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  • Tariffs, globalism,, Keynes & White,, The reset

    The purveyors of one-world centralized government seem to believe that all persons and States are completely interchangeable.
    The corporatocracy seems to believe that all tariffs are evil.
    "Even in 1947 the average tariff levied by GATT members on trading partners was 22%. By 1999, the average tariff of WTO nations was 5%. They have dropped ever since."
    The corporatocracy foolishly believed that it should end it's subsidies to the State. Outsourcing to the lowest labor cost producer may have been seen as a good idea, but, it drove down wages. The global economy has stalled out because all the money is stuck in the upper loop.

    At the same time, only 6 States have benefited from globalization. Germany has a $1 trillion surplus capital account. The rest of Europe has a $1 trillion deficit. The corporatocracy (including the banks) has skimmed off so much money that the economy can't function. The rich just can't spend enough. The rest of us have cut back on non-essential expenses,,, like having children. The upper loop needs uninterrupted growth in consumption to finance uninterrupted growth in the debt pile. The lower loop is shrinking in every way.
    Emergent globalism just cut our income that much faster.

    "As Wall Street soared, unions in Western nations were decimated. Deregulated, global capital flows surged, while less intrepid labor was left in place to be exploited. The passage of David Rockefeller’s Caribbean Basin Initiative established Haiti as a low-wage platform for the western hemisphere, while China quickly became the cheap labor camp of the east.
    Currency manipulations by City of London bankers kept the game lucrative for their multinational corporate tentacles."

    "Unprotected by tariffs, African farmers lost their land as fast as US family farms did, giving way to a toxic GMO corn and soybean-based agribusiness model dominated by Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, Bunge, Syngenta & Bayer. Wages stagnated in the deindustrialized US Rust Belt as corporations moved their production facilities to China and Mexico."
    "Not content with their ill-gotten riches, the new Robber Barons proposed yet more free trade agreements including Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA), U.S.–Middle East Free Trade Area (US-MEFTA) & Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)."

    "There has been a direct correlation between the meteoric rise of stock markets since the early 1980’s and “free trade”. There has been an inverse correlation between both the stock boom and free trade, and an increase in global poverty, starvation, concentration of wealth and environmental ruin."
    https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress....trade-monster/

    Just as no State can afford to have a gold-backed currency, no State can afford to raise wages internally.

    "According to Schiff, the US Federal Reserve is propping up the markets to urge people to spend more"
    What if they just don't have any money?
    https://www.rt.com/business/423464-p...at-depression/

    History shows that (in general) a State MUST abandon the gold standard to get a war going. Recent history shows that the Anglo-American banking powers are the instigators of the necessary credit excesses for most of the recent wars. Bretton Woods was a curse on the R.O.W. because it attracted the very WORST elements to American government.
    Did the banks start the wars for the State. Did that State start the wars for the banks? OR, did the 2 of them put the right (wrong) people in place to churn up a war?
    Churchill, "I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it. "

    MUCH of today's financial problems are blamed on Keynes. In one way, he is blameless. Instead of a gold standard, he advocated for the "bancor", an international credit instrument much like the SDR. He lost out to Harry Dexter White, a Lithuanian jew.
    Jew Corrupter: Harry Dexter White -- Soviet Mole, Created IMF - Bretton Woods - World Bank for Jewry

    If Keynes had gotten his way, America would not have been able to run a huge deficit,,, that allowed war financing.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-monetary-fund
    A Soviet Spy at the Center of Bretton Woods: Harry Dexter White
    The Dulles Brothers, Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, and the Fate of the Private Pre-War International Banking System
    On Harry Dexter White and Pearl Harbor — Crooked Timber
    Steil's book, that Harry Dexter White caused US intervention in World War II,


    "It shows how the international monetary system established at Bretton Woods contributed decisively to broaden balance of payments disequilibria. It argues, moreover, that the International Clearing Union proposed by Keynes would have been far more appropriate to avoid the build-up of such imbalances, being characterized by radically different features from those of the Bretton Woods system, namely: an international unit of account, distinct from all national currencies"

    "an international unit of account, distinct from all national currencies; a symmetric distribution of the burden of readjustment between debtor and creditor countries; a criterion to detect chronic disequilibria and to correct exchange rates accordingly. Finally, this chapter suggests that the principles of the Keynes plan could contribute to reform financial institutions today with a view to face current imbalances, globally and within the euro area."
    Why Not Bancor?: Keynes’s Currency Plan as a Solution to Global Imbalances - Oxford Scholarship
    The SDR will never fly because it is created by the same criminals who created the IMF.

    What does that leave to kill off the credit imbalances that are a necessary prelude to war.
    Here is what General de Gaulle had to say;
    "Naturally, the smooth termination of the gold-exchange standard, the restoration of the gold standard, and supplemental and interim measures that might be called for, in particular with a view to organizing international credit on this new basis, will have to be deliberately agreed upon between countries, in particular those on which there devolves special responsibility by virtue of their economic and financial capabilities."

    General Charles de Gaulle, February 1965
    The U.S. dollar is currently the reserve currency. As missiles and directed-energy weapons get that much more powerful, the world realizes that it must end war. A new gold standard is the weapon of choice to keep States from domestic credit expansions, leading to war.
    Globalism is a dead issue because of the "giant sucking sound". At the same time, the world has to contend with the issues of the pole flip and world cooling.
    The Reset;
    "As this Secret Reset is rolled out the first thing we are likely to see is imported goods rising significantly the first month (maybe even 20%) and another 20% soon after. The sky could be the limit. The standard of living in America (unless free energy is rolled out) is likely to drop to the level of Mexico over a year or two, maybe faster."
    "Some have predicted extreme social unrest in the urban centers of Europe and America, even perhaps the whole World. That is why there is now an obvious RKM effort to lock down all the major cities of the World under the anti-terror, anti-extremism plan Strong Cities which is related to Agenda 21 and the Free Trade Agreements."
    https://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/0...set-agreement/

    Comment


    • Deflation on 2 fronts,,, soon to include the EU

      "This cycle is an essential dynamic of capitalism. Central banks have attempted to eliminate the contraction phase that acts as the immune system, washing out bad debt and marginal borrowers. This has left the economy saddled with “zombie” corporations and debtors that would be liquidated if monetary policies weren’t enabling their feeble survival.

