Economic pressures

[Danny B]

no confidence anywhere,,, just power struggles

Where to begin?
Everybody and their brother is calling for a stock market crash. Everyone is predicting an exodus from stocks.
Trader Terrified Of Moment "Everyone Heads For The Exits" | Zero Hedge
Buffet is sitting on the sidelines with $ 100 billion in cash, The Hundred Billion Dollar Man | Zero Hedge
The charts say that it is going to blow, "We Have Only Seen This Market Anomaly Twice Before: In 1999 And 2006" | Zero Hedge

It's just not that simple and direct. Gamblers leave the market to avoid loss of money. BUT, the CBs are buying up stocks by the ton. They don't care about losing money. That is a big part of what is holding stocks up.

A great deal of what we depend on is held together by confidence. BUT, unfortunately, power has corrupted most everyone in the State.
"Howe’s statement is borne out of a June 2016 Gallup poll. When poll takers were asked how much confidence they had in institutions in American society"
"Just 15% said they had a “great deal” of confidence in the US Supreme Court. Banks trailed behind at 11%, followed by the criminal justice system (9%), newspapers (8%), and big business (6%).

Meanwhile, just 16% expressed a “great deal” of confidence in the presidency, with that number plummeting to 3% for Congress."
The Fourth Turning's Neil Howe Warns: We Are In The 1930s, "Winter Is Coming" | Zero Hedge

The deep State is ONLY interested in maintaining it's power. It cares not the slightest in the welfare of the average person. It erased the voting booth with the Diebold machine. To it's great regret, it severely underestimated the average person in flyover country. Diebold just couldn't make up enough of the difference.
The claws came out after the election and they haven't withdrawn to this day. The great unmasking of the demopubs has brought ruin on both parties.
Kunstler, No Exit - Kunstler
The crash is inevitable and we depend on our pathetic leaders to hold things together. They are so obsessed in holding on to power and getting rid of Trump that they will let the whole system go down out of spite, ignorance and corruption. There is no alternative party waiting in the wings.
http://kunstler.com/cluster****-nati...ed-resistance/

The pain is assured, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...alized-economy
This probably means the breakup of America. We could possibly survive an economic crash if we had good leadership. With a legislature full of criminals, I doubt that we have a chance.

[Danny B]

Role of gold... more debt but, less collateral

Gold has a very big place in world trade.
"In 2016, $10 trillion of paper gold was traded in four exchanges with Comex in New York accounting for 76% or of that. $10 trillion is more than all the gold ever produced in history which is $7 trillion. But the paper gold traded on the futures exchanges is totally dwarfed by the amount traded by the LBMA banks in London. In 2016, the total estimated gold traded in London is estimated at $64 Trillion. Of that less than 1% is physical.
Adding the LBMA and Futures Exchanges gold trading we get to an astounding $74Trillion annually. Thus, the world trades more paper gold than goods and services since global GDP is $70Trillion. And the gold traded in 2016 is over 600x the gold mined every year. Even more incredible is that the paper gold traded was 10x all the gold ever produced in history."
http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-...n+Greyerz&mk=1

The West has tried to push gold out of everyone's perception. It worked in the West but, not in the East. The CBs have blown up the system, once again. The R.O.W. is gearing up for a return of gold in trade settlement. There will not be any gold back currencies in the future. That isn't it's function.
FOFOA: What is Freegold?

"The problem with these games is the debt-asset bubbles don't actually expand the collateral (real-world productive value) supporting all the debt"
"If the collateral supporting the debt doesn't expand with the debt, the borrower's ability to service debt becomes increasingly fragile."
"But once again--printing money doesn't create collateral or income needed to service debt. "
"The whole game is a bet that future income will rise faster than debt service. Unfortunately, we've already lost that bet"
Good graphs, oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Will the Crazy Global Debt Bubble Ever End?

[Danny B]

Oil producers rapidly crashing

Greece and the IMF play a cat-and-mouse game where Greece can only make debt payments if the IMF gives it debt relief. Their overall debt rises every time. Everybody could see that there was no future in this arrangement.
"Greece's government is reportedly planning to forego its next bailout payment (of around EUR7bn) if no debt relief is offered by creditors (thus leaving it likely to default on its next round of repayments).

