Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Saudi following Venezuela

4/26 Trump ‘to order corporate tax rate to be cut to 15%’ – Telegraph Raise your hand if you think the corporations will raise wages.
"Aug 2, 2016 - JEDDAH: A majority of Saudis, 64 percent to be precise, prefer to work in the government sector"
"Saudi civil servants work 1 hour a day, we’re headed for bankruptcy in 3-4 years’ – ministers "
https://www.rt.com/news/363566-saudi...rvants-reform/
So, Saudi Arabia is headed for bankruptcy. The solution; sell off the family jewels. BUT, the Saudi jewels are seriously encumbered to pay all those GOV "workers". "The Saudi government last month said it is reducing Aramco’s tax rate to 50% from 85%,"
A $500 Billion "Hitch" Emerges In The Saudi Aramco IPO | Zero Hedge
The Saudi GOV is reducing taxes to make a buyout of ARAMCO look more attractive. Oil sales are down,,, taxes will go down. Benefits are STICKY, PressTV-Saudi Arabia restores perks amid fears of unrest
At some point, they are going to follow Venezuela when they can no longer afford freebies for everyone.

I wrote about Humpty Dumpty climbing on an even higher wall but, I forgot the link, Of Two Minds - Housing's Echo Bubble Now Exceeds the 2006-07 Bubble Peak
We get 3.3 million barrels of oil per day from Canada. Trump is starting to take protectionist measures that are getting them riled up. Alberta Warns Trump Of Retaliation If Energy Sanctions Begin | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

Web of control,,,, faux capitalism

Currency inflation has been used continuously to steal the value of the wages of the working man.
"AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy."
" But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power."

"From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group."
https://www.newscientist.com/article...uns-the-world/[B]

The printing from the CBs constantly inflated the wealth of the upper loop,, primarily, the banks,. With this amount of wealth, regulatory capture is an obvious strategy. Crony-capitalism became the perfect business model. BUT, crony capitalism gave free-market capitalism a bad name. Now, capitalism is under fire for the sins of State operated capitalism.
The Looting Machine Called Capitalism - PaulCraigRoberts.org
There is speculation that capitalism is to be demonized to allow socialism to flourish.
This is causing great divisions everywhere, https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...great-divides/
Reportedly, America is the last bastion of capitalism and the Marxists need to destroy it.

[Danny B]

The State prints the difference to stave off deflation

The runaway corporatocracy impoverished Americans to the point that the State had to take over supporting them. 51% of Americans receive a check from GOV. 45 million are on food stamps. Close to 100 million are unemployed. Many millions work for GOV in make-work jobs. The 100 million missing from employment rolls are also missing from wages and money circulation. This is a huge deflationary pressure. U.S. GOV is printing more every day to hold this deflation at bay. The asset values of the upper loop are at risk if the lower loop has no money.

ZIRP is hugely deflationary because it wipes out interest earnings to all the savers and funds. It allows the banks to continue to earn spread but this concentrates the last bit of earning power right at the top. As the banks squeeze out the last drops of profitability, the State must make up the difference. As aggregate national earnings go down, the debt ceiling must be raised. Congress must raise the debt ceiling to protect the value of the assets of the upper loop.

The gold bugs have their own focus BUT, they also are good at pointing out flaws in the system. Here is Miles Franklin with tons of good info.
https://www.milesfranklin.com/the-fu...ealth-storage/

Good article where David Stockman tries to give an approximate date of the approaching problem.
" In a word, the rubber will meet the road sometime during the heat of mid-summer—depending on how many short-term accounting tricks the Treasury still has in its back pocket. "
Sticking to the Basics - Investing Video & Audio Jay Taylor Media

Here are a few good, short articles including #2 on risk parity funds. They don't look good.
https://capitalistexploits.at/2017/0...ad-scratchers/

[Danny B]

Venezuela, gold and unworkable plans

4/27 Energy revolutions: shale crushes solar – Real Clear Energy Remember, rock, paper, scissors? Cheap oil crushes the banking system. 4/27 Oil price falls below $49/bbl – CNBC
4/27 Venezuela to give firearms to loyalists fighting resistance – Zero Hedge The "resistance" is simply people who have nothing to eat. GOV let oil push out agriculture and now, they are screwed, https://www.marketplace.org/2016/04/...zuela-ranchers
Sadly, the lefties always seem to screw the pooch; https://www.marketplace.org/2016/04/...zuela-ranchers