      But even the most powerful central banks can’t force firms and individuals to borrow more money"
      " The U.S. has spent the past decade printing "money," inflating asset prices, stoking consumption and revelling in quite a financial mania. Others - our principal competitors - have been in intense preparation. For what is not at this point clear."
      They printed FAR more than us.

      "Milton Friedman and others referred to the 1920s as the "golden age of capitalism." Were financial and economic structural underpinnings robust in the late-twenties"
      INSANE margin debt is NOT an "underpinning".
      "Vanguard founder Jack Bogle has been around the block. The 88-year-old investing titan, who is basically the father of passive investing, says this renewed regime of volatility in stocks is uncanny… 'I have never seen a market this volatile to this extent in my career. Now that's only 66 years, so I shouldn't make too much about it, but you're right: I've seen two 50% declines, I've seen a 25% decline in one day and I've never seen anything like this before.'"
      https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspo...realities.html

      "Governor Zhou’s public warning was no doubt in response to recent rapid increase of debt which, according to Professor L. Randall Wray, “increased from 162 percent to 260 percent of GDP between 2008 and 2016,” and remains “a topic of discussion, if not deep concern.”
      China's state-owned banks told to stop lending to local governments
      The PBOC is decelerating. The FED is destroying money. Let the zombies hit the floor.
      https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018...ky-moment.html

      The EU was ill founded because it didn't have a debt union. They figured that they would just ram it in later. Just like they would ram in a complete loss of sovereignty and democracy. Various states are starting to wake up to the big con job.
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.7ecaa961e98c
      The EU plans to create a EU army to keep the malcontents in line.
      There is very little time left before the European bond markets collapse.

      Zimbabwe has a printing press. Venezuela has a printing press. Illinois does NOT have a printing press.
      https://dollarcollapse.com/pension-f...al-junk-bonds/

      Comment


      • China trade,,,sub-prime auto,,,Powell bail-ins

        The FED head seems to believe that he can react in time to deteriorating market fundamentals. Here are 2 articles about the unfolding trade war. Both articles are good but, the thing to keep in mind is; EVERYTHING is unfolding at a furious pace.
        https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/08/trad...aboolainternal

        https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/b...e-endgame.html
        4/09 Trump suggests China will negotiate over trade spat – CNBC
        4/09 Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ tactics face ultimate test with China – Bloomberg

        The trade war isn't just about tariffs. Xi has cozied up with Km. This almost negates the America--North Korea summit that is planned. China has downgraded U.S. debt.
        https://www.omfif.org/analysis/comme...us-treasuries/
        America gave submarine technology to Taiwan.
        China and Russia are getting ever-closer.
        As China and America thrust and parry, somebody may get stabbed.

        The money-renting business is far too crowded. To beat out the competition, some renters lower their lending standards. In the sub-prime RE business, they loaned money to anybody who could put an X on a contract. Recently, various lenders have done the same with auto loans.
        https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...dropping-flies
        In the sub-prime RE crash, defaults worked their way up from individuals to lenders to big banks. The wave of default worked it's way up to the top. The GOV just bailed them out. The renters planned it that way. There was no moral or financial hazard.

        "The Chicago Tribune story also provides evidence for a prediction I made in 2015: "America's Next Subprime Crisis Will Be Car Loans."
        https://www.thestranger.com/slog/201...l-street-crash

        Powell said that no bank is too big to fail. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jer...ard/1511884737
        "Put simply, according to current proposals the next time a financial firm gets into trouble, the Fed won’t come running with a bail out. Instead, the FDIC will seize the bank and then use the capital from shareholders and bondholders to “prop it up” before breaking it apart into separate entities"
        https://www.silverdoctors.com/headli...bank-bail-ins/
        "During this speech, Powell emphasized that the Federal Reserve no longer has the authority to directly bail out a failing bank, stating, “Dodd-Frank eliminated the authority used by the Federal Reserve and other regulators to bail out individual institutions during the crisis, including Bear Stearns, Citicorp, Bank of America and AIG.”

        So if the Powell Fed is not in the bail out business anymore… who is?
        Shareholders and bondholders."

        LIBOR has gone up because the banks don't trust each other. If there is no prospect of a bailout for a big bank, OTHER lenders will know this. News gets around. The sharks will short the weak bank and, it will all be over with in a couple of days.
        Fed Chair Powell Literally Wrote The Book On Bank 'Bail-Ins
        So, as auto loan delinquencies work their way up the financial chain, lenders will start crashing. The speed of the contagion will be super-luminal.

        Comment


        • Banking is great for the bankers

          Here is an article by Armstrong decrying the absolute stupidity of the Swiss for wanting to limit the banks to only loaning money that they have on deposit..
          https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...y-the-country/
          Keep in mind that Switzerland has been a financial powerhouse for MANY decades. Why is Armstrong's appraisal stupid in itself?
          Swiss Narrowly Vote to Drop Gold Standard - The New York Times
          https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/19/....d-standard.htm...
          Apr 19, 1999

          Switzerland had great financial success and stability for the whole time that the State was on the gold standard. The private sector is, of course, a different animal. The Swiss bankers are known for great self-discipline.
          But, NO, the bankers wanted to inflate every nook and cranny of the money supply.

          Greenspan convinced congress that they must get rid of the Glass-Steagal act so that American banks could be competitive with London bankers.

