Month: April 2013

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An Offer of Service…with Love
By Brian Kelly
April 29, 2013

(The very first article I put out is what inspired this post) ~BK

When I decided to follow my heart and leave my 9-5 job in late February, I took into consideration there was an outside chance I would need to raise some funds before the new system launches and cash shortages become a thing of the past. (Based on yesterday’s post, it appears that may be happening sooner than later).

I know, without a doubt in my mind, I need to stay committed to this work. So, I carefully scanned my options and came up with a plan which will potentially allow me to do just that.

Many may not know this, but in my other life I am a Certified Reiki Practitioner. If you’re not familiar with Reiki, it’s a very powerful Japanese energy healing practice, which brings health and balance to the mind body and Soul.

One of the beauties of Reiki energy is it can be offered across any distance of time and space. I’ve included a few bits of helpful information on the practice below.

Anyone who knows me well, has heard the story of how Reiki has changed my life in a great many ways. Now being a practitioner, I get such great pleasure in passing along the energy to others. It would be an honor to share this gift with any of my readers who would like to help support my work 🙂

Sessions are typically one hour. The first 15-30 minutes are set aside for talking over the phone, so we can get to know each other a little bit. As I’ve made pretty clear with my blog, I’m an open book, so if you’d like to ask me ANY questions about current events, I’d be happy to share my insights as to developments unfolding. The other part of my work is in Spiritual Counseling, so we can also focus on what’s happening in your life energetically, as well. The connection will help me to really focus the energy on where it needs to go.

Twenty or so sessions in a month and my intention to maintain focus where it needs to be now, is realized. I already sent the message out into the Universe, so now it’s time to manifest the intention 🙂

Please feel no obligation of course. I’m humbled by the sheer volume of support I receive from so many of you everyday, by way of blog comments, emails, Facebook messages and all around good vibes. What an amazing journey it has been. I stand with you, my brothers and sisters of Humanity, more eager now than ever, to create a world beyond our wildest dreams…are YOU ready?? 🙂

For anyone who would rather make a donation, for the next 10 days (until I get my Amazon Payments acct setup) it can be sent to obiwankabuki@gmail.com, using paypal. Just make sure you write in the notes “for Brian.”

If you’re interested in scheduling a Reiki session, please email me at briankellysblog@gmail.com, to ask any questions and setup an appt. Sessions are typically $85. If that’s not in the budget, let me know and I’m sure we can work something out 🙂

I’m so looking forward to getting to know some of you better!

About:

Many ancient cultures embraced the belief that life energy flows through the body, deeply affecting our entire being. Current research strongly suggests that energy does extend throughout and beyond the physical body, and that disruptions or imbalances in its flow correlate to physical, mental and emotional illness. The healing art of Reiki addresses these imbalances to support your good health and well-being.

What is Reiki?

Reiki is a Japanese word meaning universal life energy. It is a gentle method of hands on, or distance healing, that taps into the energy referred to as ki in Japan, chi in China, and prana in India. The practice of Reiki is based on the teachings of Mikao Usui, who practiced and taught healing techniques in early twentieth century Japan.

Reiki is not massage, hypnosis or a tool for diagnosing illness. Reiki is a technique that addresses both chronic and acute conditions, gently and powerfully promoting balance among all the body’s systems and the regenerative processes of body and mind.

How does Distance Reiki Work?

Distance Reiki treatment can be done without the recipient being present. And the best part is that this technique is as effective as ‘Hands-on’ practice of Reiki. Considering the fact that Reiki employs universal energy that can be guided to any part of the Universe, it heals the intended person or creature and acts like a bridge between time and space. Life-force energy can also be stored just like a battery and could be used in future.

The teachings say that universal energy flows, not from the practitioner but rather through the practitioner, to you. You will receive the amount of energy you need to bring your mind and body into balance.

Though Reiki techniques appear simple, the effects can feel profound. Most people experience deep relaxation. You may also feel tingling, pulsing, a feeling of warmth and comfort, or you may fall asleep. Some recipients say they feel little during the session, but afterwards enjoy a sense of calm and well-being, and a deep, restful sleep. It is possible you could experience powerful sensations or emotions during or after a session.

