John Rubino's Blog

It’s easy to understand the attraction of things like adjustable-rate mortgages and teaser-rate credit cards. They give you cheap money up front and a few years of breathing room in which to raise your cash flow to cover the eventual higher payments.

Economist Robert J. Samuelson just published an unintentionally funny article in Capital Journal on the bemusement today’s economists feel after being wrong about virtually everything for the past decade.

If the Long Wave is indeed winning, we’re about to discover the true meaning of an “unlimited” printing press.

The latest Flow of Funds just came out and, well, the bubble seems to be back. “The data,” writes Doug Noland, “have again turned more interesting.”

The past year has tested the worldview, and sometimes the sanity, of precious metals investors. But it has also given us another chance to load up at what might turn out to be dirt-cheap prices...

In this week’s talk with National Numismatics’ Tom Cloud, he explains why Germany’s gold repatriation is just the beginning, the US Mint’s silver shortage will continue, and the big money is right about precious metals.

There are three fairly radical ideas floating around the monetary policy world right now. The first is economist Ellen Brown’s belief that governments should stop borrowing money and simply create the currency they need, thus bypassing central banks and government bond markets.

There’s a fascinating (and enraging to both sides) argument going on over whether debt really matters. On one side are the Austrian-inspired hard money advocates who see excessive borrowing as even worse for governments than it is for individuals and families.

The fiscal cliff was always going to end with a whimper because that was the obvious path of least resistance. In the end, simply avoiding big tax increases and spending cuts while adding a few more trillion to the coming decade’s deficit was rewarded by the markets with a huge rally.

In this week’s interview with gold dealer Tom Cloud of National Numismatic Associates, we cover one very timely topic – the sudden decline in gold inventories – and one perennial question – how can an individual put physical precious metals in an IRA.