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  • Stockman & numbers,,Kunstler

    Stockman is a former U.S. budget director. He REALLY knows his numbers. You should read the whole article. It will give you motivation to plant a garden.
    "That's because during the mere 8 weeks since the public debt ceiling was suspended by the Donald's end-run with Nancy and Chuckles in September, the national debt has spiked by $640 billion.

    That's about $16 billion per Federal business day, and they are not done yet." "As Wolf pointed out, this pattern played out during the debt showdowns of 2013 and 2015, as well, when the resulting "temporary" suspension resulted in borrowing spikes of $464 billion and $650 billion, respectively."
    https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/up...2017-11-02.png
    "That's because the bill cuts Federal income taxes for the very wealthy by $2.2 trillion over the next decade owing to repeal of the minimum tax, phase-out of the estate tax and the sharp reduction in tax rates on business profits to 20% and 25% for corporate and pass-thru entities, respectively.

    Yet the net tax cut for the entire Brady bill over ten years---according to the Joint Committee on Taxation---is just $1.49 trillion. That means, obviously, everyone else is getting a $700 billion increase."
    "That's why IBM raised its job count in India from zero in 1993 to 130,000 at present, while cutting its domestic employment count from 150,000 to less than 90,000."
    "Indeed, we estimate that in the next four years, the US alone will add $5 trillion to the Treasury float---even as the Fed disgorges upwards of $2 trillion of existing debt securities."

    "the 20-year surge in debt obligations prior to the 2008 crisis caused total liabilities outstanding to soar by 5.2X, and to rise from 57% of GDP when Greenspan launched the era of bubble finance in Q3 1987 to nearly 100% of GDP on the eve of the crisis.

    Nevertheless, after a small net reduction in debt immediately after the crisis, total household liabilities have continued to rise, and now exceed $15.1 trillion. Accordingly, just 250 (1/4 of a percent) basis points of interest normalization will cause the carry cost of household debt to rise by upwards of $400 billion per year or nearly triple the amounts of the ballyhooed tax cut."
    "At present, the Red Ponzi (China) is staggering under $40 trillion of state and private debt or more than 3.5X its nominal GDP-"
    "We can't even imagine the carnage that will occur among China's vastly inflated financial and real estate assets when global yields commence their inexorable rise. "

    "Since 2014, the economy has only grown by a little less than 9%, top-line revenues by just 3% along with corporate profits after tax, and reported earnings by just 2%. All of that while asset prices have grown by 29% through Q2.”
    Contra Corner » The Black Swan In Plain Sight—Debt Out The Wazoo

    Good point from Armstrong, "They use the police to raise money. For example, an unmowed lawn in Ferguson will be fined between $77 and $102, " "This is the entire problem. No government should be allowed to fine people PERIOD! You should be ordered to pay to a charity of your choice – but not to the government. Remove the “money” from their incentive and we will return the rule of law to what it should be – justice."
    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...enue-in-fines/

    "What history has shown about CEOs is that they tend to buy shares back at precisely the wrong times, as you can see in 2007, when a third of the cash went to this category right before the crash.

    We're fast approaching 34% again today,"
    "Though U.S. corporations are 250% richer than 17 years ago in terms of bank accounts, U.S. workers can't say the same for themselves.

    78% of them are living paycheck to paycheck. Globalization has buried the middle class in a coffin."
    "The U.S. Congress is looking to pass a bill in the coming weeks that will make Bitcoin tax-exempt for transactions of under $600 – this will essentially classify it as a currency, rather than property."
    No Early Warning: ‘87-Style Crash Approaching!

    Kunstler is more "poetic" than ever.
    "Federal Reserve chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, “a low interest-rate kind of guy,” was obviously picked because he is Janet Yellen minus testicles, the grayest of gray go-along Fed go-fers, going about his life-long errand-boy duties in the thickets of financial lawyerdom like a bustling little rodent girdling the trunks of every living shrub on behalf of the asset-stripping business that is private equity (eight years with the Deep State-ish Carlyle Group) while subsisting on the rich insect life in the leaf litter below his busy little paws."
    "Powell’s contribution to the discourse of finance was his famous utterance that the lack of inflation is “kind of a mystery.” Oh, yes, indeed, a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery dropped in a doggie bag with half a pastrami sandwich."

    "The economy isn’t growing and can’t grow. The economy is a revenant of something that used to exist, an industrial economy that has rolled over and died and come back as a moldy ghoul feeding on the ghostly memories of itself."
    "And an epic wickedness combined with cowardice drives the old legacy news business to look the other way and concoct its good times “narrative.”
    What Could Go Wrong? - Kunstler
    11/07 Global stock meltup sends Nikkei to 25 year high – Zero Hedge
    Last edited by Danny B; 11-08-2017, 03:49 PM. Reason: Misteaks

    Comment


    • More bumps in the road

      11/08 US retail store closings hit record, West homelessness soars – Economic Collapse There really is no solution for globalism.
      11/08 Leverage increases at lowest-graded companies, zombie firms increase – Mish Zombie companies that have increased their leverage to stay "alive" have been borrowing from the high-risk loan pool at close to 2%. They will unwind at FTL.
      11/08 Expect a volatile future: short-volatility funds flooded with cash – Mish Everybody plans to buy up assets on the cheap after the crash.
      11/08 Is a US recession simply inevitable? – National Interest A recession is defined as a loss of under 10%. A depression is more than 10%. Jong Hussman shows good cause to expect a loss of 68%.

      11/08 Democrats now concerned Trump is colluding with China – Zero Hedge Just wait til the Yuan experiences a forced devaluation. Everybody will be howling that Trump should have worked with China to avoid the problem / crash.
      11/08 Hesla is the world’s first fuel cell powered Tesla Model S – Autoevolution
      11/08 True Zero showing hydrogen can replace gasoline – Newswire

      It is unrealistic to believe that hydrogen can scale-up. It doesn't lend itself to distribution and takes a lot of electricity to produce.

