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10 Signs That America Is Decomposing Right In Front Of Our Eyes http://albertpeia.com/10signsamericadecomposing.htm , 8 Reasons Why The Greek Debt Deal May Not Stop A Chaotic Greek Debt Default http://albertpeia.com/8reasonsgreekdebtdefaultstillcoming.htm , Meanwhile, China Moves From Currency Wars To Trade Wars Durden 2-21-12 , Greek CDS Trigger Priced In Durden 2-21-12 , For Greece, "Tomorrow" Has Arrived Durden 2-21-12 The day dawns with a deal for Greece that is full of smoke and mirrors; lies and deceptions. , More Leaked Greece Details: Downside Case Sees Funding Needs Soar From €136 Billion To €245 BillionDurden 2-20-12 , JPM Hikes Crude Price Forecast, Sees $120 WTI By Election Time Durden 2-20-12 , The Price Of Gas Is Outrageous – And It Is Going To Go Even Higher http://albertpeia.com/gaspriceshigher.htm , Drudgereport: White House seeks to deflect blame... GALLUP: Unemployment Rises to 9% In February... SATISFACTION WITH COUNTRY WORST SINCE CARTER... Michelle hits the slopes in Aspen month after Hawaiian holiday... 16th vacation in 3 years... For Baby Boomers, it's now 'work til you drop'... Gas prices highest ever for this time of year... $4.93 in Los Angeles... , Guest Post: Consequences To Expect If The U.S. Invades Iran Durden 2-20-12 Let’s be honest, quite a few Americans love a good war, especially those Americans who have never had to bear witness to one first hand.  War is the ultimate tribally vicarious experience.  Anyone, even pudgy armchair generals with deep-seated feelings of personal inadequacy, can revel in the victories and actions of armies a half a world away as if they themselves stood on the front lines risking possible annihilation at the hands of dastardly cartoon-land “evil doers”.  They may have never done a single worthwhile thing in their lives, but at least they can bask in the perceived glory of their country’s military might.   This attitude of swollen ego through proxy is not limited to the “Right” side of the political spectrum as some might expect.  In fact, if the terrifyingly demented presidency of Barack Obama has proven anything so far, it is that elements of the “Left” are just as bloodthirsty as any NeoCon, and just as ready to blindly support the political supremacy of their “side” regardless of any broken promises, abandoned principles, or openly flaunted hypocrisies.  No matter how reasonable or irrefutable the arguments against a particular conflict are, there will ALWAYS be a certain percentage of the populace which ignores all logic and barrels forward to cheerlead violent actions which ultimately only benefit a select and elite few. , The Real Mega-Trend That Guarantees the Cost of Living Will Rise http://gainspainscapital.com February 21st, 2012 , Guest Post: The Great ECB-OSI Bond-Swap Scam Durden 2-20-12 A massive 150bn euro bill exclusively reserved for the EU-IMF funding of the "official" (OSI) and the private (PSI) sector participations in the Greek writedown on Greek debt may be the key factor behind the ongoing delays in the eurozone finance ministers' approval of a second bailout for Greece. This factor remains concealed behind media hysteria about the supposed failure of Athens to comply with a brutal austerity diktat by the EU-IMF-ECB 'troika'....The question is how will the Eurogroup approve these PSI participation costs that far exceed the supposed gain from the 100bn euro "haircut" but also leave nothing to cover Greece's debt servicing obligations for 2012-2014 of at least another 70bn euros to say nothing of possible budget deficits due to the collapse of public revenues in the fifth consecutive year of a Greek depression. All the histrionics about forcing Greece to set up a separate “escrow account that would give legal priority to debt and interest payments over paying for government expenses”, is nothing but a smokescreen for piling massive sums of fresh public debt on Greece's shoulders without lending a single penny to make up for the economic catastrophe meted out on the country. , Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Durden 2-20-12 Once we see what Europe is really going to do, not what they have told us they might do, the real show gets underway. Everything up till now was just a preamble, a mincemeat of words flowing like a unsubstantiated river from mouths full of fluff, orated by the deceptors… , As Everything Disconnects And Everything Is Soaring, Morgan Stanley Issues A Warning Durden 2-20-12 The latest report from Morgan Stanley's Graham Secker can be summarized simply as follows: i) in January everything has disconnected as traditional linkages between asset classes have broken down, ii) also in January every major asset class (equities, treasurys, gold, oil) was up materially, iii) such a phenomenon has been seen only 5 times in the past 5 years, iv) a double digit decline followed 3 of the past 4 such surges. , European Insurers: How Long Before Capital Denial Becomes Capital Punishment …the last week or so has seen insurers start to deteriorate as perhaps the market will enforce its own capital expectations even if regulators are unwilling to. , Gold Surges As Market Remembers Definition Of "Dilution" Durden 2-21-12 Yesterday, when charting the global multi-trillion central bank stealth reliquification (aka the primary driver for the market to surge 20% in the past several months, and since "the market, or Russell 2000 is the economy" just as the ChairSatan, to result in what naive commentators define as an economic bounce), we said "As a reminder, when gold was at $1900 last summer, central banks had pumped about $2 trillion less into the markets. We expect the market to grasp this discrepancy shortly." With gold about $30 bucks higher, the market is finally starting to "grasp it", and is now back to $1755, as silver passes $34. , As Dow Passes 13,000 In Nominal Terms, Here Is The "Real" PictureDurden

2-21-12 Three charts that perhaps will calm the nominal euphoria as Dow 13000 screams across the screens. Since May 2008, the Dow is unchanged in price and down 50% in 'real' gold terms. The picture is just as disheartening from the start of 2011 and 2012. Next stop Dow 20,000 and Gold 20,000? Durden 2-21-12 Wondering why the DJIA just passed 13K again? Wonder no more: as the chart below shows it is entirely due to the nearly $7 trillion pumped by global central banks into the world stock markets just in the past 4 years. As Sean Corrigan from Diapason notes, the aggregate global central bank balance sheet has doubled in four years, after doubling in the 5 years before that. We would add that with the entire centrally planned ponzi scheme hell bent on preserving the illusion of nominal gains, global liquidity is now fungibly sloshing from one market to another with absolutely zero resistance whatsoever. At this rate, it should double again in 3 years, then 2, and so on. Will the Dow hit 52K in 5 years in that case? Why most certainly. Just ask any remaining citizens of the Weimar Republic… , Guest Post: Scale Invariant Behaviour In Avalanches, Forest Fires, And Default Cascades: Lessons For Public Policy Durden 2-21-12 We have lived through a long period of financial management, in which failing financial institutions have been propped up by emergency intervention (applied somewhat selectively). Defaults have not been permitted. The result has been a tremendous build-up of paper ripe for burning. Had the fires of default been allowed to burn freely in the past we may well have healthier financial institutions. Instead we find our banks loaded up with all kinds of flammable paper products; their basements stuffed with barrels of black powder. Trails of black powder run from bank to bank, and it's raining matches. , Iceland’s Viking Victory London Telegraph | Fitch has upgraded the country to investment grade BBB – with a stable outlook