          "The key changes to legislation that occurred in 1982 is the UK let banks muscle into the mortgage market that was previously dominated by building societies. This was sold in terms of improving competition in the mortgage market, to the benefit of house buyers"
          "But its most profound impact was something much more insidious: it enabled the creation of credit money to fuel rising house prices, setting off a feedback loop that only ended in 2008. "
          "Building societies don’t create money when they lend, because they lend from a bank account that stores the accumulated savings of their members"

          "However, banks do create money when they lend, because a bank records a loan as their asset when they make an identical entry in the borrower’s account, which enables the property to be bought. This dramatically inflates the price of housing, since, as the politicians themselves acknowledge – housing supply is inflexible, so prices increase far more than supply."
          "And it has to break down, because the only way to sustain it is for debt to continue rising faster than income."
          U.K. https://3r8md7174doo44lgpk3kou79-wpe...dit-Change.png
          Same in the U.S. https://3r8md7174doo44lgpk3kou79-wpe...dit-Change.png
          It is an EXCELLENT article whether your in the U.K. or not. It shows that the inflation train leaves the station right from the bank.

          This is what the IMF has to say, "The paper fails, however, to find a causal relationship running from CBI(ndependence) to inflation."
          https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/...-America-18144
          It's the same story in Canada. They had next to nothing in the way of price inflation until they got a central bank.
          St. Louis FED, "The willingness of governments to force their central banks to print excessive amounts of money, or put in place policies that lead to higher inflation rates over time, has been termed the "inflation bias" of discretionary monetary policymaking."
          Notice that all this reporting is about the Central bank. It is the private banks that create the money supply.

          In the runup to the 2008 crash, the banks created truckloads of bad loans knowing that they could just schlep them off to investors. They had no skin in the game of creating loans. The banking industry wants NO limitations on loan creation. Have they thought about limitations to loan repayment? They automatically assume that they are too important to the system. Powell has said that they are not.

          The same thing happened in the student loan business. GOV could have made the loans directly. NOPE, the banks had to get a piece of the action.
          The bankers have always counted on : privatising the gains and socialising the losses.
          Lemon socialism - Wikipedia
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_socialism
          The sentiment was earlier expressed in the adage "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor", which was in use by the 1960s, though the notion of privatizing profits and socializing losses dates at least to 1834

          This has given (faux) capitalism a bad name. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/08/toda...eplace-it.html

          Comment


          • Taking the new road with the old road map

            Much of the world switched over from a currency that was backed by something of value to, a currency that was "backed" by debt. Value couldn't be endlessly created. Debt obviously can be. The bankers like it that way. BUT, much of the economic laws that apply to a currency with value do not apply to a currency with negative value.

            "These people are just amazingly stupid or just too lazy to do the real research. Back then, Japan was the largest holder of US debt. They had bought the debt to try to ease trade friction. When they buy US debt, that runs through the Capital Account – not the Current Account. However, the interest they earn goes back out through the Current Account. Hence, the more debt they buy to ease the trade deficit, actually makes it worse."
            "The situation is just hopeless. Nobody will listen and they just like yelling about things that make absolutely no logical sense."
            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-even-know-it/

            "based entirely upon foreign exchange predicated upon the metal content of the coinage rather than full faith and credit in a government. As a result, the theory of inflation that dominates modern thinking remains tied to the old world monetary system BEFORE based upon CURRENCY compared to the modern system which is CREDIT BASED dependent upon the full faith and trust of a political government rather than a currency based system."
            "This is why our modern ideas of Quantitative Easing have FAILED to produce inflation for the monetary system today is CREDIT BASED rather than CURRENCY BASED. Exchange rates are no longer dependent upon metal content, but instead, they are based upon the perception of the government and the resulting CONFIDENCE"
            "We are completely lost in the canyons of our mind and yet we do not even understand that we are lost."
            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...netary-system/

            "They typically call the dollar to collapse and gold will soar. They look at historical charts without understanding the economics behind them. Yes, you see gold rally between 1930 and 1932 so they forecast gold will rally with the collapse of the dollar and the stock market. However, 1931 was the Sovereign Debt Crisis where most of the world permanently defaulted on their National Debts. The USA did not."
            MORE LIES. America did a partial default by lowering the value of the dollar. It went from 1/20 of an ounce of gold to 1/35 of an ounce of gold. The final default was when Nixon cut it loose entirely. Don't tell me that we never defaulted.

            "When you are on a gold standard, then tangible assets drop in terms of currency so yes gold rises. But when you are NOT on a gold standard, then gold is just a tangible asset that declines against the currency along with everything else" Just a tangible asset.
            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...ngible-assets/

            " The Fed is nothing like the Bank of Japan (BoJ) or even the ECB. In the case of Japan, their debt has always been primarily held domestically. You could not issue even a private note in Japanese yen without prior approval of the Ministry of Finance. Japan has maintained a controlled economy. The ECB has followed that direction. It is illegal to short Eurozone bonds. In both cases, they believe if they control the financial markets they can prevent a crash and this supports the political agenda."
            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-all-the-same/

            Russia is in a pickle. Much of their debt is dollar-denominated.
            https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...oned-oligarchs
            China can devalue the Yuan and crash American markets. At the same time, servicing dollar loans gets MUCH more expensive.
            https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-in-trade-spat

            4/09 Bond traders about to grasp magnitude of Treasuries deluge – Bloomberg
            4/09 Trump’s trade war threatens central bank `put,’ Deutsche says – Bloomberg
            Powell already said, no put.
            4/09 “In the next recession, the S&P will drop below 666” – Zero Hedge How did they come up with that particular number?
            4/09 Fox News now the least trusted network – Haaretz Haaretz is the official voice of the israeli secret police.