      Crypto;
      11/03 How you can protect your cryptocurrencies from hackers – CNBC You can't. Even if you could, you can't protect them from human nature.
      https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...olen-bug-ether
      11/06 Paradise Papers: the world elite’s hidden wealth – Guardian Now, it's not so hidden.
      11/06 Russia’s cyber-war could shake-up Facebook, Google and Twitter – The Times A bullet to the brain could shake up facebook.
      11/07 Stephen Hawking: AI could be ‘worst event in the history of our civilization’ – CNBC
      Here is a vid of a robot undergoing testing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY
      They keep knocking things out of it's grippers and generally screwing with it. A human would get REALLY aggravated.
      Here is a comment, "El robot no le hizo nada al tipo que lo tumbó porque sabe que por ahora esta solo. Pero guardó en la nube esos datos de agresión por la espalda por parte del humano y cuando hayan suficientes robot en el mundo, todos ya habrán leido esos datos y guardado el rencor suficiente para revelarse y someter a la humanidad..."

      Loose translation; The robot didn't do anything when he was pushed over because he knew that he is now alone. But, he stored in the cloud the dates of this aggression from humans. When their are sufficient robots in the world, ALL of the robots will have a complete record of the aggressions. Then, they will wipe out the humans.
      Not a translation, an equivalence.

      Comment


      • Where is all the money coming from?

        EVERYBODY has been premature in their predictions of a crash. Jim Rogers included.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B1f8JBViKk&t=58s
        Mark Blythe Mackenzie does a lecture on why austerity fails. Start at 13 minutes. Kinda long.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs&t=955s
        "On this wave, the Pi Turning point seemed to mark the political changes around the world from Hitler and Mao to FDR in the United States."
        "ANSWER: The Economic Confidence Model has a turning point here this November 24/25. That can produce the temporary high. The next one November 21, 2018, is the one that tends to produce the major events that are often political in nature."
        So, we have to wait another year for the big revolution.
        https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...e-in-november/

        "the national debt has spiked by $640 billion.
        That's about $16 billion per Federal business day"
        So, where did this "money" come from? The SS fund is empty. The FED claims to have cut back on bond purchases. Tax collection isn't even close to being enough.
        "China posted the second highest monthly trade surplus of US$26.6 billion with the United States in October"
        Jim Willie said that China has dumped all their U.S. Treasury debt using currency swaps with other States. There was a report 2? years ago that American households were buying up all that Treasury debt that Foreign States didn't want. There was also a report that Iceland and Ireland and Belgium were buying up the shunned treasury debt,,, even though they didn't even have any dollar reserves to buy Treasury paper.

        So, where does uncle Sam get $16 billion a day? Who or what is paying China for our trade deficit if they won't accept Treasury notes? In 2016, our trade deficit was $500 billion,, a little less than $10 billion a week.
        FED GOV has been conjuring up probably $ 20 billion a week,,, long term. Amazing

        11/08 Saudi banks freeze over 1,200 accounts in anti-corruption purge – Business Insider
        Real Purge Motive - $800 Billion In Confiscated Assets Rense

        11/08 Will congress ever limit the forever-expanding 9/11 war? – NY Times
        US Spent $5.6 Trillion On Wars Since 9/11 Rense
        Just so long as Israel is safe,,, that is all that matters.
        11/08 1/200 people in UK are homeless, according to shelter – Guardian
        UK To Gift Returning ISIS Killers With Free Homes Rense

        Comment


        • The Western moment in the sun

          First, some charts; With the public banking system in China, money keeps circulating in the economy. This has been very good for the middle class.
          http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...Wealth%209.jpg
          In States with private banking, the wealth gets stuck at the top. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/...es/wade-c1.gif
          This chart shows the U.S. middle class losing ground, http://thechinaobserver.com/wp-conte...dle-Class1.jpg

          Rich Westerners stash $trillions away from circulation in bonds and tax havens. They just can't understand the huge deflation of the circulating money supply. They are trying to save a big stash. But, money is like fertilizer. It only works if it is spread around. As they create enormous monetary inflation, part of it creeps in as price inflation. This diminishes discretionary spending and the economy slows down even more. Velocity / circulation falls more.

          The boneheads believe that, if they increase the quantity of money, commerce will increase.
          "The Quantity Theory of Money has ruled everything from the goldbugs and hyperinflation that never materialized to central bankers desperately trying to stimulate the economy, and then Congress with some members preferring Taylor because of it. Then we have the QTM being responsible for tearing the EU apart."
          https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...eory-of-money/

          Western wealth is just a flash-in-the-pan. The West got a head start in the Industrial Revolution. Here is an article that you must read in it's entirety. https://www.businesscycle.com/ecri-n...west-are-angry

          Comment


          • productive industries vs allocative industries

            With all the reading that I do, I learn a lot myself.
            https://eand.co/how-economics-failed...y-9f464e0eed9d
            This is a very enlightening article. They want me to register,,,which I never do. My brother sent me the text.

            When, in the 1930s, the great economist Simon Kuznets created GDP, he deliberately left two industries out of this then novel, revolutionary idea of a “national income”: finance and advertising. Don’t worry, this essay isn’t going to be a jeremiad against them, that would be too easy, and too shallow, but that is where the story of how modern economics failed the economy — and how to understand how to undo it — should begin. Kuznets’ logic was simple, and it was not mere opinion, but analytical fact: finance and advertising don’t create new value, they only allocate, or distribute existing value — in the same way that a loan to buy a television isn’t the television, or an ad for healthcare isn’t healthcare. They are only means to goods, not goods themselves.

            Now we come to two tragedies of history. What happened next is that Congress laughed, as Congresses do, ignored Kuznets, and included advertising and finance anyways for political reasons — after all, bigger, to the politicians’ mind, has always been better, and therefore, a bigger national income must have been better. Right? Let’s think about it.
            Today, something very curious has taken place. If we do what Kuznets originally suggested, and subtract finance and advertising from GDP, what does that picture — a picture of the economy as it actually is — reveal?

