President Obama has introduced a new voting procedure that transfers power to the Executive Branch. In the same bill to raise the debt ceiling he created a Super Congress that will be used to create legislation relating to the deficit reductions i.e. where the "cuts" will come. This removes whatever power remains with the Congress on financial legislation that is amongst the most important duties of elected representatives.

I would expect the bills generated by the Super Congress, which must go to Congress but cannot be amended, to be voted on by the same procedure of disapproval. I have no doubt that after this just as the President has increasingly governed by Executive Orders ignoring Congress so the power of this Super Congress of only twelve leaders from both parties will grow and eventually the Congress will become like the European Parliament a merely rubber stamping body of powerless representatives and the plum jobs will be on those committees serving the Super Congress. Click to view link

Sounds like you have lots of fun! And get paid for it!

I'm a far better artist than hedge fund manager! LOL

I do admire your discipline and that you are able to navigate the global markets. It sounds like you have a knack for it and have developed a knowledge base over a period of years. Not to mention loads of fun!!!

Good for you!

While Hubbie recouperates we are staying at our "second home" which we are preparing to sell. It's not "fun", but it will be quite a relief when we are shed of it. It is not a financial need, but rather an emotional one. We just need to be rid of it. We have a prospective buyer. We should find out for sure this week.

I look forward to our being released by the surgeon next week to return to Virginia--hopefully, with this place under contract (no RE agent involved).

I've not really learned the new "News Briefs" system here at DB. Seems like when they post a new one, the old one is no longer available.

Thanks for your friendship. It's especially nice to have DB friends when I have to be away from home!

Hey elves...love this format! Keep up the good fight!

Reply from The Daily Bell

Editor's note: While we have introduced this new "Daily Bell Briefs" feature into the Daily Bell, it is not to the exclusion of our traditional format of presenting full-length news analysis. Over the next couple of weeks, the DB elves will be enjoying a much needed summer vacation. Following such, both the new "Briefs" and the traditional "Staff Reports" will be published on a daily basis. The Daily Bell Briefs are not a new format that replaces the old, simply an addition to our ever expanding mission of advancing free-market thinking around the world. Thanks for joining us.

How can gold be risky for a person like you! If that's what makes you sleep better than it's a good purchase. The hell with everybody's opinion. That's the reason I don't let anyone mange my money.

IRS allows self managed funds for people like you and I. All profits that I create for that account is non-taxable. It is basically a private hedge fund, that you own and manage. You can charge a management fee and keep the rest in your fund tax free!

Why invest in a taxable stocks or public funds or gold when I can self manage and buy gold and sell that gold tax free for my own self directed fund. In my case I charge myself a 20% management fee and the balance stays in a tax free self directed fund. That's how you should be purchasing your gold or real estate or diamonds or whatever.

But then again, I'm not an Investment Advisor, simply a friend. (lol)

Dottie, of course each investor has their own quirks and beliefs but mine isn't as a gold bug. I do keep track of metal prices but only to assess the price for possible margin requirements that are changing.

My rule of thumb is, if I am trading in metals I hold 20% physical and 80% cash after the exit of the trade. That way I keep liquid, yet build up a storage of the physical asset for safety.

Whereas in a forex trade I keep 40% in cash and 60% in real estate after the trade is exited. In other words, assuming I exit a trade profitably, I take 60% and invest in land and take the balance and reinforce my trading account.

So my safety net is a blend of metals, real estate and offshore banking. It allows me to sleep, perhaps like holding metals provides you with a comfort of safety. My risk tolerance may be higher than yours. But whether it's emotional risk or physical/trading risk. It is all risk capital management.

Learn to manage risk and your horizon of investments ten fold overnight.
The main reason I don't play the metal markets is there is only so much money those boys with white shoes and pinky rings in Chicago and New York are going to allow you to make before they turn the spicket off with margin requirements and they can break someone like me who uses leveraged investments.

Don't make investing difficult. If you like metals then buy metals, hell I may have to borrow some someday! (lol)

How thoroughly exciting!!! It must give a wonderful feeling of euphoria!

Congratulations!!!

I do not have lots to invest, but gold/silver give me peace of mind. Nothing else does.

I am the eternal permabear in the stock market. Hubby is engineer/MBA and has more faith in equities than I. I have been so wrong for so long....

Sleep well, my friend!

Seems like things are pretty quiet tonight. I decided to check on the gold reserves of various nations via CNBC data. Seeing the quantities of gold held and the percentage of reserves held in gold made me wonder if people like you who play the global currency markets--and maybe other global markets as well--pay much attention to the percentage of reserves that are held in gold.

I also noticed that the percentage of gold in reserves for Switzerland had "declined significantly" in the past year. That seemed worthy of some interest to me. What does it mean? Anything?

Just curious, but any info appreciated.

I don't invest in the stock market. It's only for the insider. It's too complicated, it has too much government money sloshing around in it and it can be manipulated. I never trusted it and I still don't.

On the other hand, if one takes physical possession of commodities or metals and is able to control storage costs, which in your case you could, I think its the only way to go for the one that is interested in safety.

Remember safety has a price on it also and sometimes it can be pretty expensive, but if one believes that safety is more important than yield at the present time, how can one put a price on peace of mind. It's priceless!

You might be interested in the currency markets we discussed earlier. I have been taking a pounding up until about thirty minutes ago and there was intervention that finally happened, just as I suspected and the market moved almost 200 points in 15 minutes. It was a great feeling as I was getting worn out! I intend to make up for lost sleep tonight after not getting any for the last week! (lol) Good Luck!

Re: "Good luck my friend save a seat for me on your jet! "

Big LOL!!!

Re: "but if a person is thinking safety and storage, is it not time to buy?"