            Comment


            • Historic view of muslims in Europe

              I need lots of history for this post. I'll get to the point eventually.
              To get an idea of just what the muslim invasion of Europe means to the Europeans, you have to look back in history.
              In 846, the Arabs raided Rome. In 1453, the Turks invaded Constantinople and ended the Eastern Roman Empire. They grew in power and attacked Europe culminating in the Siege of Vienna in 1529. Later, in 1683, the Ottoman Turks attacked again. They swept through Eastern Europe and fought the biggest battle, again in Vienna. They were defeated but, there was still 16 more years of fighting.
              The muslim conquest of India is variously said to have started in 1000 and also in 1204. It went on for about 800 years.

              Use this as a backdrop for the current push by Merkel, et al to force muslims into the heart of Europe. Merkel is trying to accomplish what Suleiman the Magnificent could not do.
              "The Muslim invasion crossed from Istanbul through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, to Austria. That event still lives on in the memories of the people in that region that Western Europe does not respect.

              Little by little, the European Project is being torn apart all because of the Refugee Crisis that was begun by Markel without ever putting anything to a vote for all of Europe who must suffer simply because Merkel tried to divert her critics from Greece."
              "After all, it was 1683 when the Turks invaded the Holy Roman Empire and sought to conquer Europe with the Battle of Vienna."
              https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...s-not-popular/
              This is part of the reason that the EU is tearing itself apart.

              "This entire confrontation with Russia has been orchestrated by the military aided by Hillary. I have warned that the mere fact that Russia invaded Syria precisely on the day of the ECM was a warning call to all of us to wake up and smell the roses before the lid of the coffin is closed. The entire Refugee Crisis began just weeks into this ECM wave when Merkel stood up with open arms to divert her negative press for refusing to forgive any debt with Greece. Then, the Washington Times wrote on September 10th, 2015, “Angela Merkel welcomes refugees to Germany despite rising anti-immigrant movement.” The entire refugee crisis was created by Merkel as a diversion because Germany was being viewed as the harsh enforcer of loans to Greece."

              "This means that the likelihood of the coming Pi target on November 21st, 2018 has a higher potential to be linked (1) to the Middle East, and (2) to Russia."
              " (1) the consolidation should end, (2) we have the Monetary Crisis Cycle in play, (3) the Pension Crisis is beginning cascading into a Sovereign Debt Crisis, (4) interest rates will rise even faster with war, and (5) the prospects of the Pi target, which is normally geopolitical rather than economic, also comes into play."
              https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...world-war-iii/

              There is no way to give economic projections without considering what would happen if a war occurred. Whether in Iran or Syria, or more likely, Pakistan & India.
              Europe is committing suicide by muslim where 28 million invaders came in on a red carpet.
              USA: Muslim “refugees” – 91.4% on food stamps, 68.3% on Cash Welfare
              So, what are they going to do when the crunch hits?

              Comment


              • If you don't have a printing press, you're screwed,,, 16.6 million missing persons

                Stockman has a rant about the new FED head, Powell. It's not particularly justified. The second part of the article is very interesting.
                "trend gain computes to just 2,914 new Breadwinner jobs per month!

                Stated differently, since January 2001 the US has generated just 15.4 million new jobs and 96% of them have been in the Part-Time Economy "
                "manufacturing output is still well below its November 2007 level"
                "The truth is, exports during the most recent month were almost exactly where they were 6 years ago in September 2012,"
                "real net business investment was still 28% below its year 2000 level as of 2016, and last year (2017) the number (which the St. Louis Fed has not yet posted) actually went down."

                "So rather than a "strong" labor market, what we really have is one that is failing miserably. As Jeffrey Snider so cogently pointed out after the March jobs report, there are actually 16.6 million "missing" workers. Indeed, after 24 million of population growth since November 2007, the US has generated only 5 million full-time jobs."
                Contra Corner » Jerome Is The New Janet: Tie, Trousers And Same Old Keynesian Jabberwocky

                Most of this can be blamed on the inflationary policies of the FED and the private banks. We priced ourselves out of the world labor market. This created an opportunity for low-wage competitors to move in.

                The private sector uses profits from good, old fashioned capitalism to operate and stay in business. If you take away their operating capital, they go out of business. The State considers tax payers to be an inexhaustible source of money. Oregon is a poor State. Jobs are so important their that they don't even allow you to pump your own gas.
                Oregon Governor Brown has just signed a bill to tax an extra $1 billion on small businesses. She is a Democrat, in name only. She has no desire to tax big business.
                https://www.rga.org/dem-gov-kate-bro...sses-billions/

                4/10 Global debt jumped to record $237 trillion last year – Bloomberg
                Keep in mind that debt can only be paid off by the productive people. The average banker, stockbroker or investor doesn't create any tangible wealth. The State siphons off wealth for consumption.
                "The short version of the quote is offered as a warning that a slow, steady accumulation of debt with no particular plan for repayment can continue longer than expected, and then suddenly descend into a full-blown financial distress scenario and a rapid end-state of collapse."
                "The question is whether the U.S. is now at the point of “suddenly” going bankrupt. Of course, the U.S. won’t actually go bankrupt. It can print all the money it needs to pay off its debts in nominal terms. The issue then is a matter of when that kind of money printing becomes necessary, and under what conditions."
                https://dailyreckoning.com/is-this-the-moment-of-truth/

                4/10 U.S. deficit to surpass $1 trillion two years ahead of estimates – Bloomberg

                "Outstanding credit card debt topped a record $1 trillion in the fourth quarter.
                Americans packed on more than $92 billion in new credit card debt in 2017, the most since 2007.
                We racked up more than $67 billion in credit card debt in the fourth quarter alone"
                "How much does the average American family owe on their credit cards at the end of last year?

                A record $8,600 per household — 6% more than in 2016.