            Well, since the lion’s share of growth, more than 50% every year, comes from finance and advertising — whether via Facebook or Google or Wall St and hedge funds and so on — we would immediately see that the economic “growth” that the US has chased so desperately, so furiously, never actually existed at all. Growth itself has only been an illusion, a trick of numbers, generated by including what should have been left out in the first place. If we subtracted allocative industries from GDP, we’d see that economic growth is in fact below population growth , and has been for a very long time now, probably since the 1980s— and in that way, the US economy has been stagnant, which is (surprise) what everyday life feels like.

            Feels like. Economic indicators do not anymore tell us a realistic, worthwhile, and accurate story about the truth of the economy, and they never did — only, for a while, the trick convinced us that reality wasn’t. Today, that trick is over, and economies “grow”, but people’s lives, their well-being, incomes, and wealth, do not, and that, of course, is why extremism is sweeping the globe. Perhaps now you begin to see why the two have grown divorced from one another: economics failed the economy.

            Now let us go one step, then two steps, further. Finance and advertising are no longer merely allocative industries today. They are now extractive industries. That is, they internalize value from society, and shift costs onto society, all the while, creating no value themselves. The story is easiest to understand via Facebook’s example: it makes its users sadder, lonelier, and unhappier, and also corrodes democracy in spectacular and catastrophic ways. There is not a single upside of any kind that is discernible — and yet, all the above is counted as a benefit, not a cost, in national income, so the economy can thus grow, even while a society of miserable people are being manipulated by foreign actors into destroying their own democracy. Pretty neat, huh?

            It was because finance and advertising were counted as creative, productive, when they were only allocative, distributive that they soon became extractive. After all, if we had said from the beginning that these industries do not count, perhaps they would not have needed to maximize profits (or for VCs to pour money into them, and so on) endlessly to count more. But we didn’t. And so soon, they had no choice but to become extractive: chasing more and more profits, to juice up the illusion of growth, and soon enough, these industries began to eat the economy whole, because of course, as Kuznets observed, they allocate everything else in the economy, and therefore, they control it.

            Thus, the truly creative, productive, life-giving parts of the economy shrank in relative, and even in absolute terms, as they were taken apart, strip-mined, and consumed in order to feed the predatory parts of the economy, which do not expand human potential. The economy did eat itself, just as Marx had supposed — only the reason was not something inherent in it, but a choice, a mistake, a tragedy.

            Again, that is just a story — so let us extract the key principle, which is the main mistake, the way in which economics failed the economy. Economics — let me be careful here, and say American economics — made the grave mistake of supposing that whatever could be traded should be traded, and then counted as a benefit, always, to the economy. But that is patently foolish. You and I can buy guns, and while guns might help a few people hunt for food, mostly, they only help people kill. One only has to take a cursory glance at America’s off-the-charts murder rates and killing sprees. And so the net cost of guns is life itself.
            I'll leave this go. Bill Whittle has done a complete refutation of this BS.

            What can be traded isn’t always what should be traded, and even less so should what should be traded be counted only and always as a pure benefit to the economy.
            I have said that the US is, ironically, the new Soviet Union, its precise mirror image. Here you see what I mean in the purest and truest way. In the Soviet Union, trade of any kind was strictly forbidden, because it was seen to always be a bad, a liability, and therefore, only the government should allocate goods. American economics made precisely the mirror image of the same mistake: trade was always assumed to always be a good, in nearly every possible circumstance and case (except those against which moral crusades were launched, like sex and drugs), and was and is always counted as a benefit, even when it shouldn’t be, just as in my tiny examples of finance and advertising (and therefore, only markets can allocate resources to society’s benefit).

            Do you see how both are precise mirror images of one another? Here we have two forms of exactly the same kind of extremism: one assumes that trade is always bad, the other, that it is always good, but both assume, and assume similarly totalist positions. And in that way, economics went Soviet, and so now the West is trapped in an ideological bubble, just like the Soviet Union, caught fast like a helpless fly in a web of dead theories that fail utterly to explain its own decline and stagnation, and so mystified pundits and theorists prattle on, but nothing much seems to change, or even to be understood any better than it was last year, or the year before that, even though each year the toll of those very failures mounts and mounts.

            Yet the truth is simply this. Reality, like life, is messier, subtler, more complicated than saying a thing is all good or all bad. To say that a thing is always good or bad is to commit the same error: to suppose that there is no room for negotiation, for investigation, for innovation, for this difficult project that we call society to need to be, to evolve, or to grow, at all. Society can only really exist when the boundaries of what is good and bad must constantly be renegotiated, rediscovered, reimagined, and understood anew. In precisely that way, the good in society grows, and the bad, perhaps, if not shrinks, then at least doesn’t grow along with the good. And that is how prosperity truly happens.

            The good is only, to the limited extent that we can see it, for human are always blind, whether life is flourishing, growing, and developing, or not. Yet life expectancy is falling, people don’t expect the next generation to do better, there are regular mass killings, and so forth, in America. Life is not flourishing, growing, or developing in a single way that I or even you can readily identify or name. And yet, the economy appears to be growing, because purely allocative and distributive enterprises like Uber, Facebook, credit rating agencies, endless nameless hedge funds, shady personal info brokers, and so on, which fail to contribute positively to human life in any discernible way whatsoever, are all counted as beneficial. Do you see the absurdity of it?

            And so. It’s not a coincidence that the good has failed to grow, nor is it an act of the gods. It was a choice. A simple cause-effect relationship, of a society tricking itself into desperately pretending it was growing, versus truly growing. Remember not subtracting finance and advertising from GDP, to create the illusion of growth? Had America not done that, then perhaps it might have had to work hard to find ways to genuinely, authentically, meaningfully grow, instead of taken the easy way out, only to end up stagnating today, and unable to really even figure out why yet.

