Battle-worn retailers spooked as the holiday shopping is right around the corner.
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From the category archives:
The Consumption Trap
After years of falling for the consumption trap, many aging boomers are now realizing that their dream of an early retirement is just that… a dream.
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Editor’s Note: There is more dreary news coming from an economic report released today by the Associated Press. Consumer spending is at its weakest pace in 20 months, unemployment is up and the stock market was down last week. We expect more bad news to come out as the month closes and the Fed’s QE2 program comes to an end.
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As you are on your path to Financial Freedom, I want to offer you some tips on how to stop wasting your hard-earned money. Why keep giving your money away to the corporations who are so desperate to reach into your wallet, when you could be saving this money for yourself?
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If you have signed up for our free email newsletter, you just received our latest special 12 page report on something that I call the Consumption Trap. It is entitled: The Three Powerful Forces Working Against You And Your Wealth And Four Ways That You Can Stop Them. I believe that this is a “must-read.’
Didn’t get it? Sign up for our email newsletter here and get it instantly in your email inbox.
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There are three forces working against your future wealth. Each and every day we wake up, you and I are confronted by these three powerful forces that exist to devour our hard-earned money. Each of these forces are powerful in and of themselves. However, when they are combined, their strength is exponentially increased.
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In today’s piece, I recall the moment that I realized the difference between consumers and producers.
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One of the more sensitive, and therefore veiled, aspects of the petrodollar system is how it has impacted America’s relations with the Middle East. In life, everything boils down to incentives. If we are hoping to grasp how the world around us works, we must understand that behind every decision lies an incentive. Let’s see what role the power of incentives plays in the petrodollar system when it comes to American foreign policy in the Middle East.
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Editor’s Note: Ireland is in a tough financial spot. Unlike the U.S., it cannot simply print money to spend its way out of economic pain. So, with relatively few options, the Irish government is turning on its own citizens. Throughout history, governments have often sought to plunder the wealth of their own citizens when they run out of options. It will be interesting to see how the citizens react to this one. Trust me, other governments with similar economic problems will be watching closely too. If little resistance is seen, expect more of this around the globe. It is because of stories like this one that I have been warning for years for Americans to keep their retirement funds diversified. 401k’s and traditional IRA’s are where Americans have been “trained” to store the majority of their retirement funds. For those of you who are interested in creating multiple streams of income in retirement, we are working hard to release a product just for you soon. Stay tuned!
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by Eric Hammer | FTMDaily Contributing Writer TEL AVIV, Mar 31 – In New York, the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the famous New York City subway system is trying to arrange for cheap labor by requiring some people receiving unemployment compensation to work for their benefit checks, mostly by doing janitorial duties in [...]
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by Eric Hammer | FTMDaily Contributing Writer TEL AVIV, Mar 25 – In a move which may portend further upheavals in the 2012 election, the founder of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips recently posted a comment on his blog calling for a challenge against Speaker of the House John Boehner over his refusal to implement [...]
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by Eric Hammer | FTMDaily Contributing Writer TEL AVIV, Mar 24 – In a move that some right wing bloggers are referring to as “economic terrorism,” a former president of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), Stephen Lerner, gave a talk at Pace University recently where he proposed a plan to destabilize certain Wall Street [...]
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:43 — 6.9MB)
An excerpt from Follow the Money Weekly Radio with Jerry Robinson – 1/22/11 To hear the entire program, click here. by John Bearss Transcript Hi Jerry. As we start the new year it has been exciting to see how many people are taking advantage of the Christian Financial Advisors Network. I have talked with many [...]
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How will the creation of more “debt” help our debt-ridden global economy? It will not. However, it will directly benefit global financial institutions and the banking community… and that is what matters most these days. The more money they can lend, the more interest they can earn.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:24:45 — 114.0MB)
Subscribe to our RSS Feed and get the FTM Weekly Radio Show delivered each week. Subscribe to FTMWeekly through iTunes. How to Grow Your Wealth and Pay Less in Taxes On this week’s program, FTM Weekly’s Jerry Robinson, begins the program with the Weekly Wrap of the news and his Weekly Market Report. Precious Metals [...]
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Image via Wikipedia Following is the full text of the statement from the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee issued on Wednesday following a two-day meeting on monetary policy: “Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September confirms that the pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow. Household [...]
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By Alen Mattich | WallStreetJournal.com August 23, 2010, 1:26 PM GMT Could the Federal Reserve’s decision to restart its quantitative easing program trigger a dollar collapse? That’s what John Hussman, a fund manager, argues in his latest weekly note to investors. And the case he makes is strong… as long as one ignores the fact [...]
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ConnectMidMichigan.com by Dan Armstrong Posted: 07.12.2010 at 8:13 PM New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it’s not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender. They sound like real money and look like real money. [...]
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Both parties mull raising retirement age House leaders get frank about Social Security cost House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat (AP Photo) By Patrice Hill 8:58 p.m., Tuesday, July 13, 2010 In a rare departure from this year’s intense political posturing over the soaring budget deficit, House leaders of both parties recently signaled [...]
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Dirk van Dijk, CFA, On Tuesday July 13, 2010, 12:33 pm EDT In May, the trade deficit expanded to $42.27 billion from $40.32 billion in April. Relative to a year ago, the trade deficit is up 70.0%, but May of a year ago marked the low point in the trade deficit after world trade collapsed [...]
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Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/09/2010 17:02 -0500 | Zerohedge.com As we close on another week replete with ugly economic data and the usual bizarro counterintuitive market, here is a summary of the 50 most underreported facts about the state of the US economy, courtesy of the Coto report. After reading these it almost makes [...]