Bloomberg reports, Greece’s government preparing to possibly go without next bailout payment if creditors don’t agree on debt relief for the country according to German newspaper Bild (without saying where it obtained the information"
Euro Slides After Greece Hints At Default | Zero Hedge

Germany is raking in the money to the detriment of the rest of Europe.
China is raking in money to the detriment of the rest of the developed nations. Poverty is rising.
https://twitter.com/paul1kirby/statu...560960/photo/1
https://www.rt.com/business/390047-i...reat-research/

The Gulf Cooperation Council is the group of oil exporting countries around the gulf. When oil was way up, they started spending even more. They haven't cut back spending with the fall in oil prices.

"Saudi Arabia is in big turmoil. One third of GCC is now quasi- junk rated (Oman and Bahrain both are now BB rated) which is effectively a junk rating.
Oman is already siding with Iran"

Now Qatar wants to side with Iran
One third of GCC is now actively siding with Iran. To say there is a crisis in the GCC is an understatement! This is bound to escalate.
Saudi has lost one third of it’s reserves in less than 3 years!"
Economists Puzzled By Unexpected Plunge In Saudi Foreign Reserves | Zero Hedge
The Saudi reserves are rapidly crashing because the numerous Princes are sending their money to European banks.
Pox Americana is giving Saudi a helpful hand by encouraging them to fight expensive wars and ruin their finances that much faster.

Venezuela is in civil war. Their economy was based on perpetually high oil prices.

To make matters even worse for the oil producers, Rayton is set to make solar power much cheaper..
https://www.startengine.com/startup/rayton-solar
A lot of electricity is sold at auctions. http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/06...-markets-work/
More and more of the nuke plants need continual subsidy to sell to markets that buy the cheapest power. As States go bust, there will be far less money to subsidise inefficient producers.
BUT, the grid is in terrible shape. We won't be plugging in millions of electric cars. The State won't have money to upgrade the grid either.

[Danny B]

Stock market overview

Hussman Funds has done decades of research on the stock market. Over the years, they have refined their models (something that academia would never consider) to where they are about 90% accurate. Academia is at about zero percent accuracy for the long term. Here is a long, detailed article expounding on their research that shows that market valuations don't particularly matter as long as every segment of the market is doing equally well.
Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: When Valuations Don't Seem to "Work" - May 29, 2017
"Presently however, the market environment features a combination of obscene overvaluation, extreme “overvalued, overbought, overbullish” syndromes, and deteriorating market internals. The first two features of that combination create poor long-term and full-cycle prospects for the market. The last feature of that combination is what currently opens a potential abyss."

"the solution to overindebtedness should not have been the creation of more debt, and the problem of inadequate growth should not have been solved by money-printing and ZIRP/NIRP.”
"This seeming lack of empirical proof of the lurking danger has lulled most investors into thinking that the elevated prices of stocks and bonds, and the historical fall in price volatility in financial asset markets, is somehow a permanent condition."
Paul Singer Warns "All Hell Will Break Loose" | Zero Hedge

ALL the metrics show that the stock market won't have earnings for the next 12 years. Liar-loans have brought consumption forward and there is nothing left for the future. All this was done to keep the credit airplane aloft. ALL the bankers are cutting back on credit.

" The financial analogy is easy to see: when rapidly expanding debt consumes a critical threshold of earnings (fuel), the equivalent of gravity (default, inability to service the enormous debt) triggers the collapse of the entire debt/leverage-dependent financial system.
As I explained yesterday, if earnings stagnate or decline while debt races higher, eventually earnings are insufficient to service the debt and default is inevitable. The other problem that arises as more and more of earned income goes to debt service is that there is less and less disposable income left to support consumer spending--the lifeblood of economies worldwide."

The corporatocracy was able to drive down wages to increase profits. They seem to have ignored the fallout of; lower wages meant lower consumer spending.
"Once debt service absorbs a significant chunk of household earnings, recession is the inevitable result as spending collapses once more debt cannot be loaded on households. In other words, debt is limited by earnings."

" Financial supernova collapse has two pathways which we call deflationary and inflationary. But the key point here is these are simply different pathways to the same result: the collapse of the financial system.
In a deflationary supernova, defaults--and the avoidance of additional debt--are the gravity that overwhelms the forces of expanding debt. Once the losses and risk are visible to all participants, the herd psychology changes"
"Central banks can create currency and credit, but they can't create earnings or productive real-world wealth. These are the limiting dynamics of any debt-dependent system."