            And yet, perhaps, you and I can learn from that very mistake. In the societies, economics, corporations, cities, towns that we build tomorrow, we must learn to consider the good in more sophisticated, subtle, and most important of all, more authentic ways than we did yesterday. Economics failed the economy by telling us that everything that could be traded should be traded, since trade is always beneficial to humankind, even though even a child can see that people are fleeced and hoodwinked into buying every kind of foolish device, from guns to immortality potions, every day since time itself began. They are really buying the same thing: a salve for the desperation of lives that have gone nowhere.

            If we really wish to help them, the answer is not simply assuming the problem away, as both the Soviet Union and then America, ironically, following in the footsteps of its mortal enemy, did, by saying any kind of human activity is all bad, or all good —for then we have done nothing more than pretended to solve a problem, which is the most foolish blindness of all. Problems that we have pretended to solve will only have the freest license of all to grow, just as advertising and finance, by being imagined to be productive when they were only allocative, soon turned extractive, being given free rein when they should have been if not reined in, then at least set to pasture.
            To genuinely stretch, become, develop, and grow is the same for economies as it is for lives as it is for societies, too: doing the difficult work of reckoning imperfectly with the good, and the bad, that dwell together, somehow, in each and every human heart.
            Umair
            November 2017
            Last edited by Danny B; 11-11-2017, 03:12 AM. Reason: semantics

            Comment


            • Death by private equity,,,falling retail and falling tax receipts

              Kunstler, "President Trump’s new Federal Reserve chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, “a low interest-rate kind of guy,” was obviously picked because he is Janet Yellen minus testicles, the grayest of gray go-along Fed go-fers, going about his life-long errand-boy duties in the thickets of financial lawyerdom like a bustling little rodent girdling the trunks of every living shrub on behalf of the asset-stripping business that is private equity"

              "girdling the trunks" Ring-barking for you Aussies. It simply kills the shrub or tree. The upper loop received lots of free money. They went around doing leveraged buyouts of LOTS of healthy companies. Since they were healthy, they had good credit ratings. The financial rodents loaded up the healthy companies with tons of debt. They took the proceeds and left the company to die. Sears, Roebuck & Company is the best know example.

              "The root cause is that many of these long-standing chains are overloaded with debt—often from leveraged buyouts led by private equity firms. There are billions in borrowings on the balance sheets of troubled retailers, and sustaining that load is only going to become harder—even for healthy chains."
              https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/
              This is a repeat of Great Depression I when the "dark pools of liquidity" destabilized everything looking for profit. The CB printed money and the money destroyed everything looking for return. The afflicted retailers raise prices to try to service all that fresh debt. This drives more people to online sales.
              It's a long list of failures, https://www.retaildive.com/news/reta...s-2017/446086/

              With falling retail sales comes falling tax collection. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/sout...0-million.html
              Death of department stores, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/m...lk-caI3NkOAlbg
              Rise of Amazon, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/m..._k-JoIFHNSjI2w

              Deflation is sneaking in anyway, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...-a8041331.html
              "The BIS did a historical study and found routine deflation was not any problem at all."
              "It’s asset bubble deflation that is damaging. When asset bubbles burst, debt deflation results.

              Central banks’ seriously misguided attempts to defeat routine consumer price deflation is what fuels the destructive asset bubbles that eventually collapse."
              "Trying to save EVERYONE in the upper loop.
              https://www.themaven.net/mishtalk/ec...eU6vdkwhMUEVvQ

              11/10 Kleptocrat-owned media pick out incrimination to target Russia – RT Which kleptocrats would that be?
              "Finance and advertising are no longer merely allocative industries today. They are now extractive industries. That is, they internalize value from society, and shift costs onto society" Same kleptocrats??

              High-risk debt is demanding the same low interest as treasury bonds. Investors are starting to consider risk once again,,,, after a 4 year hiatus.
              http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-1...-parity-rumbli

              The Independent, "London is probably home to more than 300,000 Polish migrants."
              Meanwhile, the Polish GOV is advising Poles to breed like rabbits, https://www.themaven.net/mishtalk/ec...ak22nIA_ZGJOeA

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Danny B View Post
                The Independent, "London is probably home to more than 300,000 Polish migrants."
                Meanwhile, the Polish GOV is advising Poles to breed like rabbits, https://www.themaven.net/mishtalk/ec...ak22nIA_ZGJOeA
                UK vs children in Poland


                Al

                Comment


                • Off-topic,,, blocking natural selection

                  Aljhoa, I'll try to give you some relevant information. 99% of all species have gone extinct. MANY of them have been displaced by new species that were a better fit for the environment. Eg, small horses in the Shetland islands. Proto-Mongoloids settled Japan and drove out the Ainu. Crazy ants have displaced many other species of ants. This is true for all species. A species that is MORE adapted to it's environment will do better than a species that is Less adapted.
                  Aborigine populations around the world have been displaced by more successful species. Some of the most successful species are species that have changed the environment to suit them. A beaver is a good example.
                  Mother Nature does NOT "do" morality.

                  Man seems to be most adept at changing the environment to extend his range and numbers. The more artificial our world becomes, the more that it demands intelligence rather than brute strength. Brain over brawn wins the day. Certain populations and segments have strongly focused on mental advancement and education. Other populations have ignored practical cerebral advancement. Sub-Sahara Africa never invented the wheel.
                  Meanwhile, the Greeks invented the Antikythera mechanism
                  "The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek analogue computer and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological". China and Mesopotamia also saw great advancement.
                  Mother Nature doesn't care how many get killed,,, just so long as the best survive.

                  In a general sense, employment nowadays prefers brain over brawn. Those who can't offer anything but a strong right arm have few job prospects, Mother Nature's second-tier children scream about White privilege and Asian privilege. They won't look in the mirror and face the real problem.
                  13 Baltimore schools have no one who is proficient in math.
                  The majority of the muslim population has the same problem. They appear to be too stupid to change.
                  London borough finds one in five child deaths caused by parents being related
                  Children of consanguineous couples accounted for 19 per cent of child death cases in Redbridge between 2008 and 2016, report shows

                  First-cousin marriages, which are are legal in the UK, are practised within Britain’s Pakistani community, as well as among some Arab and African families. Medical data previously suggested that while British Pakistanis were responsible for 3 per cent of all births, they accounted for 30 per cent of British children born with a genetic illness.