The State hates any store-of-value that the State does not control. They have spent decades trying to drive down the price of gold.
"Back in 2008, the Cartel thought they “won” when paper gold prices plunged from a then all-time high of $975/oz in July to $775/oz in early December; and paper silver, from $19/oz to $9/oz. However, what they didn’t anticipate was the run on physical metal that ensued, selling all global suppliers out; and subsequently, causing physical premiums over the fraudulent paper prices to surge to roughly 30% for gold, and nearly 100% for silver.

In other words, physical gold barely declined, and physical silver, for all intents and purposes, not at all. Better yet, by February 2009 – a month before the Dow’s bear market low – paper gold was back at $975; and paper silver, $14/oz; en route to both hitting new all-time highs two years later. In other words, the government’s attempt to push prices down not only failed miserably, but caused an historic physical “bank run.”
https://www.milesfranklin.com/the-fu...ealth-storage/

4/26 Trump to propose large increase in tax deductions Americans can claim – WaPo
45 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax | New York Post
4/27 Trump’s corporate tax rewrite faces major obstacle: its cost – Bloomberg
Credit card debt climbed way over a $trillion even though wages were falling, 4/27 Surprise surge in card defaults sinks Capital One, Discover – Bloomberg
4/27 Have we just reached peak stock market absurdity? – Economic Collapse
The middle class is M.I.A when it comes to sending savings up to the upper loop to be leveraged, invested and massaged. Same for the oil industry. The FED has stepped in and pumped up assets of every type. They can raise asset prices but, they can't do much for earnings.

The FED is trying to make up for all the earnings that Americans are not producing. They are going to be quite busy trying to maintain the value of all the markets AND, trying to maintain the standard of living for many millions of Americans.

[Danny B]

The trickle down pump is broken.

We could get rid of most of the stock traders and bankers and , never miss them. The State pumps money into the upper loop to keep them going. If the State pumped money into the lower loop, nobody would work. The State needs to maintain the lower loop and middle class with just enough money to keep them hungry enough to force them to get up and go to work.
The lower loop must subsist on debt money. The State can't afford to let the middle class go too broke.
When there is a big natural disaster, the State passes out FEMA money. This money need not be repaid. It offsets the big losses. The lower loop operates on debt money. The State tops-off the economy with debt-free money if the lower loop gets too far behind. This is also true for the upper loop. Much of the TARP money was not repaid.
The 2% mandated inflation from the FED is supposed to be just the right amount of new money to keep the rentier class going along fine and, at the same time, keep the working class from falling too far behind on wages.
The trickle-down from the upper loop came to an end with global-wage-arbitrage. Labor's share of GDP continuously falls.

The 2% inflation of the money supply feeds directly into the upper loop. Bernanke speculated dropping money from helicopters to get the desired inflation effect. Nothing is coming down from the upper loop,,, other than price inflation. The CB won't acknowledge that the transmission mechanism no longer works. The State and the CB keep trying to force-feed liquidity into the system.
Globalization crashed the labor market. GOV is pumping in $trillions to hold off the crash of the asset markets. The FED is trying to top-off the economy with debt-free money to preserve our previous standard of living. The only trickle down is through the safety net. More and more entities go bankrupt.
The sure cure is to raise the debt limit and pump in ever-more money.

Armstrong, "The difference this time is the fiscal budget. Back in 2007, the Fed only had to worry about its policy and the contracting economy. The problem they created is that government just keeps going like the Energizer Pink Bunny – it never stops spending regardless of the level of interest rates."
"The Fed cannot neutralize the Fiscal spending of government. This is deeply entrenched."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...e-next-crisis/
The FED lied about the BLICs and "others" buying Treasury debt. They are playing the confidence game.
Here is a chart of debt to GDP. Keep in mind that the debt is counted as a positive segment of the GDP.
https://www.aier.org/sites/default/f...es/chart1a.jpg
Here is debt to revenue, https://redhawk500.files.wordpress.c...pg?w=758&h=519
FED GOV must work overtime to maintain confidence. The continuous and upcoming budget battles won't help at all.