"The other pathway to implosion is to print currency with sufficient abandon that debtors have enough money to service their debts. Emitting sufficient new free money to re-set all the unpayable debt destroys the purchasing power of the currency--a supernova implosion that is little different than the deflationary implosion. "
"If history is any guide, the wealthy and powerful who run our pay-to-play "democracy" will never relinquish their wealth. Only a financial collapse can re-set the system."
"The financial implosion triggers social and political upheavals. Recall that one person's debt is another entity's asset. When debt is blown off in either a deflationary or inflationary implosion, all the "wealth" represented by debt is also blown off."
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: How Debt-Asset Bubbles Implode: The Supernova Model of Financial Collapse

"The illusion of wealth is now most critical when preserving the myth of the welfare state: some 50% of all US pension fund assets are invested in stocks and only 20% in Treasurys . . . The only lifeline left is pushing pension funds out of their existing asset allocation sweet spot and forcing them to buy stocks."
"The Fed hasn't made the world a better place with its interventions. It has created moral hazard, encouraged the formation of asset bubbles that eventually pop (leaving economic messes), widened the wealth inequality gap to record levels, discouraged savings and investment, severely penalized retirees on fixed incomes, encouraged spending, funded massive government deficit spending by monetizing the debts, lengthened the recession and likely reduced the number of jobs that would have been created if the economy had been allowed to take its normal course."
YES, but those jobs wouldn't be for lawyers, bankers and speculators.

"So when will the joy ride end? For ordinary consumers the easy money train hit a brick wall with the 2008 financial meltdown. Not so, for the insiders who took corporate welfare and low equity prices to their smashing advantage. No other manufactured bubble has been more profitable for the royalty of Wall Street since the great depression. "
"The crash for a shrinking middle class has already occurred. Rest assured, Forbes reported, "The ranks of the world’s billionaires have swelled to a record 1,645 including 268 newcomers", will not be feeling your pain."
Is the Dollar and Equities Ready to Crash?
5/30 Commercial banks slash auto loans outstanding – Zero Hedgel
Draghi Says Euro Area Still Requires ECB Monetary Support
Draghi ‘firmly convinced’ of need to stick with QE
5/30 Europe unveils plan to securitize sovereign debt – Zero Hedge
Draghi says that he has to pump in $60 billion a month to try to get some inflation. He's a GS alumni who either doesn't have a clue OR, he's trying to take down the Euro to help the dollar (and GS)
It's a sign of desperation to securitize sovereign debt. NOBODY would be in a position to pay off in the event of a default.

5/30 Altair Asset Management hands back cash to clients – Sydney Morning Herald Buffet is holding $ 100 billion. Everybody is running to cash. This actually causes deflation in the markets. The FED must pump in that much more to offset the withdrawals.

The very-rich are trying to keep the party going. They have gone to cash. BUT, what is that cash worth if the banks go down?

[Danny B]

China multiple bubbles,,, fear porn from the State,, Munis, civil unrest

Jim Rickards, "China has multiple bubbles, and they’re all getting ready to burst. If you make the right moves now, you could be well positioned even as Chinese credit and currency crash and burn."
WHY does he somehow think that a total crash in China would not crash the system worldwide?
" The combined Chinese government and corporate debt-to-equity ratio is over 300-to-1"
"About half of China’s investment in the past ten years has been wasted on “ghost cities,” white elephant transportation facilities, and prestige projects that look good superficially, but that don’t produce enough revenue or efficiencies to pay for themselves."
"The toxic combination of government debt, corporate debt, WMPs, and unrealistic growth expectations have set up China for the greatest market crash in history. But, not yet. As analysis will continue to prove, political forces will put off a day of reckoning until early 2018."

"Even though growth rates have fallen from 10% to 6.5% in recent years, that 6.5% growth is still enviable compared to 2% growth in the U.S., and less than 1% growth in Europe"
Make that 2%,,, negative 2% and negative 6%
https://dailyreckoning.com/greatest-...ubble-history/
5/31 ‘Ghost collateral’ haunts loans across China’s banking system – Reuters

FED GOV cranks up the "fear porn". We NEED a police-state for our own good,,, and protection.
Federal Bureaucrats To The Public: Be Afraid! | Zero Hedge
The bureaucrats are hard at work creating numerous regulations to milk dry the actual producers. Washington?s Princes of Paperwork Are Crushing Physicians and Bankrupting, If Not Killing, Their Patients | Zero Hedge

Municipal bonds are soon? to blow to smithereens. Calif gets special mention, https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...i-bond-bubble/
" We have the left who thinks it is their God given right to suppress if not kill anyone who disagrees with them. I for one am starting to lean for the break up of the United States" "Tyranny is what these people preach. It is their way or no way. "
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-look-at-this/
"This 2017 edition of the Cycle of War is the third in a series. This one is focused upon the Civil Unrest and how this is the source of Revolution. This turning point in the Cycle of War we have warned was the convergence of both International War and Civil Unrest."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/p...now-available/