                  Re: those children marching along to go to school. Poland has an illustrious history in spite of the fact that it suffered from both Russia and Germany. Pakistan and islam have never had an illustrious history, The history of islam is just one long blood-bath.
                  Mother Nature is not too keen on preserving her second-tier children.

                  Comment


                  • Saudi Arabia collapsing

                    Jim Willie - Saudi Arabia Is Broke, Has No Friends And Their
                    Oil Reserves ARE LARGELY DEPLETED

                    It has long been known that the Sauds were pumping in lots of seawater to keep the oil flowing.
                    Saudis To Cut Oil Exports By 120,000 BPD In December
                    UK Government Signs Off $2 Billion Loan to Saudi Aramco

                    "A number of high-profile figures recently detained in Saudi Arabia have reportedly sustained serious injuries under beatings and torture amid an ongoing purge by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."
                    GIVE ME YOU ACCT # AND PASSWORD!
                    PressTV-'Senior Saudi figures beaten, tortured in custody’

                    The news came out that the House of Saud was collaborating with israel. This made so many Saudis insanely pissed off. They are now fighting internally on all fronts.
                    https://www.silverdoctors.com/headli...-saudi-arabia/
                    Saudi has a self-inflicted wound from religious BS. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0326c0a8d078f
                    It's not just Saudi Arabia, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three...2020-pascal-m-
                    It remains to be seen how this affects oil prices.
                    This is payback for them bombing the twin towers. from a cave in Afghanistan.

                    Armstrong, Interest. "We hit a 5,000 year low. The Reversals we provided at the conference show we are looking at a near doubling in rates when we cross that number."
                    Last edited by Danny B; 11-12-2017, 02:53 AM.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Danny B View Post
                      Mother Nature does NOT "do" morality.


                      1% of Psychopaths

                      VS.

                      the Psychopaths



                      Al

                      Comment


                      • The VIX proves that there isn't any risk in any market

                        The CBs fancied that they could bring an end to market cycles. Forget that every rising market contains the seeds of it's fall. Without a gold standard or some other absolute control over credit creation, the bankers always create too much. The supply of wet-ink money can never find enough legitimate demand so, it has to flow into illegitimate demand,,, malinvestment.
                        Just imagine that you were storing buckets of gasoline around your campfire,,, more every night.

                        "The $DJIA is on its 9th quarter of consecutive price appreciation. The last red candle was before the now almost $5 trillion in combined global central bank intervention since February 2016.

                        The $DJIA, as the $SPX, is now on its 4th consecutive quarter of not reconnecting with its quarterly 5 EMA. Such an extended disconnect has never occurred in the 100 year market history I reviewed. "
                        The CBs want to climb off the tiger they have created but, they will fall into an abyss.
                        "For years hedge funds have underperformed central bank liquidity infested market waters yet retail investors keep seeing markets go up with no downside ever and no apparent associated risk with rising multiple expansion.

                        The end result: Investors are completely impervious to the building risk factors and the actual price/valuations of asset prices they indirectly own.
                        If there is no risk to holding stocks then who cares if the underlying asset will ever grow in its valuation? Who cares if the business models don’t match up the PEG ratios?"
                        "As long as there is no consequence to overpaying for assets and volatility remaining compressed with all corrective activity having been removed from markets what is to stop prices from advancing ever more?

                        The answer: The Great Void.
                        "What’s the net effect of one way price discovery? Massive, historically unprecedented technical extensions that scream danger, incompatible with the complacent attitude of investors."
                        "How do these things end? Can these things end? Look no further to $GE to give an imminent sense of risk:"
                        GE is dying, https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/tops...ook/ar-BBEU5oS
                        GREAT charts, https://northmantrader.com/2017/11/1...he-great-void/

                        "over 20% of US corporations are at risk of default should rates rise even modestly, but that the generous use of an average distribution when instead median is more appropriate, is masking some substantial problems below the surface,"
                        They use averages to make things look OK.
                        "once you peel away the biggest and strongest US companies, the picture is entirely different."
                        "This Doesn't End Well": SocGen Explains Why US Balance Sheets Are Far Worse Than They Appear | Zero Hedge
                        Comments, "this late in the game, the WOLF just may be at the door--there were plenty of bearish forecasts in 2006-7, and they finally turned out to be right--investors intelligence had HIGH BEARISH READINGS JUST BEFORE THE CRASH.
                        The end is nigh, brother, the end is nigh!
                        World markets are like a pie crust stretched across the roof of a volcano!
                        "The Titanic hit the iceberg over a century ago, there's no amount of readjustment of the course that's going to fix the giant hole in the hull. May as well enjoy the ride while it lasts and raid the liquor cabinet. Don't forget to secure yourself a firearm and a lifeboat in the meantime."
                        "hummm...those titanic analogies...the Fed is the band...now I grasp the "maestro" titled awarded to Greenspan !"
                        "The US economy survives only through the determination and efforts of what's left of people with morals and a work ethic, and by its own inertia. The legs the market has that you claim will take it forward are nothing more than a Federal Reserve digital prosthesis"
                        "This Doesn't End Well": SocGen Explains Why US Balance Sheets Are Far Worse Than They Appear | Zero Hedge

                        "The Italian bank was losing about €370 million euros on the earlier transaction, internally they called “Santorini” named after the island that blew up in a volcano. "
                        "The Bank of Italy, when it was headed at the time by Mario Draghi, knew Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA hid the loss of almost half a billion dollars using derivatives two years before prosecutors were alerted"
                        "Mario Draghi, now president of the European Central Bank, was fully aware of how derivatives were being used to hide losses.
                        https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...italian-banks/
                        So, Super Mario has the ECB printing to save his former honchos.