[Danny B]

tax growth,,,, ecological overshoot

Some of the facets of the DotCom crash are starting to reappear, "As If Millions Of Unicorns Suddenly Cried Out In Terror": Cloudera IPOes At Less Than Half Its Last Private Valuation Round | Zero Hedge
The Chinese plan to make a big entrance to the world stage. If confidence in the dollar is lost, the Chinese will be free to make their big move.
https://wealth.goldmoney.com/researc...efcode=dollarc
It isn't going to be that easy.

"Of course, governments are never capable of reducing their own expenditure. This results going in only one direction – raising taxes"
"This is why the EU is doomed. There will never be any reform that addresses the people. It is always about raising taxes to maintain government power and to hell with the people. "
"This system is tearing Europe apart and unemployment in each country will turn to civil unrest and point the finger at Brussels."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...uro-will-fail/

A few billion people in the third world want to raise their standard of living. There are some serious obstacles,
Ahead of The Herd - Earth Overshoot Day

[Danny B]

Stronger dollar,,,Unstable credit

As already reported, the VIX is considered the "fear gauge"
Vix ‘fear gauge’ closes at 3-year low
"In a paper for the Bank for International Settlements released last month, researchers led by Stefan Avdjiev highlighted how the dollar is a key driver of bank balance sheets, effectively dethroning the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) as a benchmark for market fears. The stronger the dollar, the wider the deviations from covered interest parity (CIP), slowing down cross-border bank capital flows in dollars, the analysts noted."
The problem comes in that capital flight makes the dollar stronger. In 3 years, Chinese debt-to-GDP is expected to reach 520%. The ECB is a dead man walking. This causes more capital flight.

"I start with a simple definition: “A Bubble is a self-reinforcing but inevitably unsustainable inflation.”
“Bubble” connotes something that is about to burst. I take a different approach, working to identify initial factors and characteristics that are favorable for Bubble formation - and then monitoring and analysing developments and ramifications. I covered the mortgage finance Bubble from every angle on a weekly basis for over six years, after initially warning of its development in early-2002. It’s now been over eight years analysing the global government finance Bubble – the “Granddaddy of All Bubbles.”

" And the longer they survive the more dismissive conventional analysts (and the business media) become to Bubble analysis. At the same time, over time as a Bubble gains momentum there becomes overwhelming evidence and analytical support for the Bubble view. "
"Unsound Finance gets to the heart of the issue. Looking back historically to early economic thought, the recurring issue that perplexed deep thinkers was how an economy that appeared robust could suddenly run so amuck. Economic busts would invariably focus analytical attention to “money,” debt and banking." Ah, but the major component of the "money supply" is debt.

"While discerned by few, Credit turns progressively less stable over the course of an economic upcycle. Especially during the late-cycle boom phase, there would be a huge divergence between general confidence and the underlying deterioration in the quality of rapidly expanding Credit. "
Ah yes, confidence
"My fundamental premise is that we’re in the late-stage of a historic global experiment in unfettered finance. From a historical and analytical perspective, Credit is inherently unstable. Today’s Credit is acutely unstable on a global basis as never before."
" The bullish view holds that central banks are the solution. They’re undoubtedly the problem."
Not perfectly accurate. The politicians that control the central banks are the problem.

"The Dilemma of Unsound Finance prevails just about everywhere – most notably China, Japan, Europe, EM, Canada, the U.S, Australia, etc. There are numerous potential flashpoints – where Unsound Finance has turned acutely vulnerable. While central bankers talk employment and CPI, I believe fear of global financial instability has been the true impetus behind “whatever it takes.”
At the other end of the tug-of-war are the elites that want to drastically reduce the population.
" There is ample evidence that huge amounts of finance have exited Europe, Japan, China and EM over recent years to participate in king dollar. "
"I go down this path because I was asked this week by an astute observer of the world how the bursting of the global Bubble might play out. I contemplate various scenarios and tend to look at this most extraordinary backdrop and think “expect the unexpected.” Nevertheless, I’ll throw out a possible scenario.