The "left" has openly advocated killing anyone who disagrees with them. Armstrong says that California and New England will be the first to suffer a crash in munis. Armstrong says that "civil unrest" is the source of revolution.
What will be the speed and progression of civil unrest when munis crash?
Millions of people are fleeing the high-tax States. This will speed up State bankruptcy. 1/4 of all the welfare cases nationwide are in California. Ca. already shifts a LOT of revenue to welfare. That is why the streets are so bad.
When munis collapse, Ca. won't be able to get credit.

[Danny B]

No bubbles in sight,,, Illinois crashing fast... the FIX has stopped working

The State invented "paper gold" to keep investors and savers away from physical gold. Suddenly, the world has a whole zoo of crypto currencies that appreciate faster than gold.
Is Bitcoin Standing In For Gold? - PaulCraigRoberts.org

"Investors learned this the hard way in 2007 when a U.S. housing crisis turned into a global financial crisis almost overnight."
"According to Bloomberg Markets, Canada’s economy would have actually shrunk in February were it not for the country’s red-hot housing market."
" In fact, residential mortgages now make up about 52% of Canada’s chartered bank loans.
Real estate companies also account for 14% of all private business loans"
The U.S. Economy Is About to Face Its Biggest Test in Years | Casey Research

About housing, RE Bubble two has surpassed RE bubble one, http://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/upl...2017-05-30.png
The FED is still adamant, you (they) can not spot bubbles ahead of time.
Dear Fed, It’s Not “Really Hard to Spot Bubbles” | Wolf Street

The State employees in Illinois continue to demand higher and higher raises in their salary. Not surprisingly, that State is going broke fast.
"Now The Pain Begins": S&P, Moodys Cut Illinois To Near Junk, Lowest Ever Rating For A U.S. State | Zero Hedge
The Paris climate agreement would have been a huge boon to the hordes of bureaucrats. http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2...imate-accords/
Hopefully, Trump will carry through with our exit.

The loss of earnings in the lower loop of Americans ran counter to the needs of the banking industry that needed uninterrupted growth. They were rescued with an increase in the money supply but, There was no corresponding increase in underlying wealth. Reportedly, the FED by itself created about $ 27 trillion in new debt. The actual GDP has been falling. The FED and it's owners fixed the system temporarily so that it would survive until enough growth returned to get the system working again.
Capital flows to where it is treated best. In the case of manufacturing, it usually flows to the lowest-wage producer.
There is/was NO possibility of capital staying in a high-wage labor market. Outsourcing ran amuck. This is a logical outcome that should have been obvious to the bankers.
The problem was a lack of employment and wages. SO, the money powers pumped credit into the upper loop. They mistakenly believed that it would somehow flow into domestic wages.

" 1. Massive expansion of debt: sovereign, household and corporate, all in service of a) bringing consumer demand forward b) fiscal stimulus funded by debt c) corporate stock buybacks to boost stock valuations d) asset bubbles in real estate, bonds, stocks, bat guano futures, etc.
2. Monetary stimulus, i.e. creating and distributing money at the top of the wealth/power pyramid so corporations and the super-wealthy could buy more assets with free money for financiers issued by central banks."

"And how have the dominant state-protected cartels improved adaptability? They've stifled it at every turn.
Accountability in the public/private-sector "swamp" is near-zero
"Honesty" has lost all meaning in public dialog.
The status quo is now like a wafer-thin sheet of ice over a deep lake of killing-cold water."
So, we fall through the ice and THEN, have a debt supernova. How am I supposed to decide what to wear?
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com...fragility.html

Financial assets have been inflated to the moon nut, of course they aren't in a bubble. The EU is talking about dumping all their debt on Germany. Jim Willie said that Germany is going to move into Russia's camp.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...s-are-screamin

"Sometime this year, world public and private plus unfunded pensions will surpass $300 trillion. That is not even counting the $100 trillion in US government unfunded liabilities. Oops.
These obligations cannot be paid. A time is coming when the market and voters will realize this."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...set-valuations
actually, that $100 trillion is more like $212 trillion.