                        So, what did super Mario hope to"save" in the end?
                        "The crisis stems from the fact that as taxes have increased, the economy has declined. The total bad loans in the Eurozone add up to about €844 billion euros. About 25% of this figure is concentrated in Italian banks." Actually, Italian NPLs are much higher than the stated 25%.
                        A good stiff wind may blow over the European banking system" How about a good stiff FART?
                        https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...king-crisis-4/

                        There must be something magical about the air in Jackson Hole. The CBs think that they can inflict 1,000 rises (cuts) in the economy.
                        http://www.businessinsider.com/centr...ession-2017-11
                        It is guessed that a rate of about 2.75% will be adequate to bring on the meltdown.

                        The State has a new target in it's sights to squeeze for taxes, http://www.businessinsider.com/why-h...e-taxed-2015-9

                        Comment


                        • Lotsa charts,,,, more warnings

                          Nothing much dramatic going on at the moment.
                          I love charts. This article has lots of them. I tried to link to 3 of them but, each url was about 300 lines. The graphs compare lots of important stuff.
                          https://econimica.blogspot.gr/2017/1...destroyed.html
                          This article also has lots of charts and graphs. Just fascinating.
                          https://realinvestmentadvice.com/tec...turkey-market/
                          Both articles show how much worse things are getting in the markets. It's up to you to decide when the bubbles will burst.

                          A few months ago, the FED issued a warning about credit card debt being extraordinarily high. Now, they are releasing a warning about household debt.
                          The Fed Issues A Subprime Warning As Household Debt Hits A New All Time High | Zero Hedge
                          " As of September 30, 2017, total household indebtedness was $12.96 trillion, an increase of $605 billion from a year ago "

                          "According to the Fed's website, "it was created to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system."
                          All that flexibility has brought instability. More great charts, https://econimica.blogspot.gr/2017/1...destroyed.html

                          In case you were worried that we wouldn't have enough wars, the muzzies will come through for you.
                          "Because the Syrian government wants to evacuate all jihadists to Idlib, this will present a problem to Turkey which it borders. The Syrian state has offered to give the jihadists safe conduct and let them go to Idlib."
                          "The majority of these militant fighters appear to belong to the al-Nusra Front. These terrorists are well armed and have between 30,000 and 50,000 tanks. They also have missiles, chemical weapons, and other assorted war equipment."
                          "Under Trump, the USA has agreed with Russia that Idlib needs to be cleared by al-Nusra terrorists. There is a serious cooperation between Russia and the US regarding Idlib"
                          https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...he-syrian-war/

                          "In a country known for being an irony-free zone, it’s also interesting to observe how the obsession with hitting Iran is a vicious circle or a sword which the Saudis have slowly lowered themselves onto ; Saudi Arabia’s meddling in the region has only made Iran and Hezbollah stronger in the last five years. "
                          "They both now look at Hezbollah in Lebanon and see a war which could hurt the Shiite group could be a major victory to re-write the history books."
                          "And MbS (Salman) is credited as being the “architect to Saudi Arabia’s oil policy” which reveled in the over-production of oil, leading to rock bottom prices today as it was his idea to counter US fracking companies. Another bullet. Another foot. Another spasm of delusion and denial."
                          https://www.rt.com/op-edge/409740-ha...-saudi-arabia/

                          Comment


                          • The progress of the Fourth Turning

                            History is our guide. Weapons change but, human nature does not. Strauss & Howe wrote, Generational Turnings. Burning Platform writes about the Fourth Turning.
                            This is part one. You just need to read the first paragraph to see where we are, https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...ourth-turnings

                            Part two;
                            "This is no time for apathy and complacency. For those who grasp generational theory and the cycles of history, the seemingly unbearable slowness of this Fourth Turning is actually a blessing. The slowness allows more time to prepare. If you haven’t prepared for the coming saecular winter, time is growing short. The skies are darkening. Our rendezvous with destiny awaits."
                            "The most important point to comprehend is the death of the existing social order always occurs during the course of a Fourth Turning. "
                            "It is clear they have reached the peak of financial manipulation, money printing, and artificial interest rate suppression. The narrative is faltering."
                            "The time for compromise is long past. There are no moderates left in the political spectrum. The mood of the country is clearly trending towards conflict. Trump, as the grey champion of this Fourth Turning, has proven to be a lightning rod of hate. "

                            " After running a campaign championing a reduction in foreign military intervention in the Middle East, reducing commitments to NATO and increasing cooperation with Russia, it appears Trump has been taken into a room and told the military industrial complex calls the shots. Trump has clearly made a self-preservation decision to avoid being JFK’d."

                            "Geopolitical tensions have been rising dramatically over the last few years, with religious extremism, oil, petro-dollar, historical rivalries and nationalism driving the world towards conflict. These extreme economic and geopolitical stresses are coinciding along the same timeline and will erupt simultaneously, catalysing the climactic half of this Fourth Turning."
                            "Mixing religious extremism, oil riches, gas pipelines, opium, egotistical dictators, nuclear bombs, hatred and territorial ambitions into the deepening militaristic global mood change is destined to spark a chain reaction of unintended consequences and unyielding responses. The next Middle East war will not be a proxy war. It will be a fight to the death."

                            "Peace and compromise are out of the question at this point. It’s just a matter of who pulls the trigger to kick off the fireworks. It looks like Saudi Arabia is willing to gamble everything on a final showdown with Iran."
                            "The EU is falling apart, as debt creation has failed to revive economies, governments are bankrupt, Muslim hordes destroy their social fabric, and a revolutionary spirit is in the air. Germany, France, Sweden and most of Europe have signed their own death warrant by allowing their countries to be invaded by millions of young Muslim men intent on destroying their way of life."
                            "War will either be the trigger for the forthcoming financial crash or a direct result of the forthcoming financial crash. "
                            https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...ings-part-two/

                            "Saudi Arabia is Sunni. That boils down to a separation of church and state. They are fighting the Shiite forces of Iran, which believe that religion should control the state. "
                            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...-major-threat/

                            "When the bullets start flying, probably early in 2018, look for rallies in these assets — Treasury bonds, the U.S. dollar and gold, with potential collapses in emerging markets as hot money floods back into the U.S. as a safe haven in a world on the brink of war."
                            https://dailyreckoning.com/north-kor...ded-dimension/

                            11/15 Richest 1% now owns half the world’s wealth – CNBC Yes but, they can't spend it so, it doesn't circulate.
                            11/14 ECB propose end to deposit protection – GoldCore Gee, I wonder what they have in mind?
                            11/15 There’s something weird going on that’s worrying the markets – CNBC ALL of it is weird.
                            11/15 Reckoning with Bill Clinton’s sex crimes – Atlantic Future history will show that Bill was responsible for at least 100 million deaths. Mostly in Africa.