What Reiki Can Mean for You:

Reiki can alleviate pain and stress, and promote restful sleep, healing and relaxation. Relaxation in itself promotes a host of benefits for the mind and body including a heightened sense of well-being, release of painful muscle tension, and relief from anxiety and depression. In addition, relaxation has been shown to help restore immune function and improve circulation, enhancing healing throughout your body.

Reiki is not only healthful but pleasurable. One of its greatest benefits may be the opportunity to let go and enjoy the experience of being nurtured and cared for. The gentle art of Reiki draws on universal life energy to benefit people of any age and in any state of health. Whether at home, clinic or hospital, sessions adapt easily to any situation. Reiki offers comfort and support for the good health and balance of your mind, body and emotions.

Posted by Brian Kelly at 3:28 PM

Vía AMERICAN KABUKI http://americankabuki.blogspot.com/2013/04/an-offer-of-servicewith-love.html

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty BlitzKrieg

What’s interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real  gold.  That’s going to show you, people don’t want certificates, they don’t want anything else.  They want the real product .

– Terrence Duffy, President and Executive Chairman of CME Group Inc,. on Bloomberg TV yesterday (April 29, 2013)

I’m actually still in a state of shock that the head of the CME Group would make such an observation and in such blunt terms.  I mean the guy admits that volume on his exchanges suck, yet basically claims paper gold (one of their marquee products) is becoming irrelevant.  In my mind there are two likely explanations for this.  1) This is how he has started to feel personally and he is loading up on physical gold rather than his company’s paper products and would like some cover if that is ever unearthed. 2) This is what people close to the gold market are telling him and he’d rather make it clear he understands that paper is paper and gold is gold and that there is a big difference.  So “caveat emptor” if you are hanging around the COMEX.

His comments on gold come in at the 0:40 mark.  Simply stunning.

via Zero Hedge Read More Here..

When people talk AAPL, especially defensively, the first thing they note is that while the growth prospects may be dimming, the company has a massive $145 billion (as of March 31, 2013) in cash and equivalents. Surely, this amount has to be netted out of any P/E calculation making it appears so very cheap, depending on what forward Earnings number one uses. Well, as today’s bond offering showed, Apple’s cash “here” is not the same as Apple’s cash “there” and by here and there we mean domestic and foreign cash. In fact, the only reason Apple, which has a total cash on its books that is larger than the GDP of most countries (most of which is invested in various corporate and sovereign securities but that is irrelevant for now), had to do this bond deal, is that as we showed a year ago, a majority of its cash is effectively non-recourse due to prohibitive taxation requirements that the company would face upon repatriating said cash. Which also means that going forward all calculations that praise the company’s cash will also have to haircut the offshore held cash as it is not fully recourse to the US-headquartered company.

So just how much is AAPL’s offshore cash?

Well as of the most recent quarter a record 70.7%, or $102.3 billion, of its total cash was held in offshore jurisdictions! This means “only” $42.4 billion is available domestically for balance sheet acrobatics such as satisfying the recent screams for shareholder friendly actions. We say only because don’t forget: now that Wall Street is a value company and has to dividend and buyback billions every quarter to satsify its unappeased shareholders, this cash won’t last too long…

All of this is known, or should be known by the Apple fanatics, and certainly those who just gave AAPL cash for 30 years in exchange for a sub 4% coupon.

What, on the other hand, seems to be known by very few, is what appears to be a very disturbing trend in the distribution of cash domestically vs cash abroad.

As the chart below shows, when it comes to offshore-held cash, AAPL is indeed a cash cow. And with the bulk of the company’s growth prospects, and ever more so, sales abroad, this makes intuitive sense. As noted above, AAPL reported $102 billion in cash abroad, an increase of $8 billion in the quarter. 

This is terrific news… if only the company could dividend, buyback or engage in any other shareholder friendly action with this cash. It can’t.

