Blogs

Last Friday afternoon, the Fed released the minutes from a May 17 meeting of the Federal Advisory Council (FAC) – that you probably never heard of before today. The Council is a group of 12 influential bankers from across the country who meet periodically and give the Fed Board of Governors input regarding the economy, monetary policy, etc. To my knowledge, no one in the mainstream media has reported on what you will read here today.

Following that discussion, I will review the latest economic reports over the last couple of weeks and let you know what we’re looking for in reports during the balance of this week.

Finally, I’ll give you my take on the escalating IRS scandal that is now being investigated in Congress. I will suggest to you that the roots of this scandal go all the way back to the landmark Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission decision made by the Supreme Court in January 2010. For whatever reasons, the media hasn’t seemed to make that connection.

When Jonathan Tepper and I wrote Endgame some two years ago, the focus was on Europe, but we clearly detailed how Japan would be the true source of global volatility and instability in just a few years. “A Bug in Search of a Windshield” was the title of the chapter on Japan. This year, I wrote in my forecast issue that 2013 would be “The Year of the Windshield.” For the last two weeks we have focused on the problems facing Japan, and such is the importance of Japan to the world economy that this week we will once again turn to the Land of the Rising Sun. I will try to summarize the situation facing the Japanese. This is critical to understand, because they are determined to share their problems with the world, and we will have no choice but to deal with them. Japan is going to affect your economy and your investments, no matter where you live; Japan is that important.

In This Issue.

* Euro's two day rally ends.

* Record renminbi deposits in Hong Kong.

* U.S. GDP revised downward.

* Gold's $23 rally is halted overnight.