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Gates: Cutting Defense Means More ‘Risk,’ Fewer Missions
Robert Gates’ final defense policy speech in Washington turned out to be a challenge to his boss. President Obama has a goal of cutting $400 billion out of the Pentagon budget over the next 12 years. To do that, Gates says, the armed forces are going to have to stop taking on certain roles — and the country is going to have to accept the “additional risk” that comes from a pared-back military.
You see, Gates already killed the Army’s gazillion-dollar Future Combat Systems and the Marines’ “swimming tank” troop transporter. He stopped the production lines for the F-22 Raptor stealth jets. Then he and the services wrang out another $78 billion over four years for future spending.
The result? All the “low hanging fruit” in the defense budget have “not only been plucked, they Read more…
Global food inflation hits hemp seed, coconut oil and other superfoods: Here’s why it’s happening
Food inflation is hitting the superfood industry right where it hurts — in the wallet. Thanks to several factors you’ll read about here, prices on hemp seeds, hemp oils, coconut oil and other superfoods are set to skyrocket beginning in just a few days. One of the largest superfood suppliers in the USA, Nutiva, has announced an 11% price increase coming May 27th, and that may be just the beginning of an accelerating trend in steady increases.
In anticipation of this price increase, we’ve taken on a huge inventory of Nutiva’s Certified Organic Hemp Seed and Hemp Oil at the old prices, and we have a generous supply available to NaturalNews readers who want to beat the price increase (see below).
Why hemp and coconut oil prices are heading into the stratosphere
In a letter sent to us by Nutiva, founder John Roulac explains that the price of coconut oil has doubled in the last six months. While coconut oil suppliers are able to absorb some of this cost in the short term, they cannot do so on a permanent basis. This means that the prices consumers pay for coconut oil are headed sharply higher.
Impacting hemp seeds and hemp oil, the price of crude oil (up 30% or more over the last few months) adds to the cost of transporting these foods. Remember, thanks to the completely idiotic and utterly anti-American stance of the DEA, President Obama and most of the U.S. Congress, it is illegal to grow hemp seeds in America, Read more…
USDA: Food prices to rise further during rest of 2011
World instability+Food Prices+Oil+Floods+Droughts+Inflation=A Hungry and Broke You/Me
A federal study finds food prices will take a bigger bite out of Iowans’ food budgets this year. Rick Volpe, an economist with the U-S Department of Agriculture, says a trip to the grocery store will mean either less food in your cart or less money in your wallet.
“It will be hard to pay roughly the same amount you paid in 2010,” Volpe says. “There is no question that the food budget is going up for a lot of households.” Volpe says the highest price hikes will be seen in the supermarket’s meat and dairy cases.
“We’re forecasting a seven-to-eight-percent increase in retail beef prices and six-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half for pork,” he says. “Your milk, yogurt and cheese, we are forecasting about a five-percent increase.”
Volpe says there are several reasons for the hike in food prices but the rising cost of fuel is foremost. Triple-A-Iowa says the Read more…
Silver to Surge to $450/oz and Gold to $12,000/oz – Cazenove’s Robin Griffiths
Gold and silver are higher this morning with the dollar, the British pound and commodity currencies falling in value. It is too early to tell whether the recent margin driven, paper sell off on the COMEX is over but physical supply remains limited while demand remains robust, particularly in China, India and wider Asia.
Cross Currency Rates
Knowledgeable experts continue to urge investors to own gold and silver due to the likelihood of much higher prices, currency and inflation risk.
One of the most respected global technical and macro strategists in the world, Robin Griffiths has said that silver and gold could rise to $450 and $12,000 per ounce respectively due to the debasement of Read more…
Forbes Predicts U.S. Gold Standard Within 5 Years
A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview this week with HUMAN EVENTS.
“What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said.
Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence among foreign investors in U.S. government bonds, and discourage reckless federal spending, the media mogul and former presidential candidate said. The United States used gold as the basis for valuing the U.S. dollar successfully for roughly 180 years before President Richard Nixon embarked upon an experiment to end the practice in the 1970s that has contributed to a number of woes that the country is suffering from now, Forbes added.
If the gold standard had been in place in recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar would not have weakened as it has and excessive federal spending would have been curbed, Forbes told HUMAN EVENTS. The constantly changing value of the U.S. dollar leads to marketplace uncertainty and consequently spurs speculation in commodity investing as a hedge against inflation. Read more…
QE2 Is Damaging The Economy And Reducing GDP Growth
QE2 is going to go down as one of the worst monetary policy initiatives in the history of the modern Federal Reserve era. On almost any metric applied, QE2 ends up not only falling well short of its proposed goals, but actually turns certain metrics like GDP growth negative compared with the prior quarter, and heading in the wrong direction.
Costs Eat into Corporate Profits = No Hiring
Analysts all over Wall Street are starting to revise their 2nd quarter GDP forecasts down, and some like Goldman Sachs have made several downward revisions as higher input costs due to a weak dollar are creating an additional burden on businesses and consumers and thus slowing economic growth.
A weak dollar (Fig. 1) to a point can help exports, but an extremely weak dollar which in combination with QE2 liquidity juicing up commodities even further, turns out to be a net negative on the economy, and risks sending the Read more…
Bank of America sees Brent oil rallying to $140
I posted a article back in December if oil were to go over $145 in 2011. The bad news is in the forthcomming months it will hit $200 per barrel.
LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) – Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N: Quote) said it expected Brent crude LCOc1 to hit $140 a barrel in the next three months, before falling later in the year as high prices curb demand.
Brent crude has traded as high as $127.02 in 2011, the highest since 2008 when prices reached an all-time peak above $147.
Influential banks in commodities are expressing contrasting views on whether the rally will persist.
“The time is not yet ripe for oil demand destruction, and we maintain our view that Brent oil will average $122 a barrel this quarter, with prices Read more…
Surging Food Prices Could Thrust Millions Into Poverty In Emerging Europe: World Bank
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Bernama) — The recent price hikes in food and energy could push more than five million people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia into poverty, reports the China’s Xinhua news agency, quoting World Bank’s official.
Yvonne Tsikata, the director for Poverty reduction and economic management of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia region said: “The poorest people in the region will suffer the most from the high food and energy price inflation, which reduces their purchasing power’.
She said that the region’s poor often spend half of their income on food, and Read more…
The Truth About Silver and Inflation
Silver futures surged today to a new 31-year high of $43.05 per ounce. Silver is up 146% since NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade on December 11th, 2009, at $17.40 per ounce. All we need is for silver to rise by another 15.5% and silver will reach its all time high set in 1980 of $49.45 per ounce.Silver soars to 31-year high
Gold rose over 1 per cent to a near-record and silver surged Thursday as dollar weakness, inflation worries and a European debt crisis powered bullion to its biggest one-day gain in about seven weeks.
Silver futures soared to their highest since 1980, rising more than 4 per cent for their biggest one-day gain since November, as strong investment and speculative buying sent the gold/silver ratio to a low.
Gold received a boost from inflation worries triggered by a crude oil rally and data showing rising U.S. core producer prices in March, and as higher-than-expected jobless claims knocked the dollar.
“The combination of higher oil prices, weaker dollar and the resurrection of discussions of Greek sovereign risk problems has galvanized the gold market. It’s particularly impressive because we ran into selling above the market yesterday,” said James Steel, chief commodity analyst at HSBC.
Spot gold rose 1.4 per cent to $1,474.30 an ounce by 4:02 p.m. ET, within striking distance of its record $1,476.21 set on Monday. U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled up $16.80 at $1,472.40 an ounce.
Investors grew jittery on talk of debt restructuring by Greece, the first euro zone member to receive a bailout a year ago in the crisis Read more…
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