A few days ago I mentioned that my credit card had been compromised. Well before the bank was able to shut it down the individual who stold the number used it three times. First at a grocery store, then at a Canadian Tire store and finally he took a friend to the movies.

Instead of just sitting around I emailed each company and provided them with as much detail as to the store number, date, and amount of the transaction.Then asked them to provide any video to the local police who deal with fraud investigations. To my surprise they have been cooperative and are doing their own investigation which they have indicated they will pass on to the police. I don't know if anything will come of all of this and even if it does there is a good chance I will never know the outcome, but it does feel good about being proactive and knowing I have done as much as I could to help trace the individuals who make a living by scamming others.

It was kind of neat to use the internet to locate the places these people went and to identify the stores by the footprints they left on my account, kind of scary to know that others could do the same thing to me if they had access to my information. I don't know if you have seen the TV show "Persons of Interest" but I am beginning to think it is based more on fact than on fiction.
 

A recent e-mail alert from CNN Breaking News on Friday said that last week was the worst week for major U.S. stock indices this year. In addition The Globe & Mail (May 21, 2012) ran a story saying that Friday marked the end of the worst 13-session period for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since October 1974.

Currently Europe is in recession, China’s growth is slowing, and the U.S. is on the edge of falling back into recession. Basically it appears the worst is yet to come.

Bear markets do not end in a straight line and the Bear Market that started in 2009 is a prime example of this trend. The market will bounce back whenever it gets oversold. The Feds will soon come to the table with QE3; the government is going to need to borrow even more money to get the economy going.

But, in the end, the natural forces of the secular bull market will prevail. It’s just a matter of time. In the meantime take advantage of the drop in the price of gold and invest in either gold or good mining stocks.
 

How hard is it for the government to allow anyone that wants to marry to have a marriage certificate and allow each church/religion to decide that they will sanction the certificate will a marriage ceremony or not!

So what's the fuss? The governments role is to allow those who wish to legally share their lives together have the same rights as all couples in regard to legal and health matters. It is up to the individual religions to decide who they want to sanction with a ceremony.

Why should Catholics worry about what Atheists, Lutherans, or Muslims believe in regard to this matter? or for that matter any other religious fraction?

I thought we had freedom of religion and for some us freedom FROM religion!

So how hard is it for each religion do its own thing and allow the government to theirs?

 

Got word the other day that my credit card had been compromised and that I had a $250.00 limit placed on it. Then two days later I see a purchase at a grocery store in Toronto for $220.00.

It caught my eye because I never use the card to buy groceries and two I had not been in Toronto for the last fifteen YEARS!

Told the bank about it and we immediately shut down the card and they will credit my account for the $220.00. What I found frustrating was that when I asked where the card had been compromised the bank couldn't tell me, not that they didn't have the information, they may not have it, but because there is a law that prevents them from doing so. Seems that either businesses have been able to convince law makers this information would hurt their bottom line or the police have convinced them it would hinter their investigations.

Either way the rights of the consumer to know where their card was compromised is of less importance that the rights of business to remain anonymous. Does this give you any feeling of comfort to know that you could be ripped off at a store who has no need to do anything to improve their security systems, because you will never know it was their store that assisted in the compromise of your card?
 

U.S. non-financial corporations are in good shape, because they are holding so much money on their balance sheets. I would argue that corporations are holding money on their balance sheets because they are scared of another financial crisis like 2008.

Over the next five years corporations are going to have to refinance over 30 TRILLION dollars worth of debt. So is it little wonder why they have been stockpiling their reserves? With the Euro in doubt, with a slowdown in the Chinese economy people have been running to the US dollar, for how long is a good question? (I still think gold is where its at and the recent decline in the price of gold is a good sign to buy more. Buy on the downside and sell on the upside!) At any rate look for the US exports to decline, Europe can't afford them and the East does not buy. Look for the county's cities and states asking for financial help and look for QE3 riding to the rescue.

What really needs to be done is for everybody to bite the bullet, but you see what happen in Greece when that was attempted and now Germany has indicated that maybe more help will becoming their way. You think that maybe Merkel saw the writing on the wall after the French election?