                The scary part? The figure, according to the study’s creators, “is $138 higher than the level WalletHub has identified as being sustainable.”"
                "According to the Fed study, total household debt (car loans, credit cards, student loans and mortgages) hit $13.15 trillion (yes, trillion) in 2017/Q4.

                That figure tops the 2008/Q3 peak of $12.68 trillion."
                https://banyanhill.com/bubble-growth...debt/#readmore
                So, just how much default can the system survive? How fast will default work it's way up the financial ladder?

                Comment


                • Debt as far as they can see.

                  "the U.S. won’t actually go bankrupt. It can print all the money it needs to pay off its debts in nominal terms."
                  Pox Americana does not pay off it's big creditors with money. It pays them with Treasury bonds and agency paper. What if nobody WANTS treasury bonds?
                  "While the Bid to Cover dropped from 2.50 to 2.46, below the 2.49 six auction average, what was surprising was the sharp drop in foreign, "Indirect" bidders, which slumped to just 53.2% of the final award, down sharply from 66.2% in March and 66.6% six month average. "
                  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...easury-auction
                  OK, so foreign bidders seem to be running away. Will some mysterious buyer drop in and buy up everything? Is that a thing of the past?
                  Powell wants to raise rates to attract foreign capital. Never mind that rates above <3.4%> will crash the domestic economy.
                  America just has too much debt.

                  Every Working American Owes $ 1.5 Million
                  https://www.goldbroker.com/news/ever...5-million-1226
                  Here is a graph of margin debt vs the S&P 500. You can see that it has rolled over and headed down. Just as it does before every recession. Just like in the '29 crash, too much credit was advanced in the stock market. The unwind will be faster this time.
                  https://d3hxt1wz4sk0za.cloudfront.ne...ves.png?x65756

                  "Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced more debt every single year since 1957. Despite incessant claims to the contrary, even the Clinton Administration saw an increase in the Federal Debt every single year."
                  Hey, the bureaucrats need a LOT of money.
                  "he federal debt would decrease as a percentage of GDP until 1974. However the debt was never paid down and debt growth accelerated once again after 1974. Its absolute value has increased every year since 1957, now standing at $19.9 trillion or 105% of GDP."
                  In total, the US has run a cumulative $12.3 trillion in deficit spending since 1947. During the same period of time the US has paid $12.5 trillion in interest expenses.

                  "As the charts below show, if the US government had stopped borrowing and saved its surpluses, no federal debt would have been needed between 1947 and 2016 to meet actual program expenses. In fact, today we would have a $200 billion in a rainy day fund and no debt. Instead we have a federal debt of $19.9 trillion and massive budget deficits. Let that soak in for a minute."
                  "The US has been paying an average of 1.7% of GDP every year since 1947 in interest expenses on the federal debt, more than enough to cover its deficits. The US federal government has fallen into a trap of borrowing to pay its debts."
                  YES, but, the bankers love us.
                  "It may sound crazy but the US interest expense is the very reason we have a federal debt."
                  The US Federal Debt - A Losing Proposition - The Sounding Line

                  Because of various factors, Americans had a high standard of living after WW II. We had all the necessary resources and most of the manufacturing capacity. The '60s were the high point of our standard of living. The R.O.W. rebuilt their manufacturing. The cost of international shipping fell. This cost went off a cliff when containerized shipping too off. Everybody could underbid us. The banks just extended our credit terms and we coasted along. we have reached the point where debt service is eating up too much of our income.

                  4/11 Stocks haven’t seen this much volatility since the financial crisis – CNBC
                  4/11 Volatility following bear’s script for 60% tumble in stock market – MarketWatch
                  4/11 Wholesale inventory build continues as retail sales flounder – Mish

                  My wallet floundered also.
                  4/10 Trump is sparking the crisis needed to fix unfair global trade – MarketWatch
                  Someone is confused. What looks like a big roll of fuse is actually,,,, a big roll of det-cord.

                  4/11 Wall St’s connection to FBI’s raid on Trump’s lawyer – Phil’s Stock World I'm shocked, I tell you.

                  When Shell got the very first lease to explore for oil, they had to pay in silver. Abdulaziz personally counted it out. In the '70s, we put a gun to the head of Saudi Arabia and told them that they were selling oil in dollars only. They spent 10% of their budget on arms. They also recycled their oil money into U.S. treasuries. Jim Willie said that they also bought a lot of gold and that the English and American bankers stole same gold.

                  "USGovt gold lease reneged upon followed by massive dumping for Fannie Mae bonds which resulted in the Lehman failure and Chinese confiscation of the JPMorgan HQ property with mixed USFed monetary policy like Operation Twist, the absent gold reserves for the USGovt all stolen by Bush & Clinton & Rubin,"
                  The Chinese got the biggest gold repository in NYC.
                  GOLDEN JACKASS.COM - The Golden Jackass Knows Gold, Currencies & Bonds"
                  The Saudis now seem to be on the wrong side. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/0...-Saudi-Arabia-

                  Iran is changing their reporting currency from the dollar to the Euro.
                  http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/0...ting-currency-
                  The U.S. GOV puts out all the BS statistics not to convince Americans. it puts out rosy forecasts to keep foreign buyers coming to treasury auctions.
                  Last edited by Danny B; 04-16-2018, 04:04 AM. Reason: spellign

                  Comment


                  • The crash of socialism,,, once again

                    "To each, as to his needs,,, from each, as to his abilities" This is the mantra of socialism. This creates a disconnect between a person's needs and, their productive ability. Unrestrained by a lack of ability, their needs grow to enormous demands. Those with the least ability (or motivation) need the most. Those with the most motivation and/or abilities get proportionately, the least returns.