[Danny B]

The perma bears just keep singing

More of the same. The perma-bears are calling for a stock market crash any day now. The FED just keeps pumping debt into the markets.
“Solely in the first quarter of 2017, the largest central banks created nearly 1,000 billion US dollars of new central bank money out of nothing, with which they bought financial assets,”
http://www.gata.org/files/Incrementu...06-01-2017.pdf
It seems that the CBs are on track to buy up the entire stock market. They are already buying much of the bond markets. The NYSE is reportedly worth $15 trillion. The 60 major exchanges are worth $69 trillion. How long will it take the various CBs to buy up every asset? What happens next?


"BofA's Michael Hartnett, who nearly a year ago first penned the "Icarus trade" concept - i.e., the final push in the US stock market to its all time highs - and who has been expecting a "blow off top" to stocks, before it all comes crashing down. " "How far are we away from this "blow off top" target of 2,620 (at which point the US stock market cap as a % of GDP hits an all time high)? As of this moment, it is less than 200 points. "
Can the markets actually crash if the CBs never sell?
BofA: The "QE Monster" Only Ends When "The Wall Street Bubble" Finally Shocks The Fed | Zero Hedge
It MOST CERTAINLY can crash if the FED wants it to crash,,, for whatever reason.

Italy says; NO bail-ins BUT, their non-performing loans are approaching 20%.
Stunning: Italy says NO to bail-in scenario?s | Zero Hedge
Trump wants to cut off junk-food to the poor. Seems that they are just getting too fat.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...umn/102292366/

[Danny B]

Use the "wrong" system,,, get a war

The Chinese economy; " I met with provincial Communist Party officials who took me on a tour of a massive multi-city construction project with office parks, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, hotels, recreational facilities and transportation links for each of the cities. It was all empty.

When we returned for tea in the provincial officials’ offices, I asked how they expected to repay the debt used to fund the construction. The head official answered matter-of-factly, “Oh, we can’t repay it. Beijing will have to bail us out.”
https://dailyreckoning.com/chinese-e...-death-spiral/
Moving on;
"A key difference between China and the US is that the Chinese government owns the majority of its banks. About 40% of the funding for its giant railway project comes from bonds issued by the Ministry of Railway, 10-20% comes from provincial and local governments, and the remaining 40-50% is provided by loans from federally-owned banks and financial institutions. Like private banks, state-owned banks simply create money as credit on their books. (More on this below.) The difference is that they return their profits to the government, making the loans interest-free; and the loans can be rolled over indefinitely. In effect, the Chinese government decides what work it wants done, draws on its own national credit card, pays Chinese workers to do it, and repays the loans with the proceeds.

The US government could do that too, without raising taxes, slashing services, cutting pensions, or privatizing industries."
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...edit-so-can-we

Benjamin Franklin let slip to the European bankers that the Colonies produced whatever money they needed.
“There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.” - Benjamin Franklin

No doubt, many of the colonies were doing very well, especially Pennsylvania and Massachusetts where the amount of new paper money was controlled."

"Before the war, the colonies sent Benjamin Franklin to England to represent their interests. Franklin was greatly surprised by the amount of poverty and high unemployment. It just didn't make sense, England was the richest country in the world but the working class was impoverished, he wrote “The streets are covered with beggars and tramps.”

It is said that he asked his friends in England how this could be so, they replied that they had too many workers. Many believed, along with Mathus, that wars and plague were necessary to rid the country from man-power surpluses.

“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.” - Benjamin Franklin
"We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one.” - Benjamin Franklin
You can see why the bankers didn't like this arrangement.
"Soon afterward, the English bankers demanded that the King and Parliament pass a law that prohibited the colonies from using their scrip money. Only gold and silver could be used which would be provided by the English bankers."

"It was the monetary system under which America’s Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress."
“After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution"
https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum...n-hid-you/4358

This was pretty much the same system that Hitler tried with so much success in Germany. That mis-deed got him a war.
The same thing happened in Canada. They had prosperity until they got a central bank.
The last thing that the bankers want is; for money to be issued for work and goods. They want excess money issued for speculation.

Defense Secretary Mad Dog Mattis Threatens China
Crazed Mattis Says US Will Oppose China’s
Island Construction In The South China Sea
Will we attack China because the bankers don't like their banking system?

[Danny B]

Save the banks, NO matter the cost

Price inflation is running about 10% by the pre-1980 methodology;
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-...d&t=1494603620
Alternate Inflation Charts
A savings account (6Mo. CD) pays on average .06%. The banks take your savings and deposit it at the FED to get a 1% return. The banks avoid paying hundreds of $ billions in interest to savers. Americans have about $91 trillion in savings. The banks get to use this money for free.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/...-killed-saving
You have savings at negative interest in the banks.

