Here are some quick thoughts and observations. I will get to the point on most of them. I won’t bore you with the repetitive nature of the backdrop behind these stories. You can check those out for yourselves on my links to the right because most of my thoughts haven’t changed.

Gold & Silver

As I expected, after seeing a rebound off the massive correction from highs on both metals, it would appear as though a downtrend is now resuming. Forget he manipulation stories. The fact that of the matter is that the world needs cash. The world is broke. There is no funny business going on with any attempt to supress the price of either metal. We are merely seeing everyone running to cash. This is reflected in all asset classes including the stock market. My prediction is for gold to re-trace to at least $1600.00 and silver down to $27.00 or thereabouts. I don’t see the fundamentals in place for both metals to rocket higher. We have our crisis moments during which both metals fail to react the way we suspected. Yes I remain cautiously optimistic longer term but for now, I wouldn’t want to be holding either metal.

Stocks

Goodbye. If you haven’t noticed the financial sector has led the way and this sector tells me we are headed back towards at least 10,000 on the Dow Jones Industrials. The fundamentals, largely ignored, tell us that the economy of the United States and that of the world are collapsing. There is simply too much debt out there and not just government debt but personal debt is going to break the camel's back. Everywhere I turn I see people complaining about debt or an increasing ability to make payments or tackled their debt loads. This isn’t going to go away overnight.

Europe

Our brothers and sisters in Europe are in a world of hurt. It has been over a year now and the Union hasn’t done a single thing to get Greece going again. Greece itself hasn’t helped its own cause either by continually missing targets and expectations. What is to say they are ever going to get their books balanced? Now we can add Italy’s political joke to the mix (I wrote about Italy months before the mainstream finally caught on that their problems were bigger than what were being reported) and now we get this more recent news out of Spain. Don’t think for a moment that any news that attempts to paint over the current situation is genuine. The European Union is closer than ever to dissolution and break up. The experiment has failed but the suits in charge are too ashamed to admit to it.

Finally, one last word for today after watching news report after news report about this “occupy wall street or ‘fill in the blank’” bullshit that is taking the world by storm.

Get off your asses and if you are lucky enough to have a job, get back to work and stop making fools of yourselves. This movement will not change the way things are done and in fact makes those that participate in such events look like a bunch of conspiracy theorists. In the same vein as “buy a silver round to collapse JPM” didn’t work (and it was never going to work), so too will these protests do nothing but infuriate the lives of those who are impacted by these protests. I sat in Toronto traffic half hour longer while these nitwits occupied the area I need to drive by. Please…if you are one of these protesters, get a grip. Protesting the banks while all your money is sitting in them does you no good. Given that you are being paid little to zero interest on your money to begin with, take your money out…run the banks so to speak… that will hurt them more than a bunch of signs and chants.

It always seems to me that these people that protest economic inequality are the ones who aren’t motivated to work. Perhaps if their motivation to work and earn a living equalled their motivation to set up tent cities and loiter, they wouldn’t be battling economic inequality. I remember the words my father gave me when I was a teenager. He said “If you want to work and look hard enough, there is always something for you to do”. He was right. I have no sympathy for those that hang out in parks chanting about economic inquality when thousands of others are hitting the job market looking for work. If they are truly motivated to find work, they will find something. That can’t be said for the tree-huggers lining our city parks.