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Dr. Marc Faber’s Predictions for 2010 and Beyond

By Addison Wiggin

11/19/09 Baltimore, Maryland – Long-time DR sufferers are already familiar with our friend and colleague Dr. Marc Faber – author of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, and one of the foremost contrarian economists working today.

Well, we’ve secured an exclusive interview with Dr. Faber – hosted by our own Dan Mangru – which will premier on Tuesday, November 24th at 2 PM…and it’s already creating quite a bit of buzz. Be sure to check out the trailer below, and click here to sign up for your access to this free event.

Click here to Sign up Today

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Spitting on the Boomers’ Financial Legacy

By Bill Bonner

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11/21/09 London, England – Okay! We’ll say what we’ve been thinking…

…that our children are going to spit on our graves!

First, Americans made a colossal mistake in the ’90s and the ’00s. They partied…they spent…they borrowed…running up huge debts in the private sector. Most kids could forget about inheriting anything from their parents; the geezers spent it years ago.

The boomer generation also made a mess of the biggest success story in world history – the United States of America. In the ’60s and ’70s – when boomers matured and began to take over – the US was still on top of the world. It had a positive trade balance…huge savings…massive investments abroad…and the strongest companies in the world.

They ruined it. The financial industry took over…replacing manufacturing. Instead of making things we could sell at a profit, Wall Street sold debt – mostly to us! In government, imperial ambitions pushed aside the restraints and good sense of the old republic. Overseas, military bases were set up in 120 countries. We now have unwinnable, trillion-dollar wars that could go on forever. At home, the sheep look to the government to solve every problem. Thirty-five million Americans – almost as many as the entire population of Spain – depend on the feds’ food stamp program for their daily bread.

At least, most Americans are making amends in their private lives. The old days, when the US was “the world’s mouth,” are over. We can no longer be counted on to buy up every gadget and gizmo produced in the world. We’re rediscovering the old virtues…Read more…

Ron Paul Says Fed “Oversight is Laughable”

By Rocky Vega

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11/20/09 Falun, Sweden – Today the House Finance Committee approved the Ron Paul and Jim DeMint amendment to audit the Federal Reserve. It’s a step in the right direction, but the amendment still has some way to go before it sees the light of day. To build momentum, Paul and DeMint have written their opinion in the Wall Street Journal that the “trillion-dollar interventions in the economy merit scrutiny by taxpayers and their representatives.”

Since 1913, the Fed has been in place to defend the dollar while fulfilling its dual mandate of stable prices and full employment. Despite its efforts the US dollar has basically lost 95 percent of its purchasing power over the past 96 years.

Paul and DeMint argue that Fed transparency is required to reveal “who the Fed is giving money to, what types of securities are being purchased and what backs those securities, [and] how much money is being paid for those securities”.

As it stands, the Freedom of Information Act is not sufficient for making these facts public. Even with it in place, media like Bloomberg and Fox News are forced to litigate in order to gain access to the kind of financial crisis-related information that should be readily at their disposal.

Currently, the only Fed supervision in place is the chairman’s twice-yearly appearance before Congress to explain his decisions. As Paul and DeMint explain, “the idea that this constitutes any sort of oversight is laughable.”

See the full coverage from the Wall Street Journal on how …Read more…

China Owns the Heavy Stone

By Byron King

11/20/09 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – It’s pretty clear that without tungsten, a lot of things in this world will — literally — grind to a halt.

Now let’s ask, where’s the world’s tungsten? Here’s a recent pie chart of world tungsten reserves.

Estimated World Tungsten Reserves

In addition to its large reserve base (57%), China presently controls about 75% of the world’s output of tungsten. Characteristically, China’s national resource policy is to ensure that the long-term needs of its own industrial base are satisfied. In the past three years, the Chinese have begun to reduce export volumes, while at the same time diverting more and more tungsten output to domestic industry or to foreign companies that locate plants in China.

Does that sound familiar? It’s the same thing that the Chinese are doing with rare earths and other elements, like indium.

Here’s where things stand. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China dominates world tungsten mining and primary processing. Tungsten availability to non-Chinese markets is tightening, and will doubtless continue to decline. Equally important, China is now becoming a major importer of tungsten concentrates and scrap materials.

Ongoing rapid growth in demand within China will ensure that competition for raw materials between Chinese and non-Chinese processors will continue and intensify. So it’s clear that there’s now an urgent need for increased tungsten output outside China.…Read more…