Juggling Dynamite

The US locks up more people than any other country in the world.  FRONTLINE offers an insightful look at America’s fixation with incarceration.  Here is a direct video link.

Last night I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, David and Goliath, Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, which also offers some valuable perspective on criminal justice, along with many other amazing stories of adversity training and real life characters over a wide range of history and society.

Well worth the read.  Or if you like audiobooks, Gladwell does the reading himself and is very entertaining.

Marc Faber, publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, explains why he believes that a crash could take place in the second half of the year. Here is a direct video link.

The excessive optimism in equity participants today is reflected in their record leverage use charted below–now higher than either of the previous market peaks in 2000 or 2007.

And with the US Fed also levered 50 to 1 today thanks to 5 years of relentless QE, a “lender of last resort” for the cascade of coming margin calls is no where in sight.

Danielle was a guest today with Kerry Lutz on The Financial Survival Network, talking about recent developments in the world economy and markets. You can listen to an audio clip of the segment here.