How about cash held domestically? Well, as can be seen in the red bar below, domestic cash has not only stagnated in the $30-40 billion area for two years, it actually declined in the most recent quarter. And yes, this is the cash that Apple has full recourse to, and which it uses to make dividend payments out of, and to fund stock buybacks.

So yes: today’s bond offering was purely driven by tax considerations, but what will happen if in the future the domestic cash flow creation continues to stagnate as the US market contracts, even as the Company’s cash outflow obligations increase with every passing quarter and ever more vocal shareholders.

In summary: congratulations to Apple for its record $17 billion bond offering today. Perhaps the real question, however, is when is the next one?

via Zero Hedge Read More Here..

Yesterday we showed the good side of college by presenting those majors that result in the best starting salaries fresh out of college. Now the bad side.

According to a survey by Accenture, more than 40% of recent US college graduates are disillusioned, underemployed or need more training to get on a career track. But… what about those tends of thousands in student loans, or at least the remainder that was not spent on Apple products? Turns out the marginal utility of a college education is dropping as fast as the total notional in Federal student loans is rising. What is most ironic, is that according to the survey, many of the respondents end up at jobs that do not even require a college degree.  Of the respondents, 34% said they owed $30,000 or less, while 17% had between $30,000 and $50,000 in student loans.

So what is the solution: why more degrees of course! Nearly half, 42 percent, of recent graduates expect they will need an advanced degree to further their career and almost a quarter are already planning to take graduate courses. More degrees, more debt, more dead end opportunities for a generation that is stuck in place not because it is underqualified, but because of barriers to entry erected by those already in the workforce, especially those aged 55 and over, which as the following chart shows are employed more now than ever, and which is even more vertical than the chart of the central planner policy vehicle known as the stock market. The losers: those aged 20-24 whose employment level has not budged in the past four decades.

More from Reuters:

“For our nation’s youngest workers, as well as for the workforce at large, there is a real need for employers to reexamine how they hire, train and develop their employees,” said Katherine Lavelle, of the global management consulting firm Accenture, which conducted the survey.

 

More than half of graduates said it was difficult finding a job, but 39 percent were employed by the time they left college. Sixty eight percent said they are working full time, while 16 percent are in part-time positions.

 

The top industries that graduates wanted to work in were education, media and entertainment and healthcare.

 

Just over half, 53 percent, of graduates found full-time jobs in their field of study.

 

In addition to being underemployed many graduates thought they would have done better in the job market if they had studied a different major, and more than half also intended to go back to school within the next five years.

The biggest disappointment: the difference between perceptions about wage potential and reality.

The survey uncovered a gap between what students expect to earn in their first job and their actual salary. Only 15 percent of this year’s graduates think they will earn less than $25,000 but a third of recent graduates said they make that amount or less.

Will any of this change the sad reality where even the hope of a lucrative future for most involves drowning in debt? Of course not. After all in the new normal, “money dilution is prosperity” and “debt is wealth.” If this is the case for sovereign nations and corporations, why not for the individual as well. Because it is not as if anyone expects any of the record outstanding debt to ever be repaid.

via Zero Hedge Read More Here..

“Horrible” PMI, no problem; just add it to the list of macro data that has missed significantly in recent weeks. Bloomberg’s US Macro index has utterly collapse in recent weeks – now at its worst level in 7 months but apparently if good is good, bad is better, and totally shitty is absolutely awesome. It would appear the world of nominal equity index chasers is now fully cognizant that the reality of their lemming like herding is based on one simple thing (no matter how much they kick and scream and proclaim wisdom about earnings cycles, growth, margins, transformative energy, or new AAPL products) – and that is… Central Bank promises.

And just to timestamp this, both the closing print, or right around it, and the all time nominal intraday high, coincide.

If the Fed needed any ammo for tomorrow to hint that there is a time frame longer than infinite and that there is a size of imprudence larger than infinity, then they have it… of course, there is, once gain, very weak volume on this uptick (but like everything else, that doesn’t matter either.)

 

 

So what does more CB exuberance mean for Gold?

via Zero Hedge Read More Here..