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  • Domestic & international monetary war

    The myth of the perpetually growing economy is giving way to the reality that we are nearing the end of the credit cycle. Even Alphabet had a big earnings miss. Much of the fortunes of the upper loop are tied to the earnings of the lower loop. The lower loop, in both numbers and earnings, is shrinking away. So, what solutions are offered from the upper loop?

    Bring in several million new welfare cases will just shift the financial burden to the State. And, the State is already broke.

    Q for Armstrong, "QUESTION: Martin, if Europe and Japan have destroyed their bond markets, would it be a good idea for them to get the government out of the bond market and have short term rates be floating in the free market?
    "Get the government out of the bond market?" That's like saying, get the Pope out of religion.

    Answer, "ANSWER: What will happen is that there is already unfolding a bifurcation in interest rates with a widening spread between real rates (Private Sector) and government. If they allow government rates to float, that means they must abandon QE."
    This is denial writ large. In the last several years, the CBs pumped out / in $247 trillion. GOV has no intention of going back to the old days when it had to entice bond buyers.
    "Neither the BoJ nor the ECB is ready to admit total failure. This means that the entire Keynesian-Monetarist tools have failed and they have no economic theory upon which to manage the economy. That means the government cannot control the economy and therein lies the denial of power."
    I wouldn't jump to this conclusion too quickly. Regulatory capture will go into reverse when the State is desperate to survive.

    India hasn't really lowered their fertility rate and, problems are developing.
    "In India, the Indian Railways posted 90,000 job vacancies. 28 million candidates applied, "
    The Indian GOV is trying to squeeze out every rupee that ic can find.
    In India, the Indian Railways posted 90,000 job vacancies. 28 million candidates applied, which was about the entire equivalent of the British


    Smith writes about the wind-down of the credit cycle.
    "Both new households and new businesses are in secular decline. Goosing the stock market and GDP doesn't change this reality.
    Better guides to expansion than GDP are sales volumes, prices, profits, wage increases and sustained rises in new enterprises and households. All of these measures of expansion are stagnant, indicating that monetary and fiscal stimulus are no longer moving the needle.
    New households and enterprises drive expansion. New households buy homes, furniture, home improvements, appliances and so on, while new businesses buy equipment, hire workers and sign on professional services such as accounting, insurance, etc.
    Young people loaded down with student loans don't do any of the above.

    Rising prices are also classic late-cycle signs. To make a buck, everyone has to raise prices and cut what they can, and rising prices impacts sales.
    The first doubts triggered the decline from October to December, and the sharp rebound this year once the Federal Reserve signaled "we'll do whatever it takes" is very typical of the late-cycle topping process: price sags as doubts emerge about the ageing expansion,"
    Charles Smith, Charles Hugh Smith, Charles H. Smith, journalist, writer, author, novelist, screenwriter, wEssay, wEssays, Four Bidding for Love, Of Two Minds, I-State Lines, Verona in Spring, A Hacker's Teleology, For My Daughter, Claire's Great Adventure, Kama Sutra Cadillac, People's Party of Hawaii, oftwominds.com, oftwominds.net, financial crisis, financial meltdown, recession, U.S. economy, Hapa, Hapas, multi-ethnic, multi-heritage, multiracial, Asia, China, China's economy, How I Fell In Love With A Homeless Woman, book reviews, film reviews, Japan, advice for aspiring writers, stock market, i-statelines.com, Daz and Alex, peak oil, inflation, deflation, sustainability, housing crash, housing bubble, grow your own food, nutrition, what's for dinner at your house, Readers Journal, peak oil, Weblogs and New Media, Marketing in Crisis, Survival+, Survival Plus, Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation, Survival+ The Primer, Oftwominds.com Weekly Musings, Weekly Musings Reports, An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times, investing, personal finance, Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change, political philosophy, Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It, The Nearly Free University, the emerging economy, Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, jobs, careers, A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All: The Future Belongs to Work That Is Meaningful, Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform, Of Two Minds Essentials, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege, Money and Work Unchained, The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher, Pathfinding our Destiny, Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic


