow Stats to calculate the gold price in March 2015 dollars (the latest data available) based on the CPI-U formula from 1980.
Here’s what he found.

 

Casey is a known bear, but so what. Do you know any known bulls? MSM is full of them. In  reference to the above chart, we will draw the line with his last statement below and let you decide for yourself.

Adjusted for the 1980 inflation measure, the gold price is approaching its bear market low of 2001. In fact, gold is now below the 1975 price when it became legal to own it again! These data clearly show that when measured against a more realistic view of inflation, gold is dramatically undervalued.
And with total worldwide debt levels up by a whopping $57 trillion since the end of 2007, the need to own it is as important as ever. So if you're looking for a helping hand, look no further than the end of your own wrist.  Do your own research if you can. And don't forget to keep asking those questions. The purchasing power you preserve might be your own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OVERNIGHT

One of investor fears in Japan has been the strong yen against the dollar.  The fear centered on Japan's attempt to weaken its currency and help trade its way to sounder economic times.

Overnight the yen came off a 17-month high against the buck causing more than some angst for investors and putting in question Abernomics after officials expressed reluctance to intervene to slow the currency's appreciation, sources said. Meanwhile, the Nikkei edged higher 0.3% to trade at 15,777.13 after dropping nearly 12% during the first quarter. The WSJ reported that: "The yen has held on to its gains despite warnings from Japanese officials that the country would not tolerate excessive strength in its currency."

The U.S markets didn't helps things out, falling for the second straight day as gold, Treasuries and the yen were perceived again as safe haven places. Oil finished the end of the day slightly higher, too.The quest for a safe haven also pushed yields on government bonds lower in the U.S.,UK and Germany.

Other issues weighing on the markets is first quarter earnings reports. In the U.S. analysts are expecting S&P 500 companies’ first-quarter earnings to fall 8.5% from the year-earlier period, according to FactSet.

Don't forget investors will be pouring over the Fed minutes tomorrow.

IT'S ABOUT THE MONEY.

Here's a bit of news for Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse he might be interested in since he likes to use comparisons with those evil tobacco firms. The climate change zealot recently bragged about those state attorneys generals who nailed big tobacco to their PC cross to make a point in one of his screeds against the WSJ.

In the broad daylight heist of big tobacco companies California was one of the big hogs. Just how much of that settlement money, if any, found its way into the state's massive retirement fund is moot.

First you stick a gun in their ribs, vilify them and steal money, now after your less than sterling investment record you want make more money off them. That sounds like some bureaucrats. Most of the tobacco firms were driven off shore. That sounds like what happened to a lot of jobs.

But there's another irony here. California is one of the most angry ardent anti-smoking places on the planet, running ugly, hardcore media ads to ban smoking anywhere in the state. Oh yea, and that means beaches and your own backyard and bathroom..

Forget public health: it has always been about the money. And so, too, is the religion of climate change. Maybe someone should tip off the mayor of Chicago. He was recently looking for some retirement fund money.

Hello, Mr. Whitehouse.

cnbc.com/2016/04/04/calpers-could-put-money-back-into-tobacco-stocks

MIXED MESSAGES

Are Fed members this mixed up or is it just a ploy they're playing on the American people to keep them guessing?

Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengen spoke Monday, sending a mixed message from what Chair Janet Yellen just said a few days ago that settled markets and caused a rally in stocks. It wouldn't be the first time this happened. Former Chairman Alan Greenspan took great delight sending out mixed messages despite his incessant call for more transparency.

This is all the more reason the Fed should be put under tighter scrutiny and possible disbandment. It's pretty clear either this is a ploy or they have not got a clue as in one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. This from CNBC.

 Futures markets are wrong, and the Federal Reserve likely should hike rates sooner than they imply, Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren said Monday. 

 
In prepared remarks for a speech in Boston, Rosengren — a Federal Open Market Committee voter and historically one of its dovish members — also said markets are too slow in pricing in rate hikes, and that their path of hikes is too low. 

"A weak forecast doesn't seem to explain the path expected for the funds rate," he said in prepared remarks. "As I see it, the risks seem to be abating that problems from abroad would be severe enough to disrupt the U.S. recovery. Financial-market volatility has fallen, and most economic forecasts do not reflect expected large spillovers from continued headwinds from abroad."

The U.S. "has weathered foreign shocks quite well," Rosengren said, adding that the risks from abroad are easing overall. Those comments potentially stand in contrast to remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who last week pointed to weakened international conditions in explaining her cautious outlook. 

Rosengren, who is historically considered to be about as dovish as Yellen, said he expects a strong economy and full employment. He also said he expects inflation will rise gradually.
On Friday afternoon, markets were only pricing a 5 percent chance of a rate hike in April, according to CME Group data. As of Friday, the first month with a better-than-50-percent chance of a rate hike was September, according to CME Group. 

