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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (109290)	12/29/2014 3:05:53 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217830

USD disconnected to Gold (as Nixon ended the Gold standard) forced money to find what could store value. This search for means of storing value has only managed to create bubble after bubble. The US tried homes as store value, (people was putting their savings in houses) that ended in 2008. Oil until this year has been, informally, the 'Oil Standard'. Could be kept -relatively- stable as Saudi controlling the amount on the market. The fact that most of the oil was stored inside the ground of Middle Eastern countries, Russia and parts of Africa, forced the US to do a quick side step dance and find under its own ground he commodity that underlies value. It is natural for oil prices to collapse. Gold is rare. Oil is not rare. Oil just need more science and more risk taking to make it more widely available. Once the means to discover oil becomes more widely available, it is just natural that the value of the oil stored under ground loses value. If we look at this under this perspective, we will discover that the value of US homes will never go up again. That low cost oil is here to stay. What are the Saudi doing? The Saudis afraid of losing the position of power and with it the means for paying to keep its culture intact. Imagine the Saudis thinking: In order to survive we have to become a Dubai! What are the Americans doing? Americans are saying, well, the USD is already toast, the Euro may become common currency of six countries, and, for all practical purposes, we can count Japan out. We need to have some commodity underlying the value of the USD else it loses its standing as world currency. How about the USD getting strong you may be asking, it does not look like toast. The USD you hold in your hand is a misrepresentation of reality. It is a construction of what I answered the what are the Americans doing question. Intrinsically the USD is toast, but it is being manipulated marketed and positioned to keep the misrepresentation alive and believed.

To: ggersh who wrote (109290)	12/29/2014 4:39:20 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217830

ITALY DATA: ITALY ISTAT DEC CONSUMER CONFIDENCE...... 29-Dec-2014 ITALY DATA: ITALY ISTAT DEC CONSUMER CONFIDENCE INDEX 99.7 VS NOV 100.2 --DEC CONSUMER CONFIDENCE LOWEST SINCE FEB14 (97.2) --DEC CONSUMER FUTURE OUTLOOK 101.8 VS NOV 101.7 --DEC CONSUMER CURRENT CLIMATE 97.2 VS NOV 99.0 --DEC CONS. SENTIMENT ON ECONOMY 103.2; NOV 103.9 --DEC CONS. PERSONAL CLIMATE 98.0 VS NOV 99.1 --DEC 'GOOD TIME TO BUY' BALANCE -89; NOV -79 --DEC 'GOOD TIME TO SAVE' BALANCE 114 VS NOV 115 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Consumer confidence in Italy slumps to its lowest level since February,following on from weak consumer spending data and consistently high unemployment figures. A large portion of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's reform push has been aimed at reviving domestic demand by addressing the so-called 'tax-wedge'. To date, however, the measures have yet to show any evidence of feeding through into the real economy.