All the fresh blood is being pumped into the head and, the rest of the body is dying.
"#1 According to Challenger, the number of job cuts in May was 71 percent higher than it was in May 2016.
#4 Financial stocks have lost all of their gains for the year, and some analysts are saying that this is “a terrible sign”.
#11 According to the Los Angeles Times, it is being projected that 25 percent of all shopping malls in the United States may close within the next five years.

#12 Over the past 12 months, the number of homeless people living in Los Angeles County has risen by a staggering 23 percent."
"Lapthorne calculates that S&P1500 ex financial net debt has risen by almost $2 trillion in five years, a 150% increase, but this is mild in comparison to the tripling of the debt pile in the Russell 2000 in six years."
12 Signs The Economic Slowdown The Experts Have Been Warning About Is Now Here

Commerce Department explained that year-over-year the US (trade) deficit grew by 13.8 percent. https://sputniknews.com/us/201706021...deficit-grows/

[Danny B]

State pensions crashing the economy

The China effect killed wages for the mainstream worker. His lack of savings wiped out the income for bankers. The bankers "compensated" by taking away our interest income. The last place left for the speculators to "earn" money was in the stock markets. Since the worker had no money to spend, the stock market had very low earnings. The CBs pumped in $trillions with no end in sight. A lot of this hot money flowed into RE speculation. The CB and the State were trying to pump up the 2 most visible areas that people consider to be stores-of-wealth.
They can never stop pumping because stocks and RE can't survive on the cash generated by the working man. Meanwhile, the banks "gained" about $400 billion a year in interest that they didn't have to pay. Other than just a few stocks, there are just no earnings in the stock market. Even the stocks that are rising in nominal value are only rising because of CB pumping. They have little in the way of earnings.

All of the entities that previously depended on interest income and stock market earnings are slowly (or rapidly) going broke. Those entities that are operated by the State are going broke the fastest.
The CALPERS retirement program "In 2014 CalPERS had a return target of 7.8 percent. Instead it brought in a measly 2.4 percent. That was bad, but at least it was better than 2015's .61 percent return. "
Being a State-run entity, CALPERS can easily roll down the blinds and ignore reality. They just scream for higher taxes.
"A comprehensive study by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research found that states and localities that borrowed funds to cover pension obligations in the years leading up to an economic contraction overwhelmingly witnessed negative returns. CalPERS itself saw a negative 24 percent return on investment during the worst of the Great Recession."

That bit of reality is NOT going to stop Governor Moonbeam. "A little context: California is looking at anywhere from $242 billion to $767 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. "
California Uses One State Credit Card To Pay Off Another - Hit & Run : Reason.com
Armstrong did mention that California Munis are going to blow, going in to next year.

6/03 Cities, states and school systems lose millions to credit downgrades – IB Times
"Illinois sports a $111 billion unfunded State pension, it has $8 billion in unpaid bills, 2/17/2016 tax revenues are declining, spending is accelerating and it has yet to approve a FY 2017 budget. "
The State Of Illinois Is Bankrupt | Investment Research Dynamics
"The now-Senator and supremely corrupt Michael Bennett plugged the Denver Public Employee pension fund for a cool $250 million of losses on interest rate derivatives that he bought from his former colleagues at JP Morgan."

"Not surprisingly, Illinois is one of eight U.S. states with a diminishing population. In 2016 alone, it lost 37,508 people. Nearly half of those living in Illinois said they'd like to leave. Taxes were the No. 1 reason given."
"Illinois owes contractors and suppliers a record $14.5 billion. " 6/02/2017
What Do Broke Illinois And Bankrupt Puerto Rico Have In Common? Big, Bad Government | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

So, hand out gold-plated benefits to state workers for votes,,, raise taxes to the moon,,,, crash the economy.