"With financial market volatility subsiding since earlier this year, it is to me surprising that the expected path of monetary policy embedded in futures markets is so low," Rosengren said Monday. 

It was only last Tuesday that Yellen sounded a dovish note in a speech, acknowledging that economic and financial conditions are in some respects less favorable now than in December.
In that speech, Yellen cited global concerns as one of the reasons behind her tepid economic outlook. And responding to a question after her remarks, Yellen said the "major thing that's changed" between December and March affecting the Fed's baseline outlook is "a slightly weaker projected pace of global growth." 

A dovish Fed left interest rates unchanged in March. In its statement, the FOMC noted that "global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks" to U.S. economic growth, and that inflation was "expected to remain low in the near term." 

 

OVERNIGHT

Stocks were down Tuesday in Japan as negative interest rates hit the banking sector coupled with falling energy price in the U.S. Oil traded around $35.32 and the yen 110.76. The Nikkei was off a little over 2% at 15,759.

Most other markets in the area were also down with the Hang Seng off 1.42%, the Australian and South Korean markets were also down. The Shanghai Composite Index was the only one heading higher in what has been a recent surprise gaining 6% over the past two months while the Nikkei has lost around 7% in that time.

Investors may be coming to realize that there is a limit to what central bankers can do with their wild schemes and that could well spell big trouble for markets going forward. Meanwhile, the Australian central bank held its interest rates at 2% and conflicting statements by members of the Federal Reserve since Chair Janet Yellen's dovish talk last week could also bode trouble for markets.

A further concern is the yen may be signaling less of a trade advantage in its export markets. Gold was higher

 

 

 

IN THIS CASE, UNFORTUNATELY, IT'S BOTH

There's an old saying that it takes one to know one.

So it's a rare day when we would say anything favorable about the editorial staff at the WSJ especially in their zeal for all the wrong reasons to deny Trump should he legitimately gather the necessary votes to win nomination.

Once again we're not supporters.

But there's no shortage of zealots afoot, all at the ready to push their version of their perceived wisdom down your gullet. And one of the most obnoxious and most dangerous is Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

Apparently, the good public servant who spends much of his time genuflecting at the alter of climate change rather than doing his job of serving the people of the tiniest speck on the continent got into a urinating match with the WSJ over the Senator's religion, climate change, and the RICO Act.

Now the Senator suffers from a common malady known as former attorneys general syndrome, you know the kind, the ones who are constantly trying to twist laws that were passed for one reason and use them to ensnare others by broadening their definition without the consent of the public. It's called how dare you differ with my truth.

You can always tell a zealot; they never pass the smell test. It's funny. Even the quasi-government agency called the FDA rallies against physicians who use drugs that were approved for one reason but are indiscriminately used for others not FDA sanctioned. It's a safe bet the good Senator most likely approves of those actions.

Now the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was passed to go after the so-called bad guys like thugs and mobsters, mafia guys who were successfully evading prosecution under laws already on the books. Apparently, Senator Whitehouse believes it should now be applied scientists and editorialists--not to mention ordinary folks--who question the validity of climate change.

The WSJ called him out for trying "to 'stifle' political and scientific debate." Mr. Whitehouse apparently has suggested such to the Department of Justice. Here are Whitehouse's own words from a recent rant on the subject at Huffington Puff.  Read it for yourself. While you're reading it note his use of the term similarities of the two examples he cites.

As someone who spent a good part of a professional career trying to get people off cigarettes even to the point of getting them banned from Federal Medical Centers where they were sold at deep discounts from the public market place, for Mr. Whitehouse to claim anyone who questioned the Surgeon General's data or questioned what was really a public stick-up of a major industry wasn't singled out is what your mother use to wash your mouth out with soap for telling.

We note this because this is what dangerous zealots do, twist facts, revise history. Senator Whitehouse likes to recall some quotes from the past. Well, here's a few for him from the same periods. Recall, too, until recently it was labeled global warming, a quite specific term before it was conveniently changed.

"The cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations. It has already made food and fuel more precious, thus increasing the price of everything we buy. If it continues, and no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000."
–Lowell Ponte, The Cooling, 1976.

The facts have emerged, in recent years and months, from research into past ice ages. They imply 
that the threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of 
wholesale death and misery for mankind."
–Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist and producer of scientific television documentaries, 
"In the Grip of a New Ice Age," International Wildlife, July 1975.

I believe that increasing global air pollution, through its effect on the reflectivity of the earth, is currently dominant and is responsible for the temperature decline of the past decade or two" Reid Bryson, "Environmental Roulette, Global Ecology: Readings Toward a Rational Strategy for Man, John P. Holdren and Paul R. Ehrlich, eds., 1971.