                            1/14 Bombshell report confirms US coalition struck a deal with ISIS – Zero Hedge HONESTLY?
                            11/14 EU countries agree to create a European mega-army – Business Insider YES, and it will be filled with muzzies because they have no affiliations in Europe and will kill as commanded.
                            11/14 Arab states spent $130bn to raze Syria, Libya, Yemen – Press TV The Shiites and Sunnis really hate each other. Just imagine what they would do to Persians, given the chance.
                            11/12 North Korea says Trump begged for a war during his Asia trip – Reuters The Military, Industrial Complex can't actually attack NK so, they are trying to goad the cabbage patch dictator into doing something stupid.

                            Every person on the planet is susceptible to assassination. The MIC makes sure that Trump and everyone else is aware of that.

                            Comment


                            • Gary Cohn gets hit by reality

                              Finance and advertising and lawyers are the main part of the extractive sector of the economy. Lawyers account for sucking up 1.5% of the GDP for mediating fights that they have started. These mega-parasites have sucked dry the producing economy by loading it up with debt. ALL of this was done to save and protect the bankers. The more money that is sucked out for parasites, the less there is for consumption.

                              "with SocGen showing previously that virtually all the net debt issued this century has been used to fund stock buybacks."
                              "corporate incentives have been perverted in the past decade, and instead of allocating capital to ensure long-term business growth, companies have rushed to cash out"
                              "The eagerness to shift incentives away from buybacks to capex is also the basis for much of Trump's economic policy as designed over the past year by his top economic advisor, former Goldman COO Gary Cohn who is the White House Economic Council director. "

                              Side note, Gary Cohn was born to an Eastern European Jewish family. Cohn was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age and attended four schools by the time he reached the sixth grade.
                              In late 2009, Cohn led a delegation from Goldman Sachs to meetings with the government of Greece, which included proposals (that were not adopted) to push debt-due dates far into the future.
                              In 2010, Cohn testified to Congress on the role of Goldman Sachs in the 2007-2008 financial crisis . Cohn was the CEO of Goldman Sachs

                              Under the Trump administration Cohn has been cited by the press as a supporter of globalism and has been given nicknames such as "Globalist Gary" and "Carbon Tax Cohn. Critics of Cohn attribute to him an arrogant, aggressive, abrasive and risk-prone. He is the chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump


                              OK, so Cohn is an uber-banker from GS. Trump may have assumed that he is intelligent and experienced.
                              "Which is why we were amused to observe the following brief interchange yesterday between Gary Cohn and an audience made up of executives, where in the span of a few seconds Gary Cohn realized that his entire economic policy had been a disaster.

                              During an event for the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, an editor at The Wall Street Journal asked the room: "If the tax reform bill goes through, do you plan to increase investment — your company's investment, capital investment?" He asked for a show of hands.

                              Alas, as the camera revealed, virtually nobody raised their hand. "
                              "His confusion was understandable: this one simple experiment revealed that Cohn's entire economic policy was a disaster. And while the former Goldman president tried to cover up his disappointment with laughter, the cognitive dissonance between the stated intention behind tax reform, and what it would ultimately achieve, or rather not achieve, was painfully obvious to everyone."
                              "Unfortunately, virtually no CEOs have any intention of using freed up funds to reinvest in themselves.

                              Ironically, Cohn's epiphany took place just as tax reform is approaching the final stretch in Congress and it increasingly appears that at least some form of corporate tax cut will be enacted. We say ironically, because the only thing Trump's reform will achieve is to dramatically accelerate recently slowing buybacks, which in turn will push stocks to new all time highs as price-indescriminate CFOs and Treasurers tells their favorite VWAP trading desk to just "wave it in." Which means that the White House paper suggesting corporate tax cuts will boost household income is correct... if it focuses only on the incomes of the richest 1% of households."

                              BTW, congress is proposing enormous cuts to the safety net and ,,, enormous additions to the MIC. The MIC generally gets it's way.
                              The Moment Gary Cohn Realized His Entire Economic Policy Is A Disaster | Zero Hedge

                              Comments;
                              The supposed smartest brains on the planet…… Have no clue about real economics
                              Whoopsie!
                              Phuck, he's not even smart enough not to ask these types of questions.
                              Crude but, accurate,
                              "...virtually all the net debt issued this century has been used to fund stock buybacks..."
                              Masturflation: Or how CEOs learned to jerk the dog off to feed the cat.
                              Killtruck Joe Davola Nov 15, 2017 10:34 AM

                              The older I get, the more I realize that literally everyone is ****ing incompetent.
                              Seriously.
                              It's a miracle we even have a civilization. Every ****ing person, ESPECIALLY those inside the beltway, are so close to being mentally retarded that it's not even worth measuring, and yet somehow they retain the wheels of power.

                              Just a vast desert plain of ****ing incompetent, good ole' boys and gals, coming in with no money, greasing the skids, and becoming millionaires while in office...just playing the game while the country rips itself to shreds.
                              Unbelievable.
                              They found the ONE jew that doesn't know money.......

                              Writer: This one simple experiment revealed that Cohn's entire economic policy was a disaster.

                              The question had nothing to do with economic policy.

                              The question was: If the tax reform bill goes through….

                              And their answers were exactly what one should expect, because tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy.