[Danny B]

Poverty in Europe

The China effect (low wages) affected more than just America. It crashed Europe too. The extra added problem with Europe; they are spending tons of money to bring in and subsidise no-skill immigrants. What jobs aren't subject to outsourcing, they kill by bringing in low-wage competition. Not surprisingly poverty is going way up in Europe. You can personally thank Merkel for that.
REPORT: 1 in 4 EU Citizens 'On Verge of Total Poverty' as Leaders Open Continent to Third World Migrant Invasion (VIDEO)
"According to statistics from the European Commission, one in ten full-time workers live in poverty. "

The European Central Bank is not far from going bust. They want Eurobonds to bail them out. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...s-on-sale-now/

[Danny B]

Population down, GDP (debt) UP... bond market

There is a lot of hot money looking for a home. "a testament to the persistence of Chinese oligarchs, criminals, money launderers and pretty much anyone who is desperate to park their cash as far away as possible"
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...old%20debt.jpg
I suppose that the money could keep flowing forever.
The Biggest Real Estate Bubble Of All Time Just Did The Impossible | Zero Hedge

"The American core population (aged 15-64) is the greatest economic consumptive force on earth. They make up 2/3rds of the total US population and 95% of US employment. When considering growth, particularly the all important annual growth in Gross Domestic Product, the growth of this population should be the first consideration (although it is strangely nowhere in typical economists or Federal Reserve accounting)."
"The core US population growth has been slowing since '00 and as of this year (drum roll please) that growth is ending."

"And as for GDP, it is now simply a reflection of new federal debt. The chart below shows annual GDP growth minus the annual growth in federal debt...and since '08, there is no growth but the growth in un-repayable federal spending"
https://econimica.blogspot.com/2017/...why-4-gdp.html

Like Japan, the prime rate just can not get up off the floor. Reportedly, the FED does not even consider this very important metric. This great downturn in income and confidence has resulted in the Japanese giving up on sex, marriage and even the hope of having a family. It has gotten even worse. The leading cause of death in younger Japanese is suicide.

95 Million Americans Neither Working Nor Seeking Work
93% Of All Jobs "Created" Since 2008 Were Added Through The Birth/Death Model
6/05 The US jobs market is much worse than the official data suggest – Zero Hedge
The lower loop has lost both employment and Confidence. The upper loop believes all the BS from the State.

Armstrong has called for a crash of the sovereign bond market. Here is a headline from Zero Hedge.
Central Banks Now Own A Third Of The Entire $54 Trillion Global Bond Market
Central Banks Now Own A Third Of The Entire $54 Trillion Global Bond Market | Zero Hedge
OK, what to make of it? Here is a comment from this article;
"Central bank operations will eventually force the big commercial banks to merge because of reduced profit levels. The central banks will not change their ways though. They will continue to expand their balance sheets and eventually force the remaining banks to close, or merge with a central bank. Then the central banks will start merging amongst themselves, until we are left with one "Iron Bank". Control will be complete, and current levels of bad debt being held in the currently existing fiat currencies becomes irrelevant to an entity that can never be eliminated absent of an extinction level event, and has the power to reset the entire system to a new global currency. Remember, Globalism is their religion, and ultimate control can only be achieved once the entire financial system is assimilated.

They are in a race against time, because if they lose control of this transition, the hundreds of trillions in derivatives outstanding will blow up and the Great Reset will appear. So, central banks print billions every month out of thin air and buy more and more assets with it, while at the same time the "financial system" is being prodded to reduce the total amount of derivatives in existence. Will it work? I doubt it, but it sure looks like the plan to me. They can't afford another Lehman Brothers event, so the Lehman Brothers of the world must disappear...but not from collapsing, it must be done through mergers and acquisitions. Funny that the CB's have to kill off all their children to achieve their goals."

[aljhoa]

OK, what to make of it? Here is a comment from this article;
"Central bank operations will eventually force the big commercial banks to merge because of reduced profit levels. The central banks will not change their ways though. They will continue to expand their balance sheets and eventually force the remaining banks to close, or merge with a central bank. Then the central banks will start merging amongst themselves, until we are left with one "Iron Bank". Control will be complete, and current levels of bad debt being held in the currently existing fiat currencies becomes irrelevant to an entity that can never be eliminated absent of an extinction level event, and has the power to reset the entire system to a new global currency. Remember, Globalism is their religion, and ultimate control can only be achieved once the entire financial system is assimilated.

They are in a race against time, because if they lose control of this transition, the hundreds of trillions in derivatives outstanding will blow up and the Great Reset will appear. So, central banks print billions every month out of thin air and buy more and more assets with it, while at the same time the "financial system" is being prodded to reduce the total amount of derivatives in existence. Will it work? I doubt it, but it sure looks like the plan to me. They can't afford another Lehman Brothers event, so the Lehman Brothers of the world must disappear...but not from collapsing, it must be done through mergers and acquisitions. Funny that the CB's have to kill off all their children to achieve their goals."

