Today, our financial system is so broken that casinos have much more integrity in their business dealings than do our banks.
Casinos Actually Have More Cash on Hand
The largest casinos in Vegas and Macau have much more cash on hand on a daily basis than most branches of the largest banks in the world. Whereas banks typically only have a minute percentage of their clients’ cash on hand and are really a digital business, casinos are a cash business. Read more …
February 9th, 2010
In his first State of the Union speech in 2010, President Barack Obama carefully chose his words in calling for a new jobs bill to stimulate real organic economic growth. Historically, politicians have garnered widespread public support for bills that otherwise would have been despised through the use of deceptive labeling. For example, past US Presidents labeled bills that ultimately weakened pollution regulations as “Clean Air Acts”, and so on. In response to this newly proposed jobs bill, US Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) relayed that he, along with other colleagues, were specifically instructed not to refer to this jobs bill as a stimulus bill in the media:
“The other thing I’ll point out is we now have…we are working on a…we’re told not to call it another stimulus bill. We’re calling it a jobs bill.”
However, politicians have always been extremely deft about making speeches that present a united front with the people against corruption, while often hammering out legislation behind closed doors that ensures no real change will ever occur. To determine if the wool is being pulled over our eyes once again, let’s turn to the actual text of President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Read more …
January 28th, 2010
John Maynard Keynes once stated that the markets can stay irrational longer than investors can stay solvent. While this statement has proven to be true, it is really not aboveboard. What Keynes didn’t want to disclose to the public is the fact that markets stay irrational longer than investors can stay solvent because market mechanisms are fraudulent and that there have been no free markets and no capitalism at work since Central Bankers assumed the role of setting interest rates in global economies. A more accurate statement that should replace the oft-quoted Keynesian saying is below:
“A fraudulent monetary system that engages all economic forces on the side of destruction can create an illusion of wealth and economic health for irrationally long periods of time but eventually will implode and result in the great destruction of the economic security of a nation.” Read more …
January 25th, 2010
2009 was an incredibly interesting year both politically and financially, as both arenas are inextricably intertwined, though on the surface, the leaders from these respective industries often bicker and admonish one another for public show, while smiling and shaking hands behind closed doors. Uncovering this complex and hidden connection almost always requires much deeper digging than is ever executed by mass media financial journalists, who often seem more intent on fawning to banking interests rather than revealing the smallest speck of truth to the public. No doubt there were many huge stories sprinkled throughout 2009. Read more …
January 6th, 2010
It is indisputable that:
(1) History has much to teach us; and that
(2) We ignore historical evidence that is useful in predicting the future far too often, even though history has demonstrated time and time again that it repeats itself.
With the benefit of hindsight, let’s review the chatter of the leading US economists before the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 that ushered in the global Great Depression:
“We will not have any more crashes in our time.” – John Maynard Keynes, 1927.
“There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.” – Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist, New York Times, September 5, 1929.
“There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue.” – Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury. September 1929. Read more …
December 28th, 2009
Ilene’s the editor at Phil’s Stock World, where she keeps readers up to pace with the latest stock market news and events from around the internet. Visit her at Phil’s Favorites site. Her background is in law and biological science, so she may stray from financial matters every so often. (For instance, she has been writing a series on swine flu. Find the latest here.)
Introduction
J.S. Kim is the founder of SmartKnowledgeU™, an independent investment research and wealth consulting firm. J.S. accurately called the recent global financial crisis, sharing his thoughts on his investment blog, to his subscribers, and in a series of YouTube videos. His articles have been reprinted online by Reuters, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the International Business Times. He recently authored the timely book, “Confessions of a Wall Street Insider, a Zen approach to making a fortune from the coming global economic crisis.” Recently, J.S. Kim and I have been speaking via Skype and email about the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, fixes for the economy, and current investment trends.
Interview
Ilene: Hi J.S., thanks for speaking with me and showing me how to use Skype; this is pretty easy. Can you tell me a little about your background and what led you into the financial field?
J.S.: I studied neurobiology at University of Pennsylvania and then earned two masters at the University of Texas, in Public Policy and Business Administration. After graduating, I began working in the Private Wealth Management division of Wells Fargo. Subsequently, I worked for several years at Smith Barney. In 2005, I launched my company, SmartKnowledgeU™. Read more …
December 28th, 2009
I hate bankers and so should you. Why? Because bankers steal a little bit of Christmas cheer every year. For the past several years, bankers have 
stolen a lot of Christmas cheer. Like the Grinch from Dr. Seuss’s famous children’s tale, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, bankers have hearts two sizes too small, and by means of burglary, they do their best to deprive everyone of Christmas every year. Only unlike the Grinch, despite stealing from people every year, bankers never learn and never reform, they never return to the people the vast amounts of money they stole from them, and they are cold-hearted and arrogant enough to claim that they are doing “God’s work” (as stated by Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, when in reality, they do much more harm to society as a whole than good. And this makes the majority of bankers worse than the even the loathed Grinch himself. Read more …
December 24th, 2009
Yes, there is no typo in the headline of this article. Today there is still an unbelievable opportunity to invest in gold that will disappear over the next several years as this monetary crisis deepens. Despite the general widespread sentiment of Western financial advisers that they have missed the run-up in gold and now it is too late to buy, this is not true at all. In fact, to illustrate how little people understand about the reasons to buy gold, of all my friends that I urged to buy physical gold more than six years ago when gold was less than half of its current price, I only know of one that has bought any gold, and it still took five years of my prodding, four times a year, for this single person to purchase gold. This is how incredibly misunderstood an asset gold remains today despite its enormous run higher in the past 8 years. This brief anecdote aptly illustrates the bias against gold and the foolish belief that gold is a bubble that persists today due to the massive propaganda and disinformation campaigns waged by bankers against gold. It is ironic today that public mistrust of bankers can be at such a high level at the same time that the public is still enormously willing to follow all of the bankers’ propaganda about gold. This great twist of irony illustrates just how powerful the bankers’ century long misinformation campaign about money and gold has been. Few people even understand how money is created let alone why gold is a protector of people’s rights. Read more …
December 15th, 2009
We’ve been quiet for a while here because we’ve been gearing up to launch a brand new product called the SmartKnowledgeU™ Wealth Secrets Membership. We have been designing this membership for over a year to fill in all the gaps of knowledge that are purposely withheld from the halls of formal academia like Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton. The SmartKnowledgeU™ Wealth Secrets Membership will provide you with all the essential information you need to truly understand the second phase of this crisis that will happen from 2010 to 2012 as opposed to financial literary courses and business curriculums provided by schools and commercial investment firms that have near zero utility and value. Among the 18 courses of our Wealth Secrets curriculum are courses such as the monetary value of gold and the monetary value of silver that are essential to your ability to emerge from the second phase of this crisis unscathed.
To launch our new product, we will be running a contest in which we will be giving away nearly USD $20,000 of new Wealth Secret memberships for free. Please consult our homepage at http://www.smartknowledgeu.com for details as we will be announcing contest details sometime within the next two weeks.
November 24th, 2009
All global economic problems today are rooted in the existence of Central Banks and their commitment to an application of destructive Keynesian economic theories to our global monetary system that simply has not worked for the better part of this century. Within the realm of academics, monetary policy, politics and media, there is a persistent refusal to acknowledge the primary role Central Banks undertake in artificially creating boom-bust cycles that would not occur in such severe fashion were Central Banks simply willing to step out of the way and allow free market forces to operate. Read more …
September 24th, 2009
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