Gold Prices Surge

Published: Fri, 09/20/13

Home | About Dick Young |

In This Issue:
Gold Prices Surge By E.J. Smith
Superbugs Winning the Battle Against Antibiotics By Richard C. Young
How Vanguard Wellesley Won the War By E.J. Smith
Obamacare Unravels By Richard C. Young
Weekend at Bernanke’s By E.J. Smith
Announcing the Murder Capital and the Top 15 Murder Cities in America By Richard C. Young

Young Investments Client Letter: Sign up to get the letter emailed directly to you by clicking here
AUGUST CLIENT LETTER: U.S. Economy Not on Sound FootingIt is our view that the U.S. economy is far from being on sound footing, with potential bubble conditions existing in the stock and bond markets. Considerable blame lies at the feet of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve. As time passes, economic conditions as measured by GDP continue to look weak, and yet the government continues to borrow from abroad a big portion of what it spends. The debt burden on Americans increases as the Fed continues to debase the currency with its money-printing excess.—Read more by clicking here

Are you having trouble viewing or printing this email? Click here.

Gold Prices Surge

Gold prices have surged by over $90/troy oz. following the Fed’s decision not to taper its bond buying program and the likelihood that inflation dove Janet Yellen will be Bernanke’s replacement. Yellen has said she will keep inflation under control, but does she have what it takes? Link Bloomberg:

“It is an open question,” said Calabria, director of financial regulation studies in Washington at the Cato Institute, a policy research group that espouses free markets. “Can she be Paul Volcker if she needs to be?”

Volcker, the Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987, lifted the short-term borrowing rate to 22 percent to strangle inflation, snuffing out growth. The campaign drew a backlash from builders and others upset about the loss of work.

“People don’t send you two-by-fours when you are washing the system with liquidity,” Calabria said, referring to surplus lumber sent to Volcker in protest. Under Bernanke and Yellen, asset purchases have swelled the Fed’s balance sheet to a record $3.72 trillion.

The post Gold Prices Surge appeared first on RichardCYoung.com.

At The Wall Street Journal, Betsy McKay outlines that antibiotics are losing the battle against superbugs. Overuse of antibiotics is a major cause of the problem according to a CDC report.

Public-health experts are increasingly sounding the alarm about the number of microbes, from normally harmless intestinal bacteria to tuberculosis, that are winning a Darwinian battle of sorts for survival of the fittest against the antibiotics meant to kill them. Some, like gonorrhea or certain “superbugs” that have been found spreading in medical facilities, have outsmarted nearly all the drugs used to treat them.

“If we’re not careful and we don’t take action, the medicine cabinet may be empty for patients with life-threatening infections in the coming months and years,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a conference call with reporters. The pipeline of new drugs to overcome these powerful infections “is nearly empty for the short term,” he said. and some new drugs could be a decade away.

The report was blunt in summing up the reasons for greater resistance to antibiotics, including excessive use. “Up to half of antibiotic use in humans and much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe,” it said.

The post Superbugs Winning the Battle Against Antibiotics appeared first on RichardCYoung.com.

>> read more

How Vanguard Wellesley Won the War

You want to keep this chart on your refrigerator because there’s been a lot of talk in the press lately about 2008. Looking back five years later is always easier than living through it. What the press fails to explain is the emotional and financial toll 2008 leveled on so many retirees. There’s a breaking point for every investor. For those (there’s more than you think) that had too much in the stock market that point was clearly met five years ago this month. Too many sold at or near the bottom and have never fully recovered. I have a feeling those that got out are now back at it again, investing in stocks hoping to make back what they lost. Investors that went into 2008 with a balanced portfolio were spared from the emotional and financial roller-coaster and lived to fight another day. Look no further than the Vanguard Wellesley fund for the cold hard truth about 2008. While the Dow dropped 34%, the S&P close to 40%, and others by more than 50%, Vanguard Wellesley was down less than 10%. That’s how you win the war.

By comparison, the Legg Mason Value Trust cratered through 2008.

The post How Vanguard Wellesley Won the War appeared first on RichardCYoung.com.

>> read more

Obamacare Unravels

How do companies across America save money in an Obamacare world? Cut, slash and refuse coverage. Of course, that is the plan. No business owner in his right mind is going to allow the Obamacare travesty to rip into his profit margins. Hire fewer workers, lay off workers, hire part timers, and refuse coverage to spouses. There are plenty of ways to cut health care costs. But none of this works well for American workers, each of whom can thank Barack Obama. Here NPR lays out the current state of affairs.

When UPS told workers that it would no longer offer health coverage for spouses who had their own job-based insurance, it caused a big stir. But the shipping giant has plenty of company.

So many employers are trying to cut back on health coverage for spouses that it has become a trend. The practice began well before the Affordable Care Act passed, and the connection to the law, in some cases, isn’t that direct.

About 12 percent of employers have this provision in their policies, says Tracy Watts, who heads the health care reform team at Mercer, a benefits consulting firm.

Mercer surveyed employers who have some sort of restriction on health coverage of spouses, and found that about half of those employers, or 6 percent, have imposed a surcharge for spouses who could get coverage at their own jobs.

“The other 6 percent exclude spouses who have coverage elsewhere,” Watts says. That’s the approach UPS is taking.

The post Obamacare Unravels appeared first on RichardCYoung.com.

>> read more

Weekend at Bernanke’s

Clearly Fed Chief Ben Bernanke has checked out and has started dreaming about retirement with yesterday’s Weekend at Bernie’s performance. Was Janet Yellen propping him up? And since when did the Chairman of the Federal Reserve become the President of the United States? His comments sounded like talking points sent directly from the White House. The Wall Street Journal reports here:

A government shutdown, and perhaps even more so a failure to raise the debt limit, could have very serious consequences for the financial markets and for the economy,”. Bernanke said in his press conference following the policy meeting. “The Federal Reserve’s policy is to do whatever we can to keep the economy on course.”

Bernanke is chasing his tail with the employment scene, or lack-there-of. If he was doing his job correctly he’d focus on inflation and be done with it. At least we’ll be done with him soon enough, but if it’s Yellen as the next chair it won’t be long before it’s time to break out the “miss me yet?” t-shirts.

The Journal continues:

The Fed says it wants a lower unemployment rate, but Mr. Bernanke gave conflicting answers about how meaningful officials find the latest declines. At one point he said the unemployment rate was “perhaps the best single indicator of the state of the labor market.” But he later said “the unemployment rate is not necessarily a great measure in all circumstances of the state of the labor market overall.”

Mr. Bernanke also appeared to back away from a bond-buying marker the Fed had laid down in June. Then, Mr. Bernanke said at a press conference that officials expected the jobless rate to be around 7% when the Fed ended its $85 billion monthly bond buying program. He made no mention of that 7% marker in his statement Wednesday and played it down when asked about it. “There is not any magic number that we are shooting for,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We’re looking for overall improvement in the labor market.

The post Weekend at Bernanke’s appeared first on RichardCYoung.com.

Is your hometown on the murder list? Why is it not surprising that Chicago leads the list? I am interested in the demographics breakdown. I bet that few Windy City folk are being gunned down outside of Bloomingdales. And let’s not forget, Illinois gun laws are hostile to those law-abiding citizens wishing to defend themselves against murderers.