* Upcoming Appearances

* Thursday morning panel at the SkyBridge Capital SALT Conference in Las Vegas
* Liberty Forum - Salt Lake City
* MoneyShow - Las Vegas


* Economic News for the Week: March Factory Orders met expectations, but downwardly revised February number for 5th straight year-over-year monthly drop
* March Trade Deficit: $51.4 billion, a miss greater than $10 billion and the single worst trade deficit since October 2008 and largest monthly gain in nearly 20 years
* If the economy is so good, why do we have such a large trade deficit?
* Rising oil prices, along with other rising prices are putting additional pressure on consumers
* April U.S. Auto Sales fell, missing expectations for the 5th month in a row - sales at lowest year-over-year start since 2009
* The auto bubble has burst
* The United States has been spared the discipline of the market by virtue of the dollar being the reserve currency
* Gold is still just below $1,200/ounce - we will eventually run out of sellers who are keeping prices down, and when it goes up it will go up in a spectacular way
* Aussie dollar is up a percent and a quarter
* Canadian dollar up half a percent
* Euro up a third of a percent
* Swiss Franc up almost a full percent
* There was some good news: April ISM Service Non-Manufacturing Index rose, to 57.8, beating estimates
* New orders plunged into negative territory
* April PMI dropped from 59.2 in March to 57.4, a bigger drop than expected
* No one is looking for the April jobs number to be lower
* The consensus is also for unemployment to keep falling from 5.5% to 5.4%
* If we have all these jobs, why isn't the consumer spending?
* The answer is the jobs don't pay very much or the hours are reduced
* Meanwhile, as much as the Fed wants to pretend there is low inflation, the cost of living is rising
* The one safety net for the consumer was oil prices, and now that is gone
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