    Globalized capital flows were necessary for globalization. Co-ordination by various CBs was also necessary and, co-ordinated by the BIS. We made war on any State that was not a member of the BIS because we didn't want any holdout upsetting the global apple cart. It was also necessary to make a war on gold by creating the paper-gold market.
    This globally synchronized inflation / regulation created a worldwide credit bubble that was supposed to be universal and, self-sustaining.
    As we see in the EU, Greece is not the same as Germany. The same is true for many States. Globalization only benefited 6 States. How can the world reconcile vast differences in productivity with a one-size-fits-all monetary system?
    It turns out that you can't. But, since everything is connected and synchronized, The meltdown of the weakest economies injects contagion into the stronger economies.
    MAGA baby!About that dollar liquidity.

    "Dollar liquidity is falling rapidly as bank reserves are increasingly becoming more illiquid; needed to cover collateral liabilities."
    WAIT, the Chinese need dollars to service dollar-denominated debt.Banks don't hold currency.The banks are in trouble.All those dollar-denominated loans need to be serviced and, there is great demand. This raises the dollar and makes it increasingly difficult to find them. The longer we hold off QE (or hide it), the more that the dollar crashes other currencies.
    ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

    That "boomerang" is going to wipe out Europe before it returns here.

    Comment


    • Unfolding monetary destruction of Europe,,, MMt tug-o-war

      Impending poverty has made enemies out of former friends. This is NOT true of Russia because they already had their crash. No, Europe is in the hot seat today.
      Armstrong, "Unlike the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, the US bond market is the only thing trading. The Fed is not trapped as are the other central banks. At some point, the Fed will be obligated to raise rates to fight against the asset bubble, but that will then attract even more capital and push the BoJ and ECB over the edge."
      Side note,
      Armstrong, "Keep in mind that ONLY a rising dollar compel monetary reform in the USA. During 1934 Roosevelt devalued the dollar and in 1985 they created the G5 to stage an organized group to manipulate the dollar lower. All those people touting gold will rally and the dollar will crumble are clueless. A lower dollar will increase corporate profits and reduce trade deficits. ONLY a higher dollar will break the monetary system."

      Armstrong wants to see "monetary reform." I suspect that he means, "America living within it's means."

      We/ they can't very well borrow this from the private investors. They pulled out a long time ago. Everything is being financed by printing. So, everybody is in agreement. We'll just print our way to prosperity.
      The longer we wait to do this, the worse it will be for Europe.

      Armstrong, "ANSWER: The contagion will last probably 2 years at best. There was such a contagion during the Great Depression."
      QUESTION: I have been following your blog for a number of years, public and private. I read the blog concerning "European Politics." In it you state the
      https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ntral-bankers/

      I will address this in a detailed report because all economic models have now failed. This is part of the Great Unknown we have entered in Economic Theory. Central Banks are without a map and are now lost in the wilderness."


      So, we have this impending / emerging tug-o-war. The State wants to take over money creation. The bankers like it he way that it is now. ALL new money is funnelled through them. They always get a cut. U.S. FED GOV is facing $213 trillion in unfunded liabilities. (Kotlikoff) 51% of Americans receive a check from GOV.
      FED GOV can default on the bond market OR, FED GOV can default on 150 million Americans.
      Both parties want to spend lots of money on infrastructure. The money is NOT there. All the fresh money was pumped into the upper loop and caused great inflation of paper wealth. BUT, the money is stuck there. It isn't circulating . It isn't doing any good for the majority of people. MMT would inject money into the lower loop to make up for what is missing.
      The heavens will be resounding with the warnings of INFLATION. If the money is paid out for WORK DONE, it will bring back a balance back between the upper & lower loops.
      Trump has attacked globalism. The money earmarked for the infrastructure will be less likely to flow to China and outsourcing as globalism is curtailed.
      Japan spent a gazillion dollars on infrastructure without creating noticeable inflation.
      The upper loop likes monetary inflation because they get the money first. They are always ahead of price inflation. What they really don't like is, wage inflation. They don't seem to catch on to the fact that consumption is crashing because they have directly caused a crash in purchasing power.