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By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 12, 2010; A02 BOSTON — The co-chairmen of President Obama‘s debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation’s fiscal future here Sunday, calling current budgetary trends a cancer “that will destroy the country from within” unless checked by tough action in Washington. The [...]
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By Geoff Dyer in Beijing | Financial Times Published: July 11 2010 16:54 | Last updated: July 11 2010 16:54 A girl plays on a Beijing back road on Sunday. China has announced a big push to build public housing, including flats that can be rented by low-income families The G20 appears to be placing [...]
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By Alan Beattie and Robin Harding | Financial Times Published: July 9 2010 20:40 | Last updated: July 9 2010 20:40 Shopped out: downtime at the Mall of America, one of the biggest in the US. Job growth remains too slow to support the rise in consumption required for a self-sustaining recovery A month ago, [...]
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The National Debt Clock is shown Monday, Feb. 1, 2010 in New York. President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.83 trillion budget on Monday that would pour more money into the fight against high unemployment, boost taxes on the wealthy and freeze spending for a wide swath of government programs. The deficit for this year [...]
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(Jerry’s Comments: Here come’s the message of sacrifice that I spoke of in my book, Bankruptcy of our Nation. Governments are going to begin appealing to the long forgotten ideal of “sacrifice.” Much of the global populace will not embrace this easily. I explain how this idea will translate into the American church and how [...]
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“The U.S. turned 234 years old yesterday, and yet over half of the nation’s money supply was created since Helicopter Ben took over the flight controls four years ago. No wonder gold is in a full fledged bull market . . .” -David A. Rosenberg Chief Economist & Strategist Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.
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(Jerry’s Comments: Here it is. The Fed is now threatening to pull out the big guns. Among the strategies on the table, to offer “exceptionally low” for an “extended period,” and a major new asset-purchase program. I have bolded important statements in the story below.) Federal Reserve weighs steps to offset slowdown in economic recovery [...]
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Businessinsider.com | Joe Weisenthal | Jul. 6, 2010, 4:51 AM The world’s hottest deficit hawk Niall Ferguson brought his message of fiscal doom & gloom to the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he warned that politicians were lacking urgency over the crisis to come. The Aspen Times reports: And American politicians don’t have a sense of [...]
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Dow Repeats Great Depression Pattern: Charts DOW JONES, WALL STREET, GREAT DEPRESSION, TECHNICAL ANALYSIS, MARKETS, STOCKS, DAX, FTSE, FOOTSIE, CNBC.com | 05 Jul 2010 | 05:31 AM ET The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday. [...]
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(Jerry’s Comments: It’s still scary out there for consumers as the global economy continues to teeter on the edge. The U.S. economic “recovery”, which has been weak at best, has been exposed for what it is: a feeble attempt by the Federal government to stir confidence among consumers that the realities are not as bad [...]
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Jerry’s Comments: The housing market continues to go down due to a wide variety of factors. As we have predicted, the housing picture will not improve markedly until after 2012. This is due to the new waves of foreclosures and defaults thanks to the many Option Arm and Alt-A loans that were issued over the [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down a Nevada bank, raising to 83 the number of U.S. bank failures this year. The 83 closures so far this year is more than double the pace set in all of 2009, which was itself a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had [...]
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By Peter Marsh Published: June 20 2010 17:43 | Last updated: June 20 2010 17:43 The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production. The figures are [...]
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By Jacob Greber June 18 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. may soon face higher borrowing costs on its swelling debt and called for a “tectonic shift” in fiscal policy to contain borrowing. “Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading,” and current long-term bond yields are masking America’s debt [...]
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(Reuters) More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations. The SNL Financial statistics show 91 banks missed their dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The statistics, compiled by [...]
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By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 6/15/2010 China’s holdings of US debt climbed to the highest level this year, the US Treasury said Tuesday even as Beijing stepped up attacks on the United States for its burgeoning debt. The cash-rich Chinese government raised its US Treasury bond holdings to 900.2 billion dollars in April, its highest level [...]
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By Jason Groves | Daily Mail UK Last updated at 8:24 AM on 15th June 2010 EU begin emergency billion-pound bailout of Spain Countries in debt may fall to dictators, EC chief warns ‘Apocalyptic’ vision as some states run out of money Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken [...]
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By Lorraine Woellert and John Gittelsohn June 14 (Bloomberg) — The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American [...]
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By JEFF BATER Concern over the nation’s mounting debt could snarl the passage of President Barack Obama’s proposal to provide more aid to state and local governments hit by the economic downturn. Mr. Obama on Saturday sent a letter to lawmakers calling for swift action to help U.S. small businesses and state and local governments [...]
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(Business Insider) China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel (60019 CH), the largest listed steelmaker, has cut its steel prices for the first time in eight months. You know demand has to be pretty weak for them to cut prices, since they’re being squeezed from the cost side due to higher iron ore prices at the same [...]
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Tarek El-Tablawy, AP Business Writer, On Wednesday June 9, 2010, 10:12 am CAIRO (AP) — OPEC on Wednesday slightly revised up its forecast for world economic growth but left 2010 oil demand largely unchanged as Europe’s debt crisis, an oversupply of crude in the market and a potential cooling in China’s growth pointed to “economic [...]
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By Stephen Dinan, Washington Times The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill. Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as [...]
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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank, laid out on Thursday his proposed plan to take short-term interest rates from near-zero to 4.5%. In a speech in Bartlesville, Okla., Hoenig said the country pays a high cost for low interest rates, suggesting that the financial crisis stemmed from [...]
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