In the wake of what Michael Ballanger calls a “non-decision by the U.S. central banksters,” the precious metals expert remains cautious and watchful. In this article, Ballanger offers his take on what the recent Fed decision on interest rates means for investors and the markets, and the circumstances that might force him to toss in the towel.
Yesterday’s non-decision by the U.S. central banksters came as no surprise to any of us here in the “sound money” camp and was especially uneventful for me as I have been writing for over two years about the deleterious effect of the raging USD on the American (and Canadian) manufacturing sector. Gutted warehouses, poisoned water tables, empty plants with rusted equipment—these are all of the memory cards of the once-great U.S. industrial engine of the world while massive super-freighters lie offshore San Francisco and San Diego and Vancouver waiting patiently to offload ton after ton of “widgets” made from coolie-wages in “over-capacitized”industries. Janet Yellen and Co. not only flinched, but they literally skin-jumped from hawkish-to-dovish in the nod of Steve Leisman’s glistening head and the toss of a well-oiled towel.
By reducing the number of expected rate increases from four to two, it had a market effect analogous to a mass intervention or de facto devaluation of the American dollar against virtually EVERYTHING, notwithstanding Brazilian real or Zimbabwe dollars, and the gold and silver (and oil and copper and Big Mac and diaper) markets all responded with a commensurate leap northward as if Janet Nixon had just taken the U.S. off the gold standard. As can be seen from the prices recorded last evening, gold and silver and my beloved miners all screamed ahead raising the question of whether or not the Gold Cartel, the bullion bank behemoths—the “COMMERCIALS”—are now on the ropes, reeling under …read more