      Armstrong clearly shows that QE did not cause inflation. What he ignores is; it offset crashing deflation brought on by automation and the spread of the global mean wage.

      Comment


      • ANSWER: I do not see this unfolding as a default. They will have to revise the system one way or another. There is more likely to be a huge split in interest

        Armstrong has NO imagination if he believes that FED GOV will not be able to create a work-around for the reluctance of private money to buy GOV bonds.


        Oil has a way of changing people's perspective and morality.

        You can buy a LOT of politicians for $2 billion.


        Sure thing dude.


        WHILE consumption is falling. Sure thing dude.

        No kidding. 1/3 of them live in their parent's basement.


        Another reason to stiff the bankers.

        The paralysis of a deer in the headlights.
        Lastly, Steven Spielberg Calls for Mandatory Holocaust Indoctrination in US Schools

        Comment


        • The fed is dead

          Old Central Bank Collapse- New Economy Coming

          [VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBizAPQoKFE[/VIDEO]

          Comment


          • The red dragon brings us MMT

            That's a good one BroMikey. Trump is old and, a billionaire. What could you possibly bribe him with?

            Ray Dalio runs the largest bond fund in the world.
            Ray Dalio had a program written up for his fund. AI makes ALL decisions.
            Here is what Ray Dalio has to say about the future;
            Dalio: "Like It Or Not" Central Banking Is On Its Way Out; MMT Will "Inevitably" Replace It
            He must have been reading this blog.
            "Dalio's essay appeared to set off a wave of wealthy capitalists talking about how "capitalism is broken", placing him at the forefront of a trend that could have profound implications for American politics as Wall Street struggles to confront the rise of populism on the right and the left."
            "This time around, Dalio argued that, whether we like it or not, the US will eventually be forced to embrace MMT, this has become "inevitable," he said. Central banking as we know it (which, thanks to rampant money printing in the post-crisis paradigm, has already moved closer to the MMTers ideal) is doomed to eventually collapse under its own weight and unpopularity. In other words, sooner or later, the people will demand MMT, once inequality gets bad enough. "
            So, what constitutes "bad enough"?

            "Once the public has accepted that money printing and interest-rate cuts aren't doing enough to distribute wealth more equally (as we've pointed out many times, the Fed's unprecedented post-crisis easing has been the primary driver in the expansion of economic inequality that Dalio finds so troubling), policy makers will be forced to accept "monetary policy 3" - or MMT."
            "Accept", nope, embrace. It is their salaries that are on the line.Classic QE is a mechanism of pumping money into the private banks so that WE can borrow it and spend it. I guess that the idea of mass default never entered their minds.

            "Dalio recommended a closer collaboration between fiscal policy and monetary policy. Now, he's taken that a step further and advocated placing the monetary policy reins into the hands of elected officials (one of the key tenents of MMT).

            For what it's worth, Dalio acknowledges that this could present a conflict, and that if we embrace MMT, it will need to be done in a way that limits the control of politicians to enact self-serving policies (something that, as far as we can tell, would be extremely difficult)"
            ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero


            So, where did all of this come from? China and India set the global mean wage. But, that isn't the end of it.
            Notice how all the CBs are stuck on ZIRP?
            Fracking has lost $200 billion and, nobody is crying.
            The West is stuck on ZIRP. WHY?
            Subsidies and interest-free loans in China rule the day. Our finance costs are very HIGH. 50% of the cost of everything that you buy is for finance. 19% for trash collection and, 87% for public housing. Apparently, China has set the global interest rate.
            The west has flooded the system with hundreds of $trillions,,,,, and still expects all this liquidity to earn interest.

            China flooded the system with hundreds of $trillions BUT, it went into productivity and NOT into instruments. Much of the liquidity was channelled into state owned enterprises.

            So, the West has high finance costs and, the East holds them down. The West is constantly talking about ZIRP & NIRP. CHINA implements a form of subsidies that could easily pass for MMT. The West can't compete because of it's high overhead / finance costs. The West needs to clobber the bankers to be competitive in global markets.
            This is Keynesian "euthanasia of the rentier".