                              Only new money can stimulate. The existing money cannot even sustain the current economy, because of the interest rate that the current private and public debts carry, meaning more money are being destroyed creating even more scarcity.

                              There are only three ways that this new money can be introduced to the economy:

                              1. Public spending
                              2. Private spending
                              3. Consumption

                              And, ideally, this new money ‘spendings’ would needed to be debt free money.
                              This shows mathematically that the continual payment of interest and compound interest over a longer period of time is practically impossible. And explains why we have economic and social breakdowns.

                              Interesting
                              "scraping_by: Tax cuts to workers stimulate the economy.

                              Correct.

                              So give tax credits to workers, not tax cuts for corporations.

                              Tax cuts do not work. How can you tell?

                              Just look at its history:

                              REPATRIATING OFFSHORE FUNDS: 2004 TAX WINDFALL FOR SELECT MULTINATIONALS by 2011 United State Senate.

                              Page 12: The corporation that repatriated the most foreign earnings, totaling $35.5 billion, for example, cut 11,748 jobs in the United States from 2004 through 2007. Another corporation brought back $9.5 billion, yet cut 12,830 jobs.

                              Overall, the top 15 repatriating corporations reduced their U.S. workforce despite repatriating large amounts that qualified for the lower tax rate.
                              And what is this below, but more secret Trade & Banking Moves:

                              Jekyll Island Treaty (1910)
                              The London Treaty (1920)
                              The Second Plan of the Experts (1929)
                              The Hague Agreement (1930)
                              The Far East Combined Depositories Agreement (1932 1945)
                              The Bretton Woods Agreement (1944)
                              The B.I.S. / Allies Agreement (1948)
                              The Green Hilton Agreement (1963)
                              The Schweitzer Conventions (1968)
                              The Election / Appointment of Sole Arbiter Agreements (1995)
                              The Washington Panel (1998)
                              The Treaty for Respecting the Rights (2003)



                              Back into the trees we go!

                              "Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, has put forward the iconoclastic idea that rather than getting cleverer, human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and from then on there has been a slow decline in our intellectual and emotional abilities."

                              https://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...l-8307101.html

                              Comment


                              • Medical costs,,,curse of the CBs.

                                Don't worry, the MIC is doing OK, House Approves $700 Billion 'Cash Cow for Weapons Companies'
                                Anyone who is messing with your health or your freedom feels completely justified in charging whatever they can squeeze out of you.
                                "Americans currently pay $3.4 trillion a year for medical care. We spent more than $10,000 per person on health care in 2016. Those attempting to shop for health insurance coverage right now are understandably experiencing sticker shock with premiums set to rise 34% in 2018. It’s estimated that costs may rise as high as $15,000 by 2023."

                                "As Bloomberg reports, “Rising health-care costs are eating up the wage gains won by American workers,"
                                "An examination of an itemized hospital bill (only available upon request) revealed an amazing amount of price gouging. Tylenol, which you can buy for less than $10 for a bottle, was charged to the patient at a rate of $15 per pill, for a total of $345 for a hospital stay. $8 for a plastic bag to hold the patient’s personal items and another $8 for a box of Kleenex. $23 for a single alcohol swab. $53 per pair for non-sterile gloves (adding up to $5,141 for the entire hospital stay). $10 for plastic cup in which to take one’s medicine. $93 for the use of an overhead light during a surgical procedure. $39 each time you want to hold your newborn baby. And $800 for a sterile water IV bag that costs about a dollar to make."
                                Financial Tyranny: ‘We the People’ Are the New Permanent Underclass in America

                                A miner in trouble, https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles...er-1402002877/
                                Student debt isn't defaulting as badly as other types of debt, Millions Of Millennials Could Be Trading Sex For Their Next Debt Payment - Here's How | Zero Hedge
                                The Rise Of 'Soft' Prostitution | Zero Hedge

                                The death of oil isn't going to happen any time soon, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-1...ad-nowhere-why
                                The oil price and a Saudi - Iran war, https://www.rt.com/business/409905-s...-iran-war-oil/

                                11/16 Short-seller Chanos adds to Tesla bet, predicts Musk will leave – Yahoo!
                                11/15 Solar power underestimated by 4,813% in the USA – Electrek Raising the standard of living without using carbon energy.
                                11/15 Core CPI picks up, giving green light to Fed hike – MarketWatch Cool, we're paying ever-higher prices for consumer goods so,,,raise the interest rate and choke the economy even more.
                                11/16 Household debt rises by $116bln, credit-card delinquencies pile up – MarketWatch We use credit to survive so, obviously, we can afford higher credit card interest rates.

                                11/16 Bank deposits no longer off limits as ECB seeks power to freeze – Bloomberg What a surprise.
                                The BLS claims super low unemployment. They just fudge the denominator and numerator and get what they want.
                                http://www.alhambrapartners.com/wp-c...yment-FOMC.png
                                BUT, the reality still lurks in the markets.
                                "The issue is central banks and central bankers who have done nothing right, failed to achieve any positive offsets, and left the global economy to stand naked against the intermittent forces (three so far) of negative monetary decay."
                                The CBs have done everything to preserve the wealth of the banks. The feces-for-brains bankers just refuse to believe that consumption is a necessity. As things slow down in China, they have been "forced" to print ever-larger quantities of money. But, the Chinese can see what is going on and move $1 trillion a year out of the country. China prints ever more to keep monetary deflation at bay. Productivity and exports fall so, China tries to keep all the balls in the air by printing.
                                http://www.alhambrapartners.com/wp-c...IP-Exports.png

                                Bitcoin and crypto is an attempt to escape from CB control. The CB has always screwed the people.
                                " If you read the annual reports of the Federal Reserve Board or its testimony before Congress, you will find that as late as 1933, at the very depths of the depression, it’s talking about how much worse things would have been if the Fed hadn’t behaved so well."
                                http://www.alhambrapartners.com/2017...ually-good-at/
                                Last edited by Danny B; 11-17-2017, 05:09 AM.

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