What can you say about crypto-currencies that hasn't been said already. However, Kerry and I are proposing a new form of crypto backed up by Tulips, preferably the Dutch variety. After all, Tulip prices only go up, right? And what of all those ICO's (Initial Coin Offerings) that are headed to the moon and back. Just today Bancor raised $153 million. Pretty good work if you can get it.  Now Amazon is taking over Wholier Than Thou Foods. What could possibly go wrong. Just take an old fashioned business, add robots and internet ordering and make a zillion dollars. It always works out in the long run, but then again in the long run we're all dead. 

Terrorist attacks have become a regular occurrence in England. What can be done about it? Seems like there's always a reason why they didn't stop the guys from carrying out the attack, even though they were well aware of them before the deed was done. Will vacating the Middle East and leaving them to their own demise solve the problem? John believes it couldn't make it worse.  Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord is irrelevant. Cheap solar will eventually make the matter moot, if it's not already. There won't be much CO2 when everyone is driving an electric self-driving vehicle and generating their energy from the sun. 

Employment numbers came in highly negative. Full time employment down, bartenders and part-timer employment went up. This is bad news for the economy and gold/silver is going up as result. Illinois's debt was downgraded to slightly above junk. The emerging public pension crisis is just about to begin. Get ready for the new paradigm. 

Trump's first overseas trip have proved and unmitigated success. While it looks good now, we've never been able to figure out the right move in the Middle East. It won't be settled anytime soon and expect periodic flare-ups. But defense stocks are doing well now, which is good for the market.  Looks like the achilles heel of crypto-currencies has been exposed. While you can create many more Bitcoin units, you can create an infinite supply of crypt-currencies. Where will it end. ICO's (Internet Coin Offerings) are bypassing the stock market and the SEC. We'll see how long that lasts. 

It's no secret that finding the mother lode keeps getting harder and harder to do. A new generation of miners is entering the industry. They are younger, creative and don't hesitate to utilize the best new technologies that are revolutionizing the industry. In addition, the majors have effectively abandoned exploration and have subcontracted it out to the juniors. Large mining companies are very slow to move and are generally unable to take advantage of new opportunities. Thus the junior miners exist to locate and uncover new mines that will eventually be taken over by the majors. That's why a conference like the Metals Investor Forum has taken on so much more importance in recent years. 

Kerry and John discuss - News from China says that the world's largest aluminum producer, China Hongqiao Group,  is on the brink of insolvency. This is a company that's nearly twice the size of Alcoa. It's been showing amazing growth and profit numbers for year. Now it turns out that they've been relying upon Chicom accounting and the profits were fraudulent and illusory. The company is begging for a government bailout to avoid civil unrest. Have we reached the point where everything is too big to fail? Perhaps, but then eventually the party that bails everyone out will wind up failing as well. Get set and buckle your seatbelt for that day may soon be upon us.  Especially if Marine LePen triumphs in the upcoming French elections. The same people who said Brexit couldn't pass and were all in a lather about President Hillary Clinton are saying LePen's an outside long shot at best. But the communist party candidate has been rising in the polls as well, now sitting at 19%. This is shaping up to be a battle of the extremists and whomever wins will immediately go after the Euro. 

Debt is still growing way faster than GDP. Therefore, we're just digging a bigger hole. For most of the past 6 months it looked like we had a real recovery going. But that was an illusion. The Atlanta Fed has lowered it's 1Q Growth Projection to less than 1 percent. That's a recessionary number that won't help the economy create new jobs or to create new industries or service new debt. The debt to gdp ratio continues to increase. Unless we radically increase worldwide growth rates, we're stuck on a treadmill and a crisis will eventually occur. 

Inflation is back, thanks to the past year's global debt and money printing binge. Meanwhile populist politicians are gaining traction in Europe, threatening both the European Union and the eurozone. The world has never seen this combination of excessive financial leverage and widespread political upheaval, so the next few years might be bad for most financial assets and great for real things like gold and silver.   

The news is slow. Not much coming out of Trump. Not much coming out of Europe. Outside of the Academy Awards debacle last night, there's not much going on. We're due for something to happen shortly. Could it be the calm before the storm? John believes that the currency crisis is just around the corner, the question is which corner? We've been waiting a long time for it. 

A new administration means new policies. But the only up to a point. Debt will continue to soar, which means financial instability will only intensify. And the business cycle will do its thing regardless of who's in office -- which means a another downturn is coming. So strap in. A return to the Great Recession or something much worse is on the horizon.

Since the presidential election, US equities have been soaring – which is reminiscent of 1999 and 2006 when investors decided that “this time it’s different” and were therefore willing to buy stocks at pretty much any price. Like those previous bubbles, today’s will end badly, probably in 2017. Gold, on the other hand should do just fine.