With regard to the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust, best estimates for the breakdown of Jewish loss according to location of death follow:

Auschwitz complex (including Birkenau, Monowitz, and subcamps): approximately 1 million
Treblinka 2: approximately 925,000
Belzec: 434,508
Sobibor: at least 167,000
Chelmno: 156,000–172,000
Shooting operations at various locations in central and southern German-occupied Poland (the so-called Government General): at least 200,000
Shooting operations in German-annexed western Poland (District Wartheland): at least 20,000
Deaths in other facilities that the Germans designated as concentration camps: at least 150,000
Shooting operations and gas wagons at hundreds of locations in the German-occupied Soviet Union: at least 1.3 million
Shooting operations in the Soviet Union (German, Austrian, Czech Jews deported to the Soviet Union): approximately 55,000
Shooting operations and gas wagons in Serbia: at least 15,088
Shot or tortured to death in Croatia under the Ustaša regime: 23,000–25,000
Deaths in ghettos: at least 800,000
Other*: at least 500,000
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article...uleId=10008193


Al

[Danny B]

Where do you find such garbage? It doesn't belong in this thread anyway.
"There is not a doubt in my mind that the Lancaster, the B17 and the B24 were built for the purpose of inflicting massive civilian casualties on the German populace. It was, in my opinion, one the greatest war crimes ever perpetrated. Colonel Robin Olds, surely one of the finest officers and fighter pilots ever to serve in the USAF, stated more than once that the so-called strategic bombing program was ineffective, wasteful and pointless."

The allies bombed the snot out of Germany specifically to inflict civilian deaths. The bombs killed jews, christians and everything else. Roosevelt and Churchill killed the German Jews.
Don't piddle around on the economics thread with useless propaganda.

[Danny B]

offsetting debt deflation with helicopter money

Here is a long detailed article telling you that the FED will never allow deflation to set in. They will continue to inflate the stock market forever.
BETTING AGAINST HISTORY | THE MACROTOURIST
Here is a long detailed article showing that the stock market will have NO returns for the next 10--12 years.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/...aign=item_link

This is all well and good for the upper loop. What about the rest of the world?
" Due to the deflationary pressures of technology and stagnant wages for the bottom 90%, the consensus sees low inflation as far as the eye can see.
When the consensus is near-100% on one side of the boat, we can safely bet Reality will not conform to expectations."
" For the past 17 years, central banks have funnelled credit and liquidity into the banks at the top of the wealth-power pyramid. Very little of this new "wealth" has trickled down to the bottom 90% of households in the real economy who have seen their earnings stagnate and their costs rise.
Now that debt and essentials are absorbing much of the bottom 90%'s earnings, there's little fuel left for additional debt-based consumption. This is why we see auto sales plummeting."

"The only way the central banks/states can fuel more debt and spending is to drop "helicopter money" directly into the consumers' checking accounts."
"Once they do this, the "new money" goes directly into the real economy. This is quite different than the past 17 years of monetary stimulus that went mostly into assets owned by the wealthy."
"Once the bottom 95% can no longer afford to borrow and spend more, the economy sinks into a self-reinforcing recession.
Creating more free money for financiers as central banks have done for 17 years won't solve this recession. Instead, it will anger the bottom 95% to see the wealthy's assets climbing ever higher."

"But "helicopter money" has its own risks. To fund "helicopter money," governments will have to borrow trillions more from central banks."
The CBs can print the money to do all of this debt-free. The demand that the economic activity be financed with DEBT money is an oft-repeated lie.
Ellen Brown has shown clearly that history proves that the economy can be financed with debt-free money. SPECULATION demands an ever-increasing supply of money, PRODUCTIVITY DOES NOT.
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Path to Inflation: "Helicopter Money"
The CBs have already printed up tons of money that they can't reasonably expect to be repaid. Issuing debt-free money is only a short step away from issuing debt-money that can't be repaid.

Here is a well thought out article on universal basic income. This article is better than most because it takes into account human nature.
Doug Casey on Universal Basic Income | Casey Research
The BIGGEST argument in favor of debt-free money and UBI is; it avoids civil war.
Here is an article from Kunstler that is VERY dreary.
Gimme Shelter - Kunstler
"Mr. Putin does not have to lift a finger to detonate the groaning garbage barge of US domestic affairs. It’s already ignited and is faring toward a very peculiar species of civil war. "

We're closing in on the debt ceiling and budget talks. The disciples of Soros seem to be planning a very exciting summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhfJwAHhmrk&t=302s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UktpeLFWt4Y