This article compares the 2012 year-end price forecasts for the S&P 500 from leading research sources with where the index is today, what various statistically generated price probabilities say about the year-end price [and, as such, how we plan to allocate our assets in the interim.] Words: 1445

Booms — and the boom in Canadian commodities is no exception — are seldom without their unintended costs....[As the Canadian dollar appreciates versus the U.S. dollar, and with the U.S. as] its largest trading partner, falling Canadian exports could well induce a secular decline in the Canadian manufacturing base. Indeed, as the loonie soars, the inevitable question is: "How much higher before its economy gets singed?" Words: 528

Barisheff thinks the gold price could be “easily double” right now because he believes that, “What’s kept the price down is the artificial leased gold going onto the markets.”

It's the shrunken tax base, not lower tax rates, which is responsible for today's revenue shortfall. A healthier economy and faster jobs growth would do much more to close the deficit than any amount of higher tax rates on the rich. Raising tax rates might weaken the economy further, and that would make it much more difficult to generate higher tax revenues. [The truth of the matter is that] nobody's taxes need to be raised, and nobody's spending needs to be cut—the U.S. economy is already on a glide path to the restoration of fiscal sanity. Washington: are you listening? Words: 1190

The Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through September. Travel on all roads and streets changed by -1.5% (-3.6 billion vehicle miles) for September 2012 as compared with September 2011. The 12-month moving average of miles driven increased a tiny 0.27% from September a year ago and the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) has set a new post-financial crisis low of -8.6%. Words: 732

Long the champion and beneficiary of free trade and the free flow of capital, the United States has enacted legislation that becomes effective on January 1, 2017 that a growing number of commentators and professionals believe could be the start of capital controls in America and have serious unintended consequences. Let me explain...... Words: 1252

The International Monetary Fund said today that it is considering classifying Canada’s dollar, nicknamed the loonie for the image of a loon on the C$1 coin, and Australia’s dollar, as reserve currencies. Words: 285

There are those who keep insisting that there be a return to the gold standard without serious unrest and collapse. What they do not realize is that such propositions are really a call to arms. Government will not return to a gold standard because it would be a loss of power and overturn the very nature of how our republics (not real democracies) actually function....Words: 308

"Trying to do business internationally for Americans is becoming a real nightmare. The once land of the free & home of the brave has been transformed into George Orwell’s 1984 nightmare squared....The damage to international capital flows is off the charts. This single law has wiped out whatever international trade advantages Americans once enjoyed." ~ Martin Armstrong Words: 692

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, Obamacare will become reality and that means that a lot more people in the United States will have health insurance and, if the program works as it is supposed to, it also means that the growth of healthcare spending overall will eventually slow. Both of those are good but, in the near term, Obamacare also means a lot of people will be paying more taxes and higher insurance premiums. (You didn't think Obamacare was free, did you?) Below are some of the new taxes you're going to have to pay to pay for Obamacare. Words: 565