Daily Digest 5/23 - Big Wind’s Trail Of Wings, Living Buildings For Tomorrow's Cities

Economy

Gold ETFs Are Liquidating By The Ton (Dana T.)

"Central banks maybe aren't as concerned," he lists as one reason why gold is down. "I think the average investor, with stocks and bonds doing so well, I think they say, 'hey, I don't need to hedge, so that gold position I had, I'm going to put that into stocks for now.'"

Schizophrenic investors expect slump: bet on boom (locksmithuk)

Four fifths think equities will gallop on upwards over the next year. Complacency is rife. "It became very clear – and many investors were quite explicit about this – that markets are lulled by the lure of liquidity resulting from negative real interest rates and global QE," said Mr Fels.

This then is the bull market of May 2013. Remember the infamous words of Citi's Chuck Prince in July 2007. "When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing."

Clients Denied Gold At Major Banks As Shortage Intensifies (pinecarr)

Another of our clients was told by a major Swiss bank that he can only take out 100,000 Swiss francs of physical gold every six months. They blamed money laundering and terrorist activity for this decision. Yet another client was again told by a major Swiss bank that his storage fees would be going up substantially. When he complained he was told that he should convert to paper gold.

Thanks To QE Bernanke Has Injected Foreign Banks With Over $1 Trillion In Cash For First Time Ever (Dana T.)

Finally, tying it all together, here is chart showing cash at US banks vs cash at foreign banks operating in the US. At $1.03 trillion in foreign cash, the Fed's policies have once again led to more cash being held by foreign banks than all cash held by domestic banks.

Gramm and McMillin: The Debt Problem Hasn't Vanished (Phil H.)

As the debt burden rises, so too does the cost of servicing the debt increase as a share of the growth the economy is capable of generating. When the debt on which interest is paid equals the GDP level of a nation, the economy must grow faster than the interest rate to avoid debt-servicing costs consuming all the benefit of economic growth. A nation then begins to lose its ability to grow its way out of a mounting debt crisis. Its options start to narrow down to forced austerity, inflation or default.

Want to Save the Environment? Build More Cities (guardia)

The place they live, their origin and their destination, are usually so close that they can walk, and, in fact, it’s very difficult to even have a car because of problems of parking. So all of these reduce energy per capita use, and I present, I give some maps in the book that show if you map energy use total, then you see, obviously, a big peak in the urban core. If you map energy use per capita, you see a big crater in the urban core, with higher and higher levels as you move outward from it.

Republic of Ireland calls for international tax action (westcoastjan)

Apple had been accused by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been examining "methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore", of being "among America's largest tax avoiders".

US Treasury secretary says he has begun tapping federal retiree pension fund to avoid default (westcoastjan)

Lew has said the various bookkeeping measures he is allowed to employ should provide enough maneuvering room to keep the government from defaulting on its debt until after Labor Day. Other estimates say Lew may be able to forestall a default until as late as November.

Millions falling into poverty in recession-racked Italy: report (westcoastjan)

More than 50 percent were unable to afford one week of holiday away from home last year, ISTAT said, with the figure rising to 69 percent in the south.

About 14.9 million people, or a quarter of Italy's 61 million population, are living in families that meet three of more of ISTAT's poverty indicators.

Seven Ways Today's Economy Is Like The NHL Playoffs (westcoastjan)

Diversification is essential. Rooting for just one team is like investing all your money in one stock. It will almost certainly break your heart. I support the Canadian teams, except for the Ottawa Senators of course. (Clearly this playoff season has lost much of its appeal for me.)

PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers (westcoastjan)

n November of last year, the New York PBS affiliate WNET aired a documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, "Park Avenue," that explored growing income inequality by contrasting the lives of residents in a luxury apartment building in Manhattan with individuals living on the other end of Park Avenue, in the Bronx. The film focuses on one of the apartment's wealthiest residents, David Koch, and does not paint a particularly positive image of the billionaire industrialist and his brother, Charles.

Court upholds B.C. mining company’s use of temporary foreign workers from China (westcoastjan)

“I think this case was an extremely important one and was successful because it ultimately exposed some of major shortcomings in the labour market opinion process and forced the government to make changes.”

Big Wind’s trail of wings (Wendy SD)

Understandably, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is fed up with the selective prosecutions. In 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) started allowing companies to apply for five-year incidental bird take permits, which ABC supported. But now, at the behest of the wind industry, FWS may change the rule to allow 30-year take permits.

Living buildings for tomorrow’s cities (westcoastjan)

Modern cities are run and populated by machines to such an extent that we no longer really notice them. And while machines are useful, they consume fossil fuels and transform them into energy, carbon dioxide and industrial pollutants – which, on an industrial scale, produces a world which Rachel Carson, author of the seminal environmental book Silent Spring, noted is "not quite fatal". In recent years we’ve looked to renewables to avoid the need for using fossil fuels – but the percentage of our energy provided by these alternatives remains small compared with our overall consumption.

Food swapping: The movement taking off in the UK (westcoastjan)

Following the US format, swaps last for about two hours. Produce is displayed, tasted and discussed, then swapped in the last 30 minutes. Things can get quite "frenzied" when the bartering takes place, says Vicky Swift. She runs Apples for Eggs food swap and helps organise events in Altrincham, York and Ormskirk up to four times a year.

Gold & Silver

Click to read the Gold & Silver Digest: 5/21/13

Provided daily by the Peak Prosperity Gold & Silver Group

Article suggestions for the Daily Digest can be sent to [email protected]. All suggestions are filtered by the Daily Digest team and preference is given to those that are in alignment with the message of the Crash Course and the "3 Es."