                    "The idea was that state ownership of the means of production would alleviate the so-called unfairness of an exploitative market economy and provide equally for everyone. This equitable distribution of wealth would be guaranteed by a dictatorship of the proletariat. To finance this economic idyll, socialism would use the surpluses available under still-existing capitalist regimes. That was Marx’s plan. No one asked why it was only capitalist countries that had this marvelous surplus and why it would take a dictatorship to assure its benevolent and equitable distribution."

                    "The first reality checks were conducted by two Austrian economists, F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. They rightly pointed out that the complexities of a modern economy and the variables of market forces could not be planned and predicted by a group of appointed technocrats.

                    Hayek and von Mises were proven correct as, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the Soviet Union encountered failure after failure. By then, Russian’s inability to feed its own citizens resulted in unprecedented famine.Over 1 million people starved to death."

                    "The failure of the Soviet Union is that socialism has its roots in failure. It is designed to fail. The great Soviet experiment turned into the Big Lie. It promised prosperity and delivered misery. It guaranteed a livelihood and oversaw the famine death of millions. The only promise socialism has kept is that it has brought about equality – an equal amount of despair to all who encounter it."
                    "socialism provides an initial illusion of success before it collapses on its own faulty principles. It’s that brief illusion that can make socialism so seductive to many who feel they are missing out on life’s abundance. "
                    " Venezuela provides a graphic reminder. It was once the fourth-wealthiest country in the world. Now, people are starving to death due to lack of food. It still has one of the world’s largest oil reserves, but it lacks toilet paper."
                    Socialism Always Ends in Disaster - Gold Telegraph

                    " The Brussels empire is crumbling before our eyes and with each and every step, the EU Commission is moving to eliminate free markets because they have been moving against the dreams of the EU Project"
                    "They obviously hate democratic votes when they go against their goals and this is why they want to go fully into the EU which has also eliminated democracy since their leaders are also all unelected running Brussels machine to subjugate all of Europe with the same goal of Napoleon and Hitler – to create the United States of Europe. They appropriately called the deal would keep Britain shackled in a ‘Hotel California’ Brexit – one where you can check out anytime but you just can’t leave?"

                    "Indeed, our models agree that the EU must be seen as an empire and the member states are just vassals no different from the Soviet Union,"
                    "Not a single empire has ever survived because centralized control and dictatorship is unable to comprehend the difference within the economic trends of its vassal state empire."
                    "the models used to analyse the risk of the fall of empires is surprisingly simple. The risk of collapse in empires is when the complexity of a central government reduces the benefits of individuals in a society. It emerges when the government sees itself as the sovereign nation and the people as the great unwashed economic slaves to be exploited."

                    "The entire project has been a con-job. They introduced the currency FIRST and believed they would gradually move to federalize Europe thereafter. "
                    "Nobody in their right mind would have begun a country with such a model. This is why the European Project is going down in flames and the very thing they convinced themselves was the real purpose, to end European wars, they have ignited the old hatreds that have existed within Europe for thousands of years."
                    "All the manipulation tactics in the world will not save the Euro. They have made it illegal to short Eurozone bonds. The currency will be next."
                    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...ting-the-euro/

                    "The entire period leading into World War I was a period of extreme socialism. This is when the world was enamored with Karl Marx. "
                    " It was this openness of global financial markets prior to the war that led to the closure of stock markets. Europe will do the same so beware. It is important to understand what took place because history will REPEAT going forward in Europe."
                    "Differences in exchange rates between countries were arbitraged according to the shifts in CONFIDENCE with respect to nations by buying and selling bonds in different markets."
                    "this is why the European governments shut down the markets. This was the check and balance based upon CONFIDENCE in their governments. "
                    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...an-revolution/

                    Draghi leaves in December. He is hoping and praying that the European bond market survives that long. Apparently NATO hopes to get a war going very soon. This would paralyse all markets. An attack on Iran would bring oil distribution to a halt. The Eurocrat socialists risk turning all of Europe into a battleground to divert attention from the collapse of socialism.
                    Socialism crashed the central planned economy of the U.S.S.R. It looks like socialism will soon crash the centrally planned economy of the Union of European Socialist Republics.
                    "when the complexity of a central government reduces the benefits of individuals in a society" This definition makes the USA also susceptible to dissolution.
                    4/12 Investors must brace for deeper pain than Trump envisions – NewsMax

                    Comment


                    • War and markets

                      Celente, "Specifically, last December we wrote in the Trends Monthly:

                      "As quantitative data proves, the price-earnings ratio to stocks are approaching 1929/dot-com crash territory. Beyond prevailing economic fundamentals, the black swan event we forecast, the outbreak of war in the Middle East and beyond, will melt down markets…"
                      That wild card event is upon us. And from a fact-based, trend-tracking perspective, not only is the Middle East on the brink of greater War, trend lines are leading to World War III."
                      "Will you have enough cash on hand if your government calls a "Bank Holiday" to prevent a run on the banks as currencies crash and fear spreads.

                      What will you do if a cyber attack hits financial systems, wiping out your digital cash and digital savings stored in banks and equities?"
                      Ready for War! Are you Prepared?
                      So, why the big push for war? The bid-to-cover ratio is breaking down. $360 billion in attempted bond sales will do that Investors are inching closer to the door. A mass default cascade would paralyse everything. Would martial law help to stabilize things? The latest bond sales might have just been too much for the markets to choke down. Obviously, Uncle Sam can't pay off his debt. Maybe the markets are afraid that he can't even service the debt.
                      4/12 CBO: Interest payments will outpace military spending by 2023 – Bloomberg
                      Rising federal debt: US budget deficit rose 18.4% in March.
                      https://finance.yahoo.com/m/d54c0482...ebt%3a-us.html

                      The federal debt is $145,000 per household. At what point will everyone desert Uncle Sam?
                      Attached Files

                      Comment


                      • Eurozone meltdown,,, markets are deaf to the drums of war

                        Things are quiet at the moment. The Eurozone was a great idea as long as it was an informal economic union. When it became a forced political union, the strain was just too much. Lawyers and politicians believe that; they just decree that something is law and, everyone will comply. Germany has a $1 trillion current account surplus. The rest of Europe has a $1 trillion deficit.
                        Killary spoke of Trump's riches and said, just think of what we could do with that money. I'm sure that Germany is getting nervous about what the socialist Eurocrats may decide about all that "excess" money that Germany has.