            Comment


            • ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero


              The cheerleaders are out in force but, the reality is dreadful.


              India Boycotting China's Belt and Road Project Due to 'Sovereignty Concerns'Credit Bubble Bulletin : Weekly Commentary: Transitory Histrionics

              "Goldman Sachs Bank USA, a taxpayer backstopped bank that is Federally-insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has 354 percent total credit exposure to capital. The bank has $32.5 billion in risk-based capital versus $40.3 trillion in notional (face amount) in derivatives."
              Fed's Powell Says Financial Risks Are “Moderate”; These Charts Don’t Agree


              So, various states are getting ready to demote their Central Banks in favor of MMT. This would reflect on ALL GOV bonds. Russia already had their crash and, is ion very good shape financially. They have quite a bit of income from oil & gas. They don't want to lock it up in any kind of paper because they see the crash looming. They have a better idea.
              https://sputniknews.com/business/201...ral-bank-gold/
              “There is no money in monetary policy”... The Federal Reserve wants you to think it controls the monetary system, but it doesn’t...

              Comment


              • QE to MMT,,, contagion risk,,,, gold

                It's pretty quiet at the moment. We seem to be in a transition where bankrupt nations abandon QE in favor of MMT. This is a not surprising response to the poverty that has been brought on us by crony capitalism. Here is a vid of a 12 y.o. Canadian girl perfectly explaining how Canada was very prosperous. The bankers convinced the GOV to give up their national bank in favor of a Central Bank.
                Victoria Grant shows the numbers. Canada was very prosperous until it got a Central Bank. The story of the FED is similar,,, not the same. Canada did not go around the world trashing dozens of nations for profit.


                The vid is from 6 years ago. Not surprisingly, Canada has not switched back to a public bank. Canada is still deep in debt.
                JFK threatened the survival of the FED by printing U.S. notes,,, as opposed to FRNs. He was killed just a few months later. LBJ stopped the printing 11 days after his death. POX Americana has been going around the globe for years, trouncing any nation that is not a member of the BIS.
                North Korea is not listed on Wikipedia. In 2000 CE, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran were listed as not having a central bank.
                Well, shoot. They should get a war to convince them.

                The CBs have bankrupted the world. Any effort to oust them using MMT will be quite a fight.

                The economist Lawrence Lindsey served on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1991-1997, and was the Director of the National Economic Council in 2001-2002 under George W. Bush. In 2007, Lindsey reportedly called himself: a card-carrying member of the brotherhood of international central bankers, and once a member always a member; all for one, and one for all. In 2011 (while the dollar was dropping badly in value) he said: "I'm sure we'll do it again [the gold standard]," adding, "probably in the next ten years.""
                The supply situation with physical gold is still acceptable, but in silver, Swiss silver refiners are confirming the supply is tight. Is the Maginot Line close?




                Everybody and their brother has been juicing up the markets to keep confidence going. There is great risk that our lack of a permanent money supply will cause a situation where a fall just won't stop. How do you buy imports if your currency and bond markets have been trashed. That is why China and Russia have maxed out their gold supply.

                The BIS has brought STRONG control and STRONG centralization. At the same time, this has brought the possibility of equally STRONG contagion.

                When Iraq had a forced currency changeover, we flew in 747s loaded with the new currency. Any kind of currency collapse in a big, developed nation would require some very strange programs.
                If all the bond markets die in unison, paper money will be the only thing moving. I expect that the bankers will rebel and trash the system if they can't prevent MMT.

                Comment


                • Comment


                  • The company store

                    We all know that we are getting poorer. The mechanisms that are used to fleece us are clearly explained here.
                    The scam enabled by today's financial ““markets”” coupled with lots of easy cheap credit flowing to big monied interests is every bit as egregious as the company store of old; only today’s victims are mostly blind to the way that the system is rigged against them. Run this scam long enough and one day we'll discover that the banks and their proxy agents -- private equity funds, hedge funds, endowments, and family offices, etc -- own all of the productive farmland, all of the mines, all of the oil wells, all of the timberland, and every other means of primary wealth production.