After years of astounding expansion, China’s leading banks occupy the top four spots in the list of the world’s largest banks (by assets). Chinese finance has become hopelessly Unsound, with a Credit Bubble fuelling epic malinvestment, asset Bubbles, fraud and deep financial and economic structural impairment. "

" A collapsing currency would further impair Chinese borrowers, especially those (banks) exposed to dollar-denominated debt. Chinese officials would see no alternative than to impose strict capital control. The Chinese crisis would spur global “Risk Off” – de-risking, de-leveraging dynamics that I would expect to be particularly problematic for Europe and EM.

A “Risk Off” spike in European periphery yields and a widening of spreads would be a major issue for the thinly capitalized European banks. And with the European banking organizations having become such major players in derivatives, securities finance and EM, a crisis of confidence in European finance would quickly become a systemic issue globally. " Figure on less than a week.
"The perception is that U.S. finance is sound and the economy stable. I have serious doubts, believing deeply unsound finance has inflated a U.S. Bubble economy with latent fragilities. "

" A resulting sharp tightening of financial conditions would expose the degree to which uneconomic enterprises have flourished in the almost nine years of free “money.” Corporate America would have huge exposure to a faltering global economy, with the major financial institutions all caught up in the global crisis of confidence in derivatives and counter-party issues."
"Eight years of zero rates, ultra-low Treasury yields, record stock prices and booming asset markets have fed the dangerous delusion that deficits don’t matter. The central bank blank checkbook has salivating politicians believing they enjoy a similar luxury. "
Credit Bubble Bulletin : Weekly Commentary: Unsound Finance

Without the "flywheel" of gold, the credit creation machine runs faster and faster. Little bits and pieces start to fly off. It's still a big machine. It's still spitting out "money". It appears OK. It is fatally unstable.
The politicians create ever-more debt money to raise the standard of living. When debt creation gets too far ahead of wealth creation, the whole system becomes too unstable.

[Danny B]

Tax flow down,,, borrowing up

The ability of a debtor to pay back a loan is related to how much free cash flow he has. Since "other" and the BLICs are not buying sovereign debt, the FED has to buy it all. The U.S. Treasury sends Treasury bonds to the FED to be monetized. The FED re-sells these securities on the open market. But, if nobody is buying sovereign debt from the Treasury, nobody is going to buy it when the FED tries to sell it on the open market.
The deficit for March was $186 billion. Where is the Treasury going to get cash flow to keep the party going if the FED stops buying?

Tax Flow;
Simplifying the tax code and cutting every American’s taxes will boost consumer spending while encouraging savings and investment.
We must cut the corporate tax rate and allow the United States to compete internationally.
Our lower tax rate must also apply to small business, allowing entrepreneurs and freelancers to grow and prosper.
We must reduce or eliminate the capital gains tax.
We must pass tax reform legislation in order to ‘Make America Great Again!’
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...predetermined/

At what point will the bankers notice that U.S. GOV has a shrinking tax flow?
FED GOV will be running on fumes by about August. The FED reports that it is holding about $ 4.6 trillion of GOV debt. It is expected to take 15--20 years to unwind all this.
Fed 'balance sheet': What happens, why it matters, what could go wrong
GOV wants to increase the snot out of debt at the same time that the FED wants to reduce it's balance sheet.
The FED has probably pumped in an additional $20---30 trillion but, nobody is talking about that.
If sovereign debt is going to crash as predicted by Armstrong, something drastic is going to have to happen to destroy confidence. Maybe somebody plans to pull the plug.

[Danny B]

Emerging cracks in the system

The FED initiated a credit bubble to save the banks. There was never any recovery in the lower loop so, there was never a recovery in the upper loop. The FED, PPT and ESF had to pump nonstop. They claim otherwise but, the debt-clock and deficit make them liars. As employment, savings and wages continue to fall, the FED must fight all this potential deflation with a commensurate credit inflation. Falling employment, falling retail and falling consumption require even more offsetting actions from the FED. In an effort to stimulate the most watched measure of wealth, the alphabet agencies juice the stock market.