                        Draghi finally came out and said that he was going to print until the cows came home,,,, and then, print while the cows were sleeping.
                        "Draghi realizes he is trapped and he is trying to hold it together until he leaves so he will not be blamed for the mess he has created in the world economy after he leaves in 2019. I hate to tell him, but I do not think he will win that race out the door before chaos hits."
                        https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ll-not-end-qe/

                        OK, so what to do? What will the Eurocrats do to try to hold the Eurozone together when it will obviously crash?
                        " With the Hungary election, Italian election, BREXIT, and Catalonia, the handwriting is on the wall. The EU is crumbling from its undemocratic internal authoritarian power that refuses to yield concerning its European Project to federalize Europe. If the Euro goes, there goes Brussels. They refuse to even concede that they created a nightmare with the Refugee Crisis. Italianer left because he disagreed with the internal policies. Selmayr is known as the “Monster” and this is a desperate turn to force central power upon the whole of Europe."
                        https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...m-the-monster/

                        Here are the big food producers in Europe, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statist...ls%2C_2016.png
                        35% of the EU budget is for food subsidies. What will happen when the EU collapses?
                        4/13 CIO of largest bond fund: “We are not alarmist but it’s time to sell” – Zero Hedge
                        Global debt has hit $233 trillion. It isn't the poor people who are going to satisfy this demand.

                        It’s Pure Math – We’re Headed for a Train Wreck

                        Holter also points out the explosion of global debt. Holter charges, “It’s now $237 trillion. The amount of debt grew by $21 trillion globally over the last 12 months. That’s roughly 10 %. How much did global GDP grow? 2% or 3%, I mean that is totally unsustainable.” The biggest worry for Holter right now is escalating military action in Syria. Holter warns, “This is so, so dangerous. Obviously, you worry about a hot war because with the weapons you have today, you could have WWIII start in a heartbeat. But look at the market today. It’s up 400 or 500 points. You have talk of trade wars. You have talk of hot wars. It’s amazing the markets can hold together and ignore potential annihilation.”

                        "It wouldn’t be hard for Xi to pull that carpet out from under Trump’s feet; it would be costly for China too, but if war were the reality, the rules and priorities change. And you can bet Xi and his people have run through the kinds of scenarios many many times. They’re prepared to “withdraw upon themselves”.

                        As for the US, the ‘markets are holding on to crazy levels so far despite the threat that hangs in the air, but once the first rockets fly, and gold and bitcoin -oil?- are still available, why hold on to stocks? "
                        "And besides, which investors are going to say, hell, I feel so patriotic, I’m going to hold on to stocks that have been onvervalued for years already, just to support Bolton and McCain and Tony Blair and Boris Johnson’s fantasies?"
                        https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...-cold-markets/
                        Gold, bitcoin, oil.
                        1 day ago - The OECD Americas' drop in stocks of crude oil, NGL, and feedstocks was the largest in magnitude at 14.8 Mt. This trend was driven by the start of the United States' multi-year plan in 2017 to reduce crude oil stocks within their Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Buy a horse.
                        Paper dollars and diesel fuel will receive the most demand and, be the best stores of wealth. Gold won't shine in most circumstances.

                        Comment


                        • Minsky, subprime is back,,,Deviation amplifying machine

                          The British banker's war on Syria is on hold for a few days. We can all make money for a few days more before markets crash.
                          Charles Huge Smith has an excellent article. It is about how monetary inflation distorts all markets and, results in trade wars.
                          oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Why Trade Wars Ignite and Why They're Spreading

                          Excellent article on the Minsky Moment,
                          "In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance." Too many people trying to rent out their money.
                          "Specifically, Bianco Research defines these “zombies” as companies whose interest expense is greater than their 3-year average EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes). Currently, we face the greatest percentage of “Ponzi units” in at least 20 years."

                          "It can be shown that if hedge financing dominates, then the economy may well be an equilibrium seeking and containing system. In contrast, the greater the weight of speculative and Ponzi finance, the greater the likelihood that the economy is a deviation amplifying system." A crooked casino.
                          " if an economy with a sizeable body of speculative financial units is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will quickly evaporate."
                          "there are plenty of reasons to believe the wealth effect may be even more powerful to the downside than it was to the upside. "
                          https://thefelderreport.com/2018/04/...minsky-moment/

                          Sub-prime mortgages are back. BUT, this time is different. The won't do any NINJA loans.
                          "But it will allow its borrowers to have FICO credit scores as low as 500. The current average for agency-backed mortgages is in the mid-700s. Borrowers can take out loans of up to $1.5 million on single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums. "
                          https://dollarcollapse.com/real-esta...ge-bonds-back/
                          4/13 Wells Fargo just reported worst mortgage number since financial crisis – Zero Hedge
                          https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...nancial-crisis

                          Comment


                          • Banks weakening, no customers,,,, 1987 Déjà vu

                            Repost, Powell said that no bank is too big to fail. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jer...ard/1511884737
                            "Put simply, according to current proposals the next time a financial firm gets into trouble, the Fed won’t come running with a bail out. Instead, the FDIC will seize the bank and then use the capital from shareholders and bondholders to “prop it up” before breaking it apart into separate entities"
                            https://www.silverdoctors.com/headli...bank-bail-ins/


                            OK, so, bank investors can look at the roadmap for bank dissolution. They also know that the banks are no longer profitable. When will they start moving to the exits?
                            "However, sheer profit numbers alone won't be able to drive stock performance
                            J.P. Morgan was off by more than 2 percent in trading Friday. Wells Fargo dropped nearly 3 percent.