At this point, the world's climatologists are agreed..Once the freeze starts, it will be too late."
–Douglas Colligan, "Brace Yourself for Another Ice Age," Science Digest, February 1973.

You should also note here that Paul R. Ehrlich is the Stanford professor who made a public television bet he lost but never paid about famines caused by population explosion. Here is the opening sentence from his panic-stricken, so-called expert-academic scientific perch in his book, The Population Bomb, in the late 1960s.  "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate .

The person Erhlich bet with was another scientist of equal reputation and academic standing.They simply disagreed. And we now know who was incorrect.

One reason is that such a suit by the Department of Justice under the Clinton and Bush 
administrations was successful against the fraudulent industry enterprise to sow false doubt 
about tobacco’s dangers (before the RICO suit was won by DOJ, the Journal had called it
 “abuse,” “hypocrisy,” and “a shakedown”). So there’s the little matter of this being the law.

A second reason is that if there is indeed a core of deliberate fraud at the heart of the climate
 denial enterprise, no industry should be big enough to suppress investigation of that fraud. 
Most of the writers I mentioned note similarities between the tobacco fraud scheme and the
 climate denial operation, as has the lawyer who won the tobacco lawsuit for DOJ; as
 apparently have more than a dozen state Attorneys General.

(Does the same apply, Senator, if fraud is found on the part of scientific zealots
 pushing climate change?)

Climate skeptics — people who “disagree” with me on the reality of climate change — are
 not the targets of such an investigation, any more than smokers or people who “disagreed” 
with the Surgeon General were targets of the tobacco case. Those folks may very well be
 victims of the fraud, the dupes. Fraud investigations punish those who lie, knowing that
they are lying, intending to fool others, and do it for money. No one should be too big to
 answer for that conduct.

(Those who knowingly lie, intending to fool other and do it for money. Does this,
 Mr. Senator, include bureaucrats and politicians?)

This is an important difference, and it’s the difference I’m talking about when I say 
the Wall Street Journal editorial page is trying to saddle me with an argument I’m not 
making because they don’t have a good response to the one I am. Frankly, all this makes
 it look like they are out to protect the fraudsters, by misleading regular people about 
what such a lawsuit would do and continuing their long tradition of downplaying or denying 
scientists’ warnings about the harms of industries’ products.

(And here you have one of the favorite ploys of zealots, guilt by insinuation. 
It's right up there with concrete terms like similarities.) 

Like all zealots, Mr. Whitehouse is extremely selective in selecting his quotes 
(Or at least his taxpayer staff  is!) and that's a two-way street and all the more 
reason not to panic and stifle public debate without the threat of RICO 
arbitrarily hanging over the heads of reputable scientists and decent citizens 
in the public at large. 

Governments' track record around the globe of jumping to serious 
conclusions with serious unintended consequences and wasting serious 
taxpayer money is hardly a shinning example for building public trust. 

Zealots come in all sizes and shapes. One common characteristic is their attire. 
Usually, it's either religious or political. In this case, unfortunately, it's
 both.

THERE'S NO CON LIKE A NEOCON

There's leprechauns, pecans and neocons. Only one is dangerous to your health and freedom. There's is nothing new about the neocons. And the last three letters of their name is the only accurate part of the appellation.

A good number of those who resent Trump and his bid for the White Shack in Washington are neocon Republicans. But neocons are not exclusive to Republicans. There's more than enough in the Donkey Party to go around. One of the neocons' favorite cons is NATO, an over-expensive, over-budgeted archaic 19th century relic that should have had Taps played over it a score and five years ago.

The idea that the U.S. taxpayer should still be paying for the cost of protecting Europe after all this time would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetically stupid and so pitifully costly. It's part and package of the industrial-military complex neocons love.

At a time when heavyweights like billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller of hedge fund fame is attacking entitlement programs like social security and such complaining that a disaster looms by 2030, there are some questions here. We don't know Druckenmiller, we respect his well-known track record and we followed his career long before he became a household name in the investing world.

The man worked for years for George Soros. Though some might disagree, we find it difficult to believe one can have worked for so long for another without sharing some of that other person's political,social and economic views. He was present during the doing-in of the British pound many years ago. No crime, just a statement of fact.

Who made all these entitlement promises, Democrats or Republicans or both? Or was it just the now dead ones? The other larger question here is U.S. foreign policy or the lack thereof a coherent one. And where does responsibility for this looming mess get placed? There was supposed to be peace dividend when the Berlin Wall crumbled.

Keeping troops billeted half way around the world in numerous far-flung places is costly. And just whose retirement assets are they protecting: yours or those of Goldman Sachs, Blackrock  and your friendly Congress person? A recent blurb out says one retiring Congress lady will receive around $800,000 annually in retirement.

This is what this election is all about, the failed two party system. One presidential candidate in this miasma was recently on television pointing her finger at the crowd saying if she gives her word, she will keep it. That sounds like a promise to us ensconced therein more entitlements..