The index crossed 6,000 and everybody is jubilant. BUT, the FED is doing targeted juicing.
4/30 Just these five companies account for 28% of the S&P’s 2017 returns – Zero Hedge
Personal debt is at a new record high and the millennials are really cranking it up. They spend more than other age cohorts on frivolous stuff.
https://medium.com/@Jay52/americans-...r-f289e72c354d

The private and public credit generators pump out debt/liquidity. When it grows too far and too fast, they get nervous about defaults. They try to cut back on their exposure. (Unless they're Chinese). But, the system really can't tolerate a reduction of credit creation. Like this;
https://s3.amazonaws.com/bap-assets/...405-dre-01.png

When commercial credit is reduced, the FED attempts to step in and make up the difference.
"Another indicator that will surely be a part of our Doom Index is the level of margin debt.
When an investor buys stocks on margin, he borrows the bulk of the purchase price from his broker.
Because he only puts up a portion of the total amount – the margin – he stands to gain more if the market goes up. But if the market goes down, he gets a “margin call.”
"But when they go down, all of a sudden they ask themselves why they ever bought them.
Squeezed and panicked, the margin buyer is forced to sell. And the higher the margin debt, the greater the number of shares that must be liquidated, sending the whole market down even further.
Today’s level of margin debt was last seen near the dot-com peak in 1999."
https://agoraeconomics.com/2017/04/0...n-margin-debt/
Margin debt is up close to $600 billion. If that sounds like a lot, consider this, "and when we take a look at, when we start combining things like corporate debt, margin debt and household balance sheet debt right credit card debt you’ve got the highest level of indebtedness ever before in history, we’re over 51 trillion dollars in those three things combined and so if you’ve noticed I’ve excluded governmental debt out of that,"
https://agoraeconomics.com/2017/04/0...n-margin-debt/
A margin call causes forced sales of assets. A BIG margin call can freeze up the markets from too many attempted sales.

Regional banks are shrinking the credit bubble, https://mishtalk.com/2017/04/29/regi...ding-estimate/

4/30 Panic bank run hits Canada’s largest alternative mortgage lender – Zero Hedge
The CBs created credit inflation to goose the economy. They ignored wage inflation because they had no power over it.
4/30 China factory orders tumble – Zero Hedge
4/29 UK, France GDP weaker than expected: global slowdown? – Mish
4/29 Puerto Rico takes first steps toward bankruptcy-ish filing – Zero Hedge
4/29 British economy slows sharply as inflation hits home – Reuters
4/29 British consumers’ confidence slumps as inflation grows – Guardian
4/29 Euro zone inflation near 4-year high, adds to pressure on ECB – CNBC
The CBs mistakenly believed that credit inflation would goose the economy. All this added commerce and productivity would more than compensate for the resulting price inflation.
The goose has a case of the squirts and price inflation is oozing out everywhere.

As the defaults rise, credit disappears, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...s-abs-issuance Notice that JPM has flogged off dodgey loans to brain-dead investors.
4/30 California enacts $52 billion fuel tax hike for road, bridge repairs – Raw Story Not a single penny will go for roads and bridges. It will be handed out to people who just don't or can't find jobs.
Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have all that oil and, now they're broke.
South Africa was the world’s largest gold producer and, now they're broke. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.1684bc80db7d

[Danny B]

Labor market in socialism...death by leisure

Here is a long, detailed article about the history of trying to substitute a planned economy for a market economy. Keep in mind that socialism kills incentive. It removes "reward" for the vast majority of people.
Simply compare the economies of N.Korea to S.Korea... East Germany to West Germany.
The Marxist planners try to negate market forces by centrally planning EVERYTHING. They have a new trick up their collective sleeves.
"We know Lange had still not conceded a basic error in his in old age, as he made a gleeful remark in 1967 about computers soon being able to calculate all those equilibrium equations proposed by Barone rapidly enough that a perfect 5 year plan could finally be produced for the comrades. Good grief! [PT]"
It is a good article that goes into a lot of detail and explains a lot.
Ludwig von Mises? Century of Validation |

Somehow, the article evades a very important point. Marxism desires to create uniform, low prices. It must kill the profit motive. Incentive, the twin brother of profit dies at the same time. The great fatality of the system is; socialism demands a uniform low price for both goods AND labor. Socialism pulls down the talented people to support those people with no particular talent. The talented people see no particular reason to exert themselves. There is no reward.
The un-talented people see no particular reason to exert themselves because, there is no penalty. Socialism is incompatible with human nature.