                    Trump and company did a tax break to juice the economy a bit.
                    Downside revisions have wiped out the benefits of the tax cut.

                    "Despite the rise in expected earnings in 2020, the peaks of those expectations (which are predictably about 33% too high currently) are all lower than the 2018 earnings peaks."



                    Trump doesn't want a deal,,, he wants a meltdown.

                    Yep, that's the big question.
                    The Chapwood Index,,, the true cost of living.
                    Welcome To Chapwood IndexThe Real Cost Of Living Increase Index - Chapwood Index - The Real Cost of Living Increase Index Vs Consumer Price Index
                    A quick note on how to tell if your bank is safe.


                    Technocracy, https://www.technocracy.news/technoc...t-nationalism/
                    Just in case that you had illusions that the system is fair;
                    Blocking payments to individuals or groups by financial service firms impedes freedom of speech in a free society, journalist Ben Swann has told RT, following reports that MasterCard is allegedly on course to censor the far-right.

                    Comment




                    • It's the same story all around. The currency inflation forced by the upper loop made our wages inadequate. So, they extended out the terms of our loans. When that became inadequate, they forced down the interest rates to keep us buying. Now, they aren't making any earnings.

                      O.T. wash it or,,, lose it. https://www.rt.com/news/457606-bolso...aign=Miximedia


                      As I mentioned before, Trump wants a meltdown, NOT an agreement to maintain the status quo.

                      "The past year has been immensely successful for the war industry, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). According to its newest report, released on Monday, global military spending went up 2.6 percent to reach its highest level since at least 1988, when researchers began tracking the data."
                      The world has spent $1.8 trillion on its military in 2018. The US is leading the charge, while some of its NATO allies are also buffing their war budgets citing the Russian threat despite Moscow decreasing its military spending.


                      HRC has no future as a singer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wic4KrQppBc
                      Youtube does censorship,,,, youtube loses money.

                      Comment


                      • All the numbers,,,paving the way for MMT

                        Sometimes I find an article that doesn't need any explaining and, I don't have to excerpt because it is all good info. Here is that article.
                        The Crash In US Economic Fundamentals Is AcceleratingThere are 2 kinds of price inflation. One of them is related to demand. If the population in japan is falling, what does that do to demand. Side note, Uber's Big Problem: It's A Zombie Corporation That Can't Make Any ...
                        https://www.zerohedge.com/.../ubers-...ion-cant-make-

                        As Armstrong said, there is NO roadmap for the future.
                        There are lots of proposals to get money to the middle class so that they can survive to spend another day.
                        Universal basic income would just send out checks to everybody regardless of their present situation.
                        There is a proposal for the FED to just credit everybody'd account with $80,000 or so.
                        I suspect that the banks would like to see this situation resolved with banks still in the driver's seat.


                        There are just too many insolvent pension funds.
                        Trump Says 10% China Tariff Rising To 25% On Friday Another $325 Billion In Goods To Be Taxed
                        No more Mr. Nice Guy. MAGA,,,,over China's dead body.
                        MAGA
                        just a coincidence.

                        Crime has always paid.
                        Here is a very short-sighted article that is very well written, though inacurate.
                        https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...bles-are-dead/

                        I'm sure that this will help with the trade negotiations.

                        Comment


                        • Recapitalization scuttled or no?

                          We are at a point where the bankers realize that the lower loop must be recapitalized. NOT like last time. TARP was money given to the bankers so that they could LEND it to us. Nobody was credit worthy. Didn't work.
                          This time, it will be free money to the lower loop. The upper loop already got their free money. Some flavor of MMT or UBI will be pushed out. The bankers are going to try to remain in the catbird seat,,, whatever that is. NO debt-money system can survive a shrinkage in new debt creation. The lower loop can't manage it so, for the moment, the State is growing the debt bubble. This has become more obviously, a short term fix.
                          As the State forces ZIRP and NIRP, it DOES reduce the cost of servicing State debt but, at the same time, it wipes out everything else.

                          MMT is the only thing that would allow the State to continue business as usual,,, the welfare state. BUT, there is another aspect.
                          If you search on,,, forced population reduction, it returns 182 million.
                          If you search on,,,Can't afford to have a child, it returns 133 million.