Neocons love also to pound the war drums. Jingoistic is their middle name. One of the first Republican neocons was Teddy "Rough Rider" Roosevelt. He was a guy who believed there wasn't anything the government couldn't do including starting wars. And there still at it. Good ole Teddy.

Everyday people don't need the Stanley Druckenmillers to tell them a disaster awaits. And telling them they need to plan for their own retirement, though true, is the Big Lie. The first Keogh plan for self-employed if memory serves appeared in the early 1970s. Since then IRAs of numerous stripes have been created from individual SEPs to Roth ones, all government concocted.

But the same government in their greed has made them so complicated with regulations and arbitrary changes that financial planners have a hard time keeping up.When 49 of the 52 state attorneys generals several years ago stuck a portable rocket launcher in the ribs of tobacco companies, evil or not evil in your eyes, and collected billions of dollars none of that lucre found its way into many severely underfunded state run retirement funds.

Just recently until the governor there changed his mind, ( That should tell you about the power of high people in high places.), the state of Connecticut threatened to tax Yale's rich endowment plan. Endowment is about planning for the future just like your retirement plan. Trouble is, you have don't have any heavyweights fighting to keep yours from from thaose octopi in Washington and state capitols.

If you want to know about underfunded state retirement funds, just ask the mayor of Chicago or the governor of California. The greedy governments, federal and state, can't wait for their cut until the retiree dies, so they cooked up RMD, required minimum distribution. It awaits you in the future, should you be lucky or privileged enough to get there.

Look it up if you want to know more. Meanwhile, your ever so prescient central bankers have made it next to impossible to live on whatever funds retirees have, in their zeal to playoff the immediate against your future with their insane policies. We don't know about you, but that sounds like more folks, not fewer, will be looking at the government for help.

Now back to the neocons. There is a place for them. It's the same place you might want to look if you're trying to find one of Ford Motors greatest mistakes, the Edsel.

SCAN THE SCANNERS

Here's a story you might want to pay attention to, that is, if you value your security and privacy.

WASHINGTON--The Federal Bureau of Investigation told law enforcement agencies around the country Friday it would try to help them open locked phones or other devices as much as "legal and policy constraints" allow.

The guidance from the nation's top law-enforcement agency is in response to a surge of interest from state and local authorities in how the agency was able to open a locked iPhone seized in the probe of a terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.

nasdaq.com/article/fbi-tells-police-it-will-try-to-help-them-open-locked-photo

There are some keys words in this story, "legal and policy constraints." Legal and policy constraints are about in today's society as changeable as the weather. Where does the FBI come off stating it will help local police break into cell phones?  These phones are the property of privates citizens, criminal accusations or not. This issue if politicians who say they care about public opinion, though we know they really don't, should be put to a national vote.

Trumped up charges are hardly new in our system. And the onslaught of private property and private property rights of all sorts is an ongoing matter most often carried out under the guise of getting the bad folks in order to help or to protect the not so bad folks.

Now before you start to roll out your list of epithets, wait a few years when you have no cash just a plastic card in your wallet like the one 40 million Americans on food stamps have that dictate what and where you can buy and how much you paid for it. Then you can call people paranoid.

This is about collecting data. Data that can be leaked or abused, irrespective of motive or inadvertent mistakes.  HIPPA laws are designed to protect one's medical records. It could be something as simple as taking anti-angiolytics for stress. If you're naive enough to think employers want to hire stress-prone employees, be one of the first to volunteer your cell phone to local authorities.

Such things can not only effect your employment but even your ability to secure a loan or get credit. Once again you have a national domestic organization interfering in local problems, local business, preempting  personal privacy and liberty.  For those who sing the song about you must have something to hide or you would not object obviously have never been falsely accused or caught up in such situations. We admire your naiveté. But isn't always the other guy such things happen to.

One scribe from Reuters wrote this misleading, juvenile comment. 

They said most iPhone users have more to fear from criminals than from countries, and few crooks can afford anything like what it costs to break into a fully up-to-date iPhone. 

Breaking into phones isn't the problem. And neither is criminals. This is an information or data fishing expedition easily applied to ordinary citizens with no history of any criminal activity except based on suspicion if even that.

The federal government already uses airplanes that can fly over areas and collect all cell phone numbers active as they scan. And, yes, they can even listen in on conversations, though they claim they don't. What they don't claim is they never have. It was used to scan phone activity after the horrible San Bernardino tragedy where they flew repeatedly, criss crossing a large area that covered miles.

This is a government supposedly reluctant to monitor a few known hostile mosques but is more than
willing to spy on its people. When do you get to scan the scanners or, for that matter, read the e-mails of every government employee irrespective of rank, pay grade or office.

We're willing to bet not anytime soon.

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