Kunstler has some observations on human nature. The National Blues - KUNSTLER
As man makes more technical advances, the whole fabric of society further disintegrates.

[Danny B]

The ongoing crashes of collectivism

We probably have a one week funding extension. Congressional leaders reach deal to fund government through fall, senior aide tells NBC
The grand fallacy of the eurozone, "German output is exceeding even pre-crisis peaks"
" Italy has not grown for almost two decades now. "
Italy situation is bigger elephant in room than French and German elections: UBS chairman
The obvious solution to no growth,,,, raise taxes. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...uro-will-fail/
The State sees just one solution to it's problems; steal more money.

The United Nations ranks Rhodesia 1st worldwide in food produce. 1975
https://www.zimeye.net/united-nation...-food-produce/
That was then. This is now, Zimbabwe pleads for $1.5bn in food aid to prevent mass starvation
Zim imports 80% of their food. The Marxists seem to be the absolute worst at running an economy.

[Danny B]

Society,,, losing the narrative

The boneheads in GOV seem to think that a cashless society couldn't execute a bank run.
"According to HCG's latest press release this morning, the "less than prime" Canadian mortgage lender held HISA deposits of only $391 million as of Monday, May 1; this is down C$130 million from Friday, or a reduction in the total amount by 25%. It is also down 72% from the C$1.4 billion reported one week ago."
The Ontario Pension Plan is going to cough up a couple of $billion to save them.
"the company has another C$12.8 billion in Guaranteed Investment Certificate deposits, or GICS. As these 30- and 60-day deposits come due in the coming weeks, depleting HCG's already tapped out liquidity, and forcing even more emergency loans. "
"Jim Hall, the CIO of Mawer Investment Management, formerly one of the biggest investors at HCG, said he is "recalculating the odds of a contagion widening across the Canadian financial system."
5/01 Chilling thing insiders said about Canada’s house price bubble – Wolf Street

“The probability has gone from infinitesimal to possible - unlikely, but possible. If depositors or bondholders start to lose faith in their banks, well then that becomes systemic.”
Ah yes, the confidence factor.
This Is What A Bank Run Looks Like: Home Capital Loses 70% Of Deposits In One Week | Zero Hedge

It is said that "idle hands are the devil's tools." Some States in Europe have a 50% unemployment rate. They can't live on their own and they can't start a family. They are definitely pissed off about this.
https://qz.com/971374/europes-youth-...a-mass-revolt/
5/01 Economic reality: bottom 50% of Americans no longer matter – SafeHaven
"And as for "low delinquencies", I remind you of my April 26 article Subprime Credit Card Losses Bite Capital One: Income Down 20%, Charge-Offs Up 30%."
"Previously, the bottom third did not matter. Then the bottom 40% did not matter. Now the bottom 50% do not matter."
Economic Reality: Bottom 50% of Americans No Longer Matter | Mike Shedlock | Safehaven.com
They don't matter until they pick up a Molotov cocktail.
The lefties in academia see that they have no prospects in the labor market. Their solution is to spread violence.
The muslim immigrants are unruly and violent because they have no stake in society. What happens when the native born feel that they have no stake in society?

[Danny B]

Collapse + war.... collapse and no war

5/01 US manufacturing expanded less than expected in April – Bloomberg
5/01 US consumer spending stalled in March – Bloomberg
5/01 U.S. small business borrowing stalls in March – Reuters
5/01 40% of Americans spend up to half of their income servicing debt – MarketWatch
OK, so the consumer is tapped out in spite of maxing out her credit cards. The debt bubble has to grow but, the consumer can't do it. Banks have cut back on credit and the unwinding has begun. The speed of unwinding and default is picking up. How much time do we have before the banks fail / close?