                            "If you take out the capital markets business and the one-time events, it shows these banks aren't doing any business, and that's the key problem," said Dick Bove, chief strategist at Hilton Capital Management and formerly of the Vertical Group. "If you take a look right across the board, credit cards are down, auto is down, student loans are down, the corporate area is mixed to down.

                            Indeed, mortgage banking revenue tumbled for both J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo. Trading was mediocre at Citigroup, while PNC saw declines in revenue and deposits.
                            Bove has long railed against conventional wisdom that rising interest rates automatically would benefit banks, and he said Friday's results validated that view.

                            "If you take these things and ask how is the core banking business doing, it isn't doing. It's not producing higher revenues, because it's not producing more loans," he said.
                            "It was wrong because interest rates do not drive bank earnings. What does drive bank earnings is what they sell."
                            JPM had a credit positive first quarter with all franchises showing healthy customer engagement," Arsov said. "This was also supported with particularly favorable performance in the consumer and retail bank
                            Yeah,,, until they default.

                            "For the vast majority of banks in the United States, they're not selling anything," Bove said. "If JPM can't sell loans because nobody is interested in buying them, it means people are not buying products"
                            No kidding,,, Maybe they are out of money and, have maxed out their credit cards
                            https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/here...he-street.html
                            If the banks have no earnings, how long before everybody exits to avoid a bail-in?

                            FED GOV is borrowing way to much. You can understand that it isn't particularly inclined to pay this back. Armstrong warns everybody to get out of GOV bonds. He warns that the State will just change the maturity dates to suit themselves. Your 90 day paper will magically become 10 year paper. This is where confidence in GOV becomes very important.
                            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...tes-and-bonds/
                            4/14 JPM credit card charge-offs surge to six year high – Zero Hedge
                            This has a bunch of graphs comparing today to the '30s.
                            https://www.caseyresearch.com/a-majo...ng-to-america/

                            "The logic is pretty straightforward from a fundamental point of view, we are at a relationship between the Wilshire GDP ratio which is almost unprecedented historically, where we have a relationship that is historically the Wilshire's 70 to a 100 percent value of GDP,” the investor told The Street."
                            The Wilshire 5000 is an index that consists of all the stocks that are actively traded in the United States. Following the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, Warren Buffett introduced the ratio of the Wilshire 5000 full-cap index to the US GDP as a measure to evaluate the American economy's overall valuation.

                            “So if GDP is at $20 billion or at $18 billion, that’s a descent market price. Today we are at 155 percent. The Wilshire is vastly overpriced historically against GDP.
                            US stock markets are currently passing through the same peaks they faced 11 years ago, right before the massive sell-off that triggered the 2008 financial crisis, according to Phil Town, who sold his stocks before the crash.
                            Town, who moved back into the markets at the March 2009 low, now expresses deep concerns
                            You can't argue with his timing.
                            https://www.rt.com/business/423990-v...kets-phil-town

                            Market volatility is reminiscent of the 1987 crash: Art Cashin - CNBC.com
                            https://www.cnbc.com/.../market-vola...ash-art-cashin...
                            Apr 5, 2018 - UBS Financial Services Managing Director Art Cashin said this year's market volatility reminds him of the 1987 stock market crash. "It's a good deal more volatile than almost anything else you've seen,"

                            Hong Kong Index Looks a Lot Like the Dow Before Black Monday ...
                            https://www.bloomberg.com/.../echo-o...-seen-in-u-s-c...
                            Mar 25, 2018
                            Stock Market Following EXACT Pattern of 1987 and 1929! What Will ...
                            Video for stock market looking like 1987▶ 12:46
                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-CWVVngC0I
                            6 days ago - Uploaded by The Money GPS
                            Stock Market Following EXACT Pattern of 1987 and 1929! .... This looks more like a healthy correction ...

                            Comment


                            • Willie and Fulford

                              Here are 2 articles from 2 writers who have access to uncommon information. Both article should be read in detail. Not because they are 100% accurate. Because they give you a view that nobody else has the cohones to present.
                              Longstanding Chinese War: Intrigue And Betrayal

                              https://benjaminfulford.net/

                              Comment


                              • Negative returns of increased debt

                                Things are quiet for the moment. Everybody is waiting to see what Russia does after the latest bombing.
                                https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...o-die-and-die/
                                Here is a graph of GOV spending,
                                “The government expenditure multiplier is negative. Based on academic research, the best evidence suggests the multiplier is -0.01, which means that an additional dollar of deficit spending will reduce private GDP by $1.01, resulting in a one-cent decline in real GDP. "
                                "nearly 75% of every tax dollar goes to non-productive spending. "

                                "As I noted previously, it now requires $3.71 of debt to create $1 of economic growth which will only worsen"
                                "In a word, what was a $20 trillion national debt when the Donald arrived in the White House is no longer. Now it’s barreling toward $40 trillion within the next decade."
                                "The fact that debt and deficits are rising under conditions of full employment suggests a deeper underlying fiscal problem.”
                                No, it suggests a head full of do-do.
                                CBO – "Making America More Indebted" | RIA

                                "While the unemployment rate is close to record lows, the portion of Americans who have a job or want one is also low. "
                                "People who say they’re out of the labor force on account of disability aren’t counted in the unemployment statistics, which only measure people who have a job or are looking for a job. The 13.8% of working-age adults in West Virginia who are out of the labor force because of a disability,"
                                https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disab...145316656.html
                                The IMF seems to have a problem, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnchHsgGD8&t=12s

                                Comment

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