                          Japan shows the way when it comes to MMT to alleviate the demographic crash.
                          The mentality of having kids has definitely changed.
                          'Babies? An impossible dream': the millennials priced out of families
                          PSA: Millennials Feel Like Kids Because We Can't Afford To Be Adults
                          Why do people who can't afford kids make babies? - Quora
                          More women say they can't afford kids because of their student loans

                          So, what do the bankers have to say?
                          Why You Can't Afford To Hold Off On Having Kids - Forbes

                          Even the MGTOW movement is aimed at a reduction of population. The world is constantly hit by tainted vaccines.
                          So, the State and the bankers want more kids. Lots of other powers are working at reducing population.
                          Will the lower loop be recapitalized?
                          Will this recapitalization be scuttled to accomplish population reduction?

                          Comment


                          • The Iran show,,, the recession started last december


                            Just imagine what would happen if Iran were attacked. Iran says that it can close the Straights of Hormuz for months. CENTCOM says that they could open it in a few days.
                            In the last episode, the Suez canal was closed for 8 years All Iran has to do is fire on one tanker. Insurance rates will go so high that no oil will pass through. Iran has over 1/4 million heavy missiles. They say that they are attacked, they know exactly who to attack.
                            21 million barrels a day flow through Hormuz and Bab el-Mandab.
                            Iran could completely destroy Kharg island and cripple Saudi oil production for years.
                            In short, they could cut off oil to much of the world.
                            More than 100 million tons of oil are shipped each day by tankers.
                            I suppose that Pox Americana could attack Iran. When the first bomb hits, I'll be GONE.


                            Apparently, faith in renewables has been lost, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael.../#44ac9f7eea2b

                            Here is a page of charts. Evidently, the recession started in December when The FED tightened.

                            MAGA
                            The Daily Reckoning writes about the seriousness of the trade war. i expect it to all blow up.
                            Trump drops trade war bombshell... “We know from experience that this could be one of Trump’s infamous negotiating tactics, but there is a good chance that this time it will backfire”...

                            Losing money just like Uber.

                            SOMEBODY has to feed the credit bubble.
                            Turkey may soon destabilize European banks.
                            Bullion dealer GoldCore provide award winning research for anyone seeking to excellent market coverage of the gold market and world economic events.



                            WAIT, Germany is the engine that pulls Europe.
                            Paul Craig Roberts goes into the details of a Debt Jubilee.


                            Their derviative book was bigger than the entire GDP of Germany.
                            Barr, https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciar...mpression=true
                            Kunstler is just a ray of sunshine


                            "Making Sense of the $1.25 Trillion National Security State Budget
                            By William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger

                            In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking for a near-record $750 billion for the Pentagon and related defense activities, an astonishing figure by any measure. If passed by Congress, it will, in fact, be one of the largest military budgets in American history, "
                            The other side of the coin,,, this is a jobs program. It's not like we are going to pay off the debt.

                            Comment


                            • The debt merry-go-round is speeding up and, passengers will soon fly off

                              FED GOV is desperately trying to extend the good times until after the election. The plunge protection team Is hard at work to hold off defaults and, pump up what's left of the economy.
                              The financials are burdened by the necessity of making the bubble grow no matter how credit worthy the borrower is. Standards,,, we don't need no stinkin standards.

                              "As the following chart illustrates, outstanding leveraged loans have blown past their 2008 record highs and are now approaching twice that level. "
                              If junk bonds slip down a notch, the big funds must offload them. Corporations are loading up on new debt / loans to service old debt. They are most likely using the loans to pay dividends too. COME ON, november 2020.
                              "Experts without a sense of history (or, more frequently, with a desire to keep the profitable deals flowing) are quoted in the media touting this combination of high yields and low risk (a 2% default rate!) as an opportunity for pension funds and other yield-hungry buyers to generate outsized returns. The marks take the bait and the game continues. "
                              You can thank the PPT for the 2% default rate.So, just how long can the FED, PPT and ESF keep all the plates in the air?