The Wolfowitz doctrine never went away. World domination is still the objective.
https://www.rt.com/news/386276-us-mi...russia-strike/
US forces preparing sudden nuclear strike on Russia - Moscow Security Conference - Fort Russ
NO, these aren't attack pages. They are inconvenient truths.

Post WW II, Pax Americana morphed into Pox Americana. We used the credit card of the reserve currency to build 850? bases around the world. The U.S.S.R. didn't have a credit card so, it went broke. We promised to NOT expand NATO Eastward. We lied.
Russia has NO sovereign debt. Their stock market is one of the best in the world. They have 11 time zones of natural resources and this makes them a target.
Post WW II, America got a new master, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLTNBlt6Ubg&t=184s

They are trying to bring us socialism just like they brought to Russia so many years ago. They have a strong hold on Europe.

They have brought a long, slow degradation to America. Our upcoming collapse will bring a paralysis. The CIA director has just rushed off to South Korea. Will the war agenda be sped up to kick off before the looming economic collapse? Will the R.O.W. speed up our collapse to abort WW III?
These aren't just academic questions. If the R.O.W. sees nuclear winter and radiation poisoning in the near future, they will forget their differences and band together for survival.

Will the collapse prevent a later war? How much of the domestic economy will the neocons be willing to sacrifice?
Putin once told netanyahooo that he could make israel a sheet of glass in 24 hours. Are the neocons stupid enough?
Is the military running the show. A few years ago, the U.S. military tried to assassinate the Chinese premier with the "Rods of GOD. I doubt that obummer would have approved such an action.
BOMBSHELL: China and America already at war: Tianjin explosion carried out by Pentagon space weapon in retaliation for Yuan currency devaluation... Military helicopters now patrolling Beijing - NaturalNews.com

The Chinese are in a suicidal credit binge. Is that accidental?
Armstrong, https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...et-sad-to-say/
Is the economic collapse being held off by bankers who feel that war is more important? if the economy collapses, will war still be initiated?

[Danny B]

Living in a perfect world without corrections,,,, yet

"Government only responds to events – they do not prevent them.
There is absolutely nobody who can save the markets or economy in the middle of a crash – NOBODY! Why? Because these type of events are global contagions.
I wrote to Robert Rubin warning about his jawboning the dollar would create the same crisis as the 1987 Crash. Tim Geithner quickly responded saying they weren’t doing that. The 1997 Currency Crash came within weeks.

Sorry, I do not believe anyone can prevent anything or save the economy in the middle of crash. Governments are just reactionary and never pro-active."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...my-in-a-crash/

Side note, Trump - US 'Needs A Good Shutdown In September To Fix This Mess' Is it just me or, does this sound risky?
Soros plans to destroy the Polish government by 2020.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...sh-government/

"Failing to increase the money supply meant that the value of money in purchasing power rises and all assets decline. This is the hallmark of EVERY recession or depression. "
"This was the birth of “Elastic Money” that makes sense. This prevents wholesale liquidation of assets to get cash in short supply. The problem is neither the Fed nor the concept of Elastic Money. The Fed was originally established in 1913 to act like the New York Clearing House but for all assets outside of Wall Street."
"Hence, today we have Quantitative Easing when central banks buy government paper attempting to stimulate as they tried and failed every time previously."
"We need a central bank and elastic money is an excellent tool. However, I would issue it in a two-tier manner. The normal tier is money commonly used. The second is the elastic money, but this automatically should expire in 6 years. "
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-certificates/

While Armstrong makes several good arguments for a central bank, he ignores the many failings due to human nature. He throws ALL the blame on the legislature for expanding the money supply. In the late '30s there was NO credit to be found. As soon as we declared war, there was credit flowing everywhere.


276,000 aircraft manufactured in the US .
43,000 planes lost overseas, including 23,000 in combat.
14,000 lost in the continental U.S.
From Germany 's invasion of Poland Sept. 1, 1939 until Japan 's surrender on Sept. 2, 1945 = 2,433 days.
America lost an average of 170 planes a day.

A B-17 carried 2,500 gallons of high octane fuel and carried a crew of 10 airmen.