Meanwhile we have the Republicans looking for dirt to throw on Obama instead of dealing with the real issue of the economy. I will give credit that Romney is trying to stay on message and focus on the economy even if he is avoiding what the reality of the economy is going to mean to Joe Citizen.

Interesting stat was released today in that more non-white babies were born last year than white in the USA and that is a trend that will continue. Fact is over 36% of the US population is now non-white and that means over 114 million Americans are nonwhite. That is a BIG voting block and as long as the Republicans ignore them they are going to have a real difficult time winning the White House. As that segment of the population grows they are also going to find it difficult to maintain their hold on Congress as well. All one has to do is look and see how many nonwhites are sitting in the Mayors offices of our largest cities to see what is happening.

I expect that by the middle of this century nonwhite Presidents will be the rule not the exception. As soon as Republicans realize that you do not focus your attack on a person's character but their accomplishments the better we will all be. But for now that's all the Republicans seem to have going for them and serveral old millionaires that want to keep things the way they have always been.
 

Europe is a mess! Greece will take another run at trying to form a government with little chance of it happening. France has switch governments and Spain is now bailing out the 3rd largest bank in the country, something they said just a month ago wasn't needed. If these countries had their own currencies they would be doing what the US does everytime it needs some more money.... turn on the printing presses. The Euro prevents then from doing so and Germany, who really holds the purse strings isn't about to let than happen. They still remember the time when they needed a wheelbarrow full of German Marks to buy a loaf of bread.

China is slowing down and in some cases has stopped growing and so the question is how long will it take to affect the US?

Well it already has. The housing market is still finding new lows, there are still far too many home owners facing foreclosure or will be upside down on their homes for years to come. The retail market is showing signs of weakling, expect Sears to be the next major retailer to disappear.
Expect a Q3 to help bail out cities and state governments, something Europe countries would like to do.

The market is already showing that the Bear market is losing its Phase 2 legs which could result in the market heading for the 6,000 level. Don't be fooled by the drop in gold. Central banks from all over the world are buying it by the tons: In early May GOLD NEWS reported: In the last fortnight we heard that central banks continue quietly to buy gold according to the IMF

Russia bought 16.55 tonnes in March.
Mexico bought 16.81 tonnes in March.
Turkey bought 11.48 tonnes in March.
Argentina bought 7 tonnes in March.
Kazakhstan bought 4.3 tonnes in March.
Other central banks bought smaller amounts. A total of 12 central banks were buyers. We have no reason to believe that this well-established trend will change.

This does not included the biggest buyers China, India, and Brazil along with Euro and the USA.

So the question remains is how long will it be before the market really falls and gold goes sky high??

Not long!
 

I remember when my 91 year old mother told me she was getting old and I would tell her she was old and it was I that was getting old. Now that I have entered my 70's I am thinking about her comment more and more.

When do we get old? Is it an age or a state of mind? Are old people those who have retired? Those who have hit a certain age? Is it a state of mind and some of us never get old?

When we are young we have stages of life. Teenager,Youngster, Middle age, and Senior. I think that the Senior classification should be broken into three more sections. The first is when a senior is still useful because of their experience, The trend of moving retirement to 67 seems to confirm this, the second phase is when family come to them for advice and their wisdom, and the third phase is when they are too old to remember much of anything.

Some people are old when they are in their twenties and others are still young at heart when they are a hundred!

I will tell you one thing getting old is not for the faint of heart. It seems every day when you wake up your body reminds you of some of the silly things you did when you were younger. That new pain in your knee is from the day you slide into home and pulled a muscle or the pain in the wrist is from the job you did one summer pulling wire along the Rio Grande.

One of the advantages of retiring is time. You find there is time to do things you usually put off when you were working. I have the time to watch my grandson play basketball, time to watch a baseball game, time to do some writing, and time to do the reading I always put off. Time to do some fishing!

But I have also found that my cousin is right when he said sometimes while your making plans life happens. Sometimes I do nothing but sit and think and other times I just sits! I guess I'm entitled after all I'm getting old!
 

About a year ago the Canadian government announced that the mint was going to switch from paper money to plastic cash.