                              They are trying to hold off national contagion while Trump is fostering international contagion and collapse. Drop one bomb on Iran and, it's game over.
                              Armstrong, "Trump wrote on Twitter over the weekend that tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods could rise to 25%. He said that a 25% tariff will soon be assigned to a selection of $325 billion in presently untaxed goods.

                              The tweet sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down sharply while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dropped to 2.48% as investors flocked to the government-backed safe-haven."
                              Yep, suck in all the money to safe inevstments in GOV.
                              Most of you know that Germany was financially raped by the Treat of Versailles. At THAT time, Keynes said that the treaty would lead to another war. Germany has a $1 trillion account surplus. The rest of the Eurozone has a $1 trillion deficit. Everybody wants to hitch up German productivity to pull the European cart. Germany was NEVER GIVEN a vote on joining the Eurozone.

                              Is it any surprise that Germany is looking to link up with Russia. German productivity linked to Russian raw materials is what the West fears most.

                              Comment


                              • Bond manipulation

                                I'll start with the easy stuff.

                                Gundlatch says that "The other takeaway from Gundlach's presentation is implicit, not explicit: this is not a good time to be holding equities,"
                                What do you expect from the bond king?
                                He goes on "Gundlach's basic argument is that the elevated level of debt in the U.S. economy--both government and corporate debt--makes the bond markets much more vulnerable than in any time in this expansion to heightened default risk"
                                So, both stocks and bonds are unsafe.

                                "Gundlach's analysis notes a steepening in the curve between yields for the 5-year U.S. Treasury note and the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond. What does that steepening tell us?"
                                ?We need more manipulation?

                                "As Gundlach well knows, the yield curve has always flattened (and eventually inverted) prior to U.S. recessions, and then steepened as the economy recovered from those recessions. But by looking at the 5-30 spread instead of the 2-10 spread, Gundlach has noted that the yield curve is already steepening,"
                                So, flatten that sucker and all will be well,,,,, in the garden.
                                "Japan has produced no real economic growth (ex-monetary factors) in the past 25 years and Europe's economy is currently a mess with an outlook for further slowing. "
                                MAYBE this is all tied to population growth and consumption. The upper loop would like to believe that they are independent of trifles like consumption.


                                Here is ONE paragraph from Armstrong that you must read over and over until you factor it into everything.
                                COMMENT: It is interesting how your model picks the timing for a turn in the market as of May yet it leaves us guessing as to what the fundamental will be.


                                "The ostensible purpose of stimulus was and always is to benefit the economy. Following the passage of the Full Employment Act of 1978 stimulus became an every year phenomenon. There has never been a chance that government stimulus of an economy would be of benefit. Yet, Americans of every socioeconomic class have chosen to believe stimulus was good and necessary.

                                The two major ways stimulus destroys an economy are through preventing markets from clearing and by replacing price as the means of rationing goods and services. Economic intervention did not begin in 2008 with the financial crisis. Intervention has been ongoing since the Reagan administration. We have had right at 40 years of economic intervention. That means something other than price has been used to ration resources for 40 years. It also means the process of out with the old and in with the new has been displaced. A mis-allocation of resources is not visible to the eye but it is there."
                                We NEEDED all those wars.
                                Your Punishment For Believing Lies | Fantasy Free Economics

                                Hello Mr. Armstrong;
                                "Rome was fantastic!. I find it very interesting that you hold the conference on the dates when the markets hit their peak and I come back and Monday we start the decline that you cautioned us that we could see at the conference.
                                ANSWER: Yes, I do time the conferences around the cycles. That gives us something to talk about. They are simply points where the human emotions shift. This pull back is necessary for we are treading water (i.e. time) until the consolidation is complete in order to produce the next phase."


                                MAGA, baby.
                                who is STUPID enough to even consider this?
                                Here is a graph of the Shanghai Index.

                                Trump is stepping over dead bodies.
                                ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
                                Technocrat "elites today who fear nationalism are working toward a much more alarming and damaging post-nationalist world of unfreedom and uniformity."

                                Rense, Theresa May Faces Tory Ultimatum: Pick Your Resignation Date Or We Will

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