I'm confident that gold is going up for several years--lower left to upper right as they say.

The stock market,however, I just see as very risky! I know people say "Gold is risky", but from my perspective, right here and now, CASH or STOCKS are even more risky.

Checking stats at John Williams Shadow Stats, we've already had two quarters of negative GDP and unemployment as calculated up until 1994 is above 22%. And that's with all the various stimuli that we've witnessed!!!

Yet, I keep hearing that companies' earnings are up and that's the determining factor for price of stocks. I know it's true, but I still don't get it. Can earnings continue to be up when economies around the world are faltering?

injun1, thanks for your encouragement. If I ever have a jet, you will always be welcome on it!

I love this daily brief format, great job Tony.

Reply from The Daily Bell

We plan to make the Brief format a daily addition to The Daily Bell. We appreciate the positive feedback.

All briefs, summarized:

The sky is falling and, all the fools who falsely believe they are "in control" can do is set the script for the band, choreograph the actors and re-arrange deck chairs as the "unsinkable" ships of states, sink.

Problems imply their own solutions and states, by choosing to become "problems" have opened up market opportunity for their demise, firmly guided by the unseen hand of collective human free choice, pursuing self-interest and dealing with survival threats.

States don't lie. They actually do "serve and protect", but only themselves and cronies, alienating (and aligning in common interest) all others to unseat the "king of the hill".

And, the "bailouts" are just resource infusions into a system which is not, nor can ever be self-sustaining and is running down because of the false perpetual motion (something from nothing) assumptions it relies upon.

I doubt very much that the organized forces who are doing in states have the interests of "we, the people" in mind. More like one predator eliminating another, in competition for prey (us).

So, don't waste life attempting to "reason" with predators or differentiating their various "teams". Starve the leeches by personally defending you and yours.

And ford recalls over a million trucks!

Another brief:

Government Lies

by Government Motors:

Click to view link

By the way, they are building inventory like it's going out of style.

I am going to sound like an Investment Advisor on TV. I have stated here before I am not a gold bug. But what has served me well throughout the years of investing is, if I believe in a market direction, I keep buying that direction until it proves me wrong. It doesn't matter to me what the investment product is.

And like buying real estate, you make your money going in, not coming out. Always leave room for the other guy. If you do it will help you avoid crashes. I trade blips and dots around the world, but if a person is thinking safety and storage, is it not time to buy?

Good luck my friend save a seat for me on your jet!

I buy into bubbles because that's where the money is at.

The stockmarket is a scam too!

Thanks much! I value your opinion, but assure you that I would never cast you in the role of "investment advisor" for any of a number of reasons.

I had only seen Cramer's opinion of his expertise. I gave him credit for calling the bottom March 9 or 2009, but others made that call as well.

Off for a busy day!! Thanks again for your feedback.

I'm watching silver because I have some "junk silver" that I want to convert into junk silver in coin form--or something.

Cramer is a schizophrenic idiot. A True Believer in Paper Money.

Click to view link

Silver is on sale today.

The 'recovery' meme is completely contradicted by every single solitary bit of data available. I would avoid the stock market like the plague (but that's just me). It is nothing more than a value sink for millisecond-speed skimming algorithms to pump up free money for the 'banks' which don't do banking anymore, so they can show 'profits'. Check out Zerohedge for hard evidence of this (HFT = high frequency trading, and "algo" = computer trading algorithm). All paid for with 401K's funded by people trapped into 'growth fund' schemes through their employment. Those who didn't get out in time before the last crash, when all the warning alarms were going off now have one last chance to get out now (but that's just my guess). If Cramer thinks it's a buying opportunity, that should be warning enough for anyone!

I am not an investment advisor, so anyone who is inclined to follow advice gotten off the internet is advised to do the opposite of what I say! Or throw darts at the financial pages, and don't buy if the dart hits anywhere on the page.

Seems like the commodities that are most linked to industrial need are all down today--silver goes both ways, so to speak.

Does anybody here think the market is "crashing"? Or is this a buying opportunity (of a lifetime?)?

I'm awfully suspicious of the "recovery"--a suspicion which seems to have been validated the past week or two. A friend who is a fan of Jim Cramer thinks it is a major buying opportunity.

Opinions?

And can the elves tell me where everybody is this morning?

Also, thanks for adding the FOREXPROS chart on the sidebar. Very, very helpful.

First, let me congratulate the Elves: My rating was the third and it appears that the average rating is 5.0. It doesn't get any better than that. The new format has tentative approval.

Bravo!

Now. Re: "Having ceded considerable ground to Republicans in the debt ceiling fight, President Obama set out Tuesday to reclaim the initiative on the economy, promising a new effort to spur job creation while seeking to position himself as a proven voice of reason in an era of ideological overreach. ... Still, heading into an election year, Mr. Obama's advisers say he will be able to point to his role in the debt negotiations as proof of his ability to be a mature, responsible leader who is able to rise above Washington's relentlessly partisan fray. ... Mr. Obama's willingness to engage in serious deficit reduction, aides said, could buy him credibility for his other economic proposals." - NY Times

This is the kind of reporting that seems non-biased, when it actually is quite biased. [disclaimer: I have not read entire article; i'm judging based on snippet.] By using such techniques as "...his advisors say..." the NYT is able to say very favorable things about President Obama. Things like this weasel their way into the psyche of the reader--particularly those who are open to such a tactic.

I have the hope, along with others here, that more and more citizens are recognizing this propaganda as such.

Thanks to AW and the Elf Patrol for bring us these briefs and allowing us to address these issues daily.

We are not alone.

BTW, I always like to see the time/date stamp on articles. Would that be possible for our Daily Briefs? Thanks.