Well a few months ago they started by introducing a plastic $100 bill then in February they introduced the plastic $50.00 bill and they are now in the processes of introducing a plastic $20.00 bill.

Yesterday I had a chance to acquired my first plastic $100 and I was quite impressed. First the bill contained all the anti-counterfeit measures and it was beautifully engraved. The bill has a much longer life span than paper money and the only draw back I can see is that writers will have a hard time writing stories where the hero rips a bill in half and says to the taxi driver or homeless person "you'll get the other half when..." You CAN"T tear it in half without a pair of scissors!

The reason Canada decided to switch was for economic reasons, same as when they replaced the paper $1 and $2 dollar bills with medal coins. If this works out I can see them switching back to plastic one and two dollar bills. It is one of the reasons that Canada is leading the financial world.

Americans are really stubborn. We were amazed during our visit to Hawaii how few debt card machines were available. In Canada most consumer transactions are done using debt cards rather than credit cards. What we did to avoid piling up debt and knowing the American lack of debt ability was to move money from our checking account into our credit card account. This allowed us to take our vacation without building up debt.

Americans have refused to accept the US dollar coin and the US mint doesn't have the b--ls to just end the printing of paper money. This is just one example of the public making a decision based on emotion rather than economic reality. Its the "I've made up my mind don't confuse me with the facts" processes that too often controls events in America. Of course if the Mint did do it the cry of BIG GOVERNMENT is controlling our lives would be hear from one end of the country to the other. If the government can't do this minor, but important change, how do you expect the country to do the major changes needed?

In the past the members of each political party would sit down and work out a compromise that met the needs of Americans. In today's climate too many are saying "Its my way or the highway!" That may explain why so many seem lost and on the highway.

If the country can't decide to enter the 21st Century with it's currency and can't agree to end Saturday Postal delivery how in the heck can the country agree on the important economic issues?


 

I see that a number of law suits are beginning to show up where city employees are suing their city for the cut backs in pension plans or the increase in premiums without bargaining the changes. As more and more cities find that they are so deep in debt that they have to raise revenue or decrease expenses. With the housing market in chaos the ability of cities to raise property tax is a nonstarter. Fact is with the drop in housing values this source has been reduced. The only thing left is to reduce cost and salaries are the biggest drain on a city's budget. The result is that education, police, health care, and fire departments are all under the gun.

The Feds did step in with two stimulus packages that helped cities maintain their employment levels. If there is not a sudden improvement in the economy (not likely) then the cities will need some major help. With state budgets all ready at the max there is not much chance they will get help from the state government. What's left? The Feds. and where will they get the money?? Warm up the printing presses. Expect a QE3, but this time the money will be headed to the cities and state governments.

Meanwhile the collapse of the market is beginning... Look for unemployment to begin to level off even with summer coming on and then begin to rise in September. Most consumer producers are looking at an all time high of stockpiled goods and they are not likely to hire people over the next few months until their supplies begin to lower. Fact is if the consumer doesn't buy they may begin to let go workers.

Consumers represent 70% of our GDP if they are backing off its not good news for the economy. Many consumers are holding off until the election. Another factor is the savings of consumers. The rate is at an all time low and why not when savings interest rates are at an all time low. When people don't have any reserves they tend to hold on to what they have a little longer.

Right now Gold is looking like a real bargain. I image that the people with money are moving out of the stock market and into the gold market or at least gold mining stocks. Look for that trend to continue and watch gold take off in a couple of months.


 

Retail sales are down across the world, both Greece and France are rejecting the economic measures needed to contain the collapse of the Euro. Markets are down, the Japanese are back to printing money, mortgage rates are at all time lows but it has little effect on improving house sales, and the price of gold has dropped.

There is a saying in the market that goes like this Sell in May and go Away. Well if you do take advantage of the price of gold and buy before you go!

We are headed for some real rough economic times and it appears that it is starting as we write. Not a good sign for Obama and the real problem is the Romney gang is LESS prepared to handle what we are about to face....

But then again we may need a bully at the helm to guide us through the misery we are about to face.

Don't look now but the s-it is about to hit the fan.