9.7 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.
108 million hours flown.
460 thousand million rounds of aircraft ammo fired overseas.
7.9 million bombs dropped overseas.
2.3 million combat flights.
299,230 aircraft used.
808,471 aircraft engines used.
799,972 propellers."

The original charter of the FED allowed overnight lending for good collateral ONLY. A good idea. Elastic money was used to support the value of assets that weren't supported by economic fundamentals. This brought continuous price inflation,,, supporting enterprises that couldn't survive in a free market.

“For all of history - prior to 1955 - there was roughly equal probability of inflation or deflation in any given year,” said the economic historian.

“But since 1955 we’ve experienced uninterrupted annual inflation. It’s a stunning fact, unprecedented. To an economist in 1955, the coming 60yr inflation would have appeared less probable than a catastrophic meteor impact.”
So, how did we escape all those down days?
WE printed our pants off. Having the reserve currency pretty much precluded high inflation.
Hedge Fund CIO: What Central Banks Have Done Is "Stunning, Unprecedented" | Zero Hedge
Everybody jumped on the good-times bus because, even though it faltered, it kept on chugging. Nobody wanted to miss out on all that free money. But, as assets start to roll over, in spite of all the pumping, fear is starting to enter the market.
https://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc170501.htm

Kunstler, "The situation across Western Civilization is as follows: virtually every major financial institution has become a check-kiting operation or a Ponzi scheme, and we’ve reached the point where they can only pretend to be rescued."
"Nobel Prize winning economists (3) at a Connecticut hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management found out the hard way that their “secret sauce” investment formula which “could not fail in the life of this universe or several like it,” fatally poisoned its balance sheet on a repast of Russian sovereign bonds after only about eighteen months"
"it took all the poobahs of American banking to paper over the firm’s death about five minutes before the global banking system would shut down via the greatest daisy chain of cross-collateralized financial booby-traps ever assembled." They've only gotten more numerous and risky.
http://kunstler.com/cluster****-nati...wing-flapping/

5/02 Rise of robots will be a permanent deflationary force – Zero Hedge No kidding. Who would have thought that?
5/02 Venezuela’s president orders 60% hike of minimum wage – Fox News Desperate time call for stupid measures. Maduro controlled the price of bread AND, the bakers went out of business.
5/02 Will Trump ‘do a big number’ on the big banks? – NY Times Will the big banks do a number on Trump?

"Ron Paul: Fed actions will soon cause a long-overdue correction" NO MENTION of the funding bills from the House.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/29/ron-p...orrection.html

[Danny B]

The Dems need a LOT of money

FED GOV is paralysed, for the most part. They have voted for a continuing resolution to keep GOV temporarily financed. In a general sense, the DEMs have the most to lose in a budget shutdown. Chicago needs about $ 100 million in FED GOV money every week to keep rolling along. So, who would be most affected by a shutdown?
Baltimore is in crisis because of the murder rate. They pleaded to the FBI for help because they can't afford to pay overtime to their police. The FBI said that they would send a forensic van to more quickly identify firearms used in crimes.
Feds Send In Reinforcements After Baltimore Mayor Pleads For Help: "Murder Is Out Of Control" | Zero Hedge
There is a looming threat that Baltimore could take the record for murders away from Chicago,,,, another democrat run town.
America is quite bummed out and 9.5% of the people need a shrink.
The United States Of Distressed America - Vocativ

GOV debt is rising and fingers are pointing at various groups who use GOV services.
Fiscal Impact of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics – The Alternative Hypothesis

"By some measures, stocks have only been this expensive twice in the past 140 years, as MarketWatch notes.
In 1929… and 2000.
On the significance of these dates, we append no comment.

Yet earnings per share of the S&P 500 have been virtually flat for the past three years… even though prices have risen some 30%.
It calls to mind a bidding war on a racehorse that hasn’t placed in three years.
And as reported in MarketWatch, investor surveys conducted by Yale economist Robert Shiller reveal more than 90% of investors expect prices to rise another year.
That number approaches 100% among institutional investors." I thought that they were the "smart money".
https://dailyreckoning.com/death-by-euphoria/