Economy

He Predicted The 2016 Fake News Crisis. Now He’s Worried About An Information Apocalypse. (blackeagle)

Ovadya saw early what many — including lawmakers, journalists, and Big Tech CEOs — wouldn’t grasp until months later: Our platformed and algorithmically optimized world is vulnerable — to propaganda, to misinformation, to dark targeted advertising from foreign governments — so much so that it threatens to undermine a cornerstone of human discourse: the credibility of fact.

City of London financiers contemplate “imminent” 2018 US stock market crash of up to “50%” (Time2Help)

“… deeply gloomy about the outlook for global markets — and recently sent us an open letter (here) dated January 21, in which he predicted a fairly imminent decline in US stock prices of ‘forty to fifty percent’. That is even gloomier than his message five months ago — when he also told us that he had shifted his own personal holdings into cash in anticipation of a market bust. I am delighted (though apprehensive) that Bob has agreed to speak again — against a backdrop of ever-advancing Armageddon.”

How NAFTA helped an American company sue Canada — and win (Uncletommy)

“They’d love to have all this basalt rock from Digby Neck for the roads of the United States. I don’t want to give that up. And 90 per cent of the people here don’t want to give it up. It’s a beautiful place and we want to keep it that way,” said Harold Theriault.

And when the time came for an environmental assessment, residents — who refer to themselves as “Neckers” — lined up to have their say.

The African Anthropocene (blackeagle)

What picture of the Anthropocene, for example, emerges when we begin our analytic adventure in Africa instead of in Europe? Minerals from Africa played a big role in motivating colonialism and powering industrialisation. Their extraction fuelled the Anthropocene. Saying that ‘we’ move more rock than all natural processes combined doesn’t even begin to capture these violent dynamics. Who actually moved the rock? How did this movement affect the people and ecosystems around the mines, not just at the time of extraction but decades later?

As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats, Hungary Shows What’s Possible (blackeagle)

Through legislative fiat and force of will, Mr. Orban has transformed the country into a political greenhouse for an odd kind of soft autocracy, combining crony capitalism and far-right rhetoric with a single-party political culture. He has done this even as Hungary remains a member of the European Union and receives billions of dollars in funding from the bloc. European Union officials did little as Mr. Orban transformed Hungary into what he calls an “illiberal democracy.”

Bigger Than The Law: Becoming More Ethical Than the Society You Grew Up In (Time2Help)

The law is little more than a lazy excuse to stop thinking and to allow an authority to do our thinking for us. It is a slothful justification for allowing an authority to dictate our freedom. “We defend the law” says the cowardly Nazi hiding behind the Kremlin. “We’re just doing our job” says the cowardly cop hiding behind a badge. Alas, as Voltaire poignantly stated, “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”

This Chart Says Gold Is Beginning a Long-Term Uptrend (Diane C.)

As most readers know, gold and the US dollar are inversely correlated. Which makes sense; since gold is priced in greenbacks, it tends to rise in value if the dollar falls. And vice versa. Like most inverse correlations, it’s not a perfect “one goes up exactly 1.2%, the other falls exactly 1.2%” pairing, but it’s especially accurate over long periods.

So if the dollar has begun a long-term decline, it would be reasonable to expect the gold price to rise during that span.

Physical Oil Markets Don’t Lie – Is Another Crash Likely? (Michael K.)

This caution adds to the fact that supply may not be matching demand: Forties’ differentials to dated Brent have fallen to a negative $0.70 from a premium of $0.75 at the start of 2018. Urals trades at a discount of $2.15 to dated Brent in the Mediterranean, the lowest since September 2016. To top it all, demand for key fuels such as diesel and heating oil is unusually weak. The physical market’s needle is pointing to bear, for now.

Gold & Silver

Click to read the PM Daily Market Commentary: 2/14/18

Provided daily by the Peak Prosperity Gold & Silver Group

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