Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Oil is in the news

Fracking has never made any profit. It was kept alive by CB money funnelled into the junk bond market. That FED money has come to an end. There are lots of strange gyrations in the oil market.
"a senior adviser familiar with the project told The Wall Street Journal referring to a draft bill aiming to designate OPEC as an illegal organization, which was introduced by US lawmakers who oppose the cartel.
Saudi Arabia’s state-funded think tank is looking into potential effects of the dissolution of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2...fect-research/

11/09 Oil drops for a 10th day, longest losing streak in at least three decades – CNBC
11/09 The oil rout just became a bear market for U.S. crude – MarketWatch
11/09 Gold, silver prices pressured as crude oil market melts down – Kitco

"The finish left U.S. oil down 20.6% from its Oct. 3 peak,"
Also, General Electric has really hit the skids.
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/oil-g...llover-parade/
"like the Emerging Market debt bust, with over $9 trillion on the line. But the focus here is on the Big US Bank Stock Index (BKX) breakdown, confirmed by the comedown in the crude oil price. The entire Wall Street banks are highly vulnerable to the oil price due to shale sector exposure. It signals the death of one or two major US banks. It signals the acceleration of the Systemic Lehman Event. The "
GOLDEN JACKASS.COM - The Golden Jackass Knows Gold, Currencies & Bonds"

[Danny B]

OF COURSE, this is all Trump's fault

David Stockman is quite the pessimist AND, quite derogatory to Trump. He writes as if Trump has full control of D.C.. He writes ignoring that Trump inherited a $ 20 trillion deficit. He writes ignoring the fact that the finance community controls much of what comes out of D.C. He writes ignoring the fact that 96.2 million Americans are not in the labor force. You get the idea. Here is a long cite.

Trump and the GOP deserve everlasting ignominy for literally ****-canning fiscal rectitude. So doing, they have completely abandoned the GOP's fundamental reason for being--- watch-dogging the US Treasury-
Trump presidency: Namely, the fact that he and the Congressional GOP have spent 20-months literally desecrating every principal that the once and former party of fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and minimal public debt ever stood for.

To wit, a $1.2 trillion new borrowing requirement for the current fiscal year is fixing to slam hard upon the $600 billion of old debt the Fed will be dumping---along with hundreds of billions more of homeless treasury paper that will be on offer from carry trade speculators getting whacked by rapidly increasing repo rates and by foreign investors getting clipped by the rising dollar and prohibitive currency hedging costs.
It was baked in the cake by ZIRP.

Financial repression sure looked easy, of course, when our monetary central planners had their Big Fat Thumbs on the scales during the last 14 years during which they collectively scooped up $21 trillion of government bonds and other paper and salted it away on their cost free balance sheets.
That is, these fools have so bludgeoned and distorted the bond markets that the latter have mutated into a coiled spring of instability. In hundreds of different ways, speculators have been buying on leverage what the central banks have been buying, and now that the latter--led by the Fed---are pivoting to QT, they will be selling what the central banks are selling in what will amount to a global margin call.

That's the coiled spring that has been implanted in the bond markets by the foolish attempts of Keynesian central bankers to improve upon the natural growth propensity of market capitalism by systematically and deeply falsifying interest rates.

So when that coiled spring of mis-pricing up-chucks the benchmark 10-year Treasury note toward the 4.00% marker, it will be all over except the shouting.
They weren't trying to improve on natural growth. They were trying to rescue the banks that failed because manufacturing left the country.
By that we mean the Everything Bubble will splatter in the casino, bringing on a fierce new onslaught of "restructuring" campaigns from the corporate C-suites as they desperately heave workers, inventories and impaired assets overboard---like they did in the fall and winter of 2008- 09---to appease the trading gods and rescue their immolating stock options.
No rescue is possible.

The outcome is otherwise known as "recession', Bubble Finance style. And once the recessionary red ink starts flowing on top of the already hideous Trumpite/GOP Fiscal Debauch, Washington's fiscal veins will be opened for the terminal blood-letting.
Armstrong did mention a collapse of FED GOV bonds.
Recently, all 16 branches of our Intelligence Community have come together to release a shocking report. These agencies, that include the CIA, FBI, Army, and Navy, they've already begun to estimate the impact of the fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency.

And our reign as the world's leading super power being annihilated in a way equivalent to the end of the British Empire, post-World War II.

And the end game could be a nightmarish scenario, where the world falls into an extended period of global anarchy.
https://moneymorning.com/jim-rickard...at-depression/
These 16 agencies war-gamed this whole thing on super computers and said a crash was unavoidable. BUT, somehow, it is Trump's fault.
They won't even notice the fiscal typhoon coming until they are engulfed by it, and then the "low interest" man in the Oval Office will launch an all-out war on the Fed, which will only make the conflagration worse.
Why not have an all-out war on the FED? It has long had an all-out war on the working man.

vibrant capitalism can employ any and all workers who volunteer their labor if the state doesn't throw up obstacles or block the way with unreasonable minimum wage laws.
RIGHT, you just have to underbid the Chinaman and the robot to get a job.
EconomicPolicyJournal.com: The Nation's Fiscal Doomsday Machine is Now Unstoppable
Trump hopes to slow the runaway train that is insolvency of the bond market.

[Danny B]

Fulford,,,The FED is on the brakes, the treasury is on the gas pedal

I'll start with Fulford. It is difficult to know just how much of his reports are true. They ARE fascinating.
Saudi Arabia to be broken up; Israel must choose between Netanyahu and Tel Aviv
"The dismantling of the Khazarian mafia control grid continues with ongoing takedown of the leadership of Saudi Israelia, say Pentagon, CIA, and other sources. In particular, negotiations are now taking place between Russia and the U.S. to divide Saudi Arabia into a Sunni zone controlled by Iran and a Shia zone controlled by Turkey, according to CIA and FSB sources.

Here is what the Pentagon had to say on this: “Karma’s a pitch, as Saudi Arabia may be dismembered for what it did to Jamal Khashoggi, and Mohammed bone Sawman (MBS) may be forced to end the Yemen war and lift the Qatar blockade, while the U.S. may find new partners in Turkey and Iran after the Global Currency Reset.”
It is true that Mohammed bin Salman has had an amazing fall. It is true that the world wants an end to the war in Yemen.

"The highest-profile of these are senior Goldman Sachs bankers arrested along with former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak for looting money from that country. One of the uses for the stolen money was to finance the Rothschild-glorifying film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/01/66319...ancial-scandal
"In any case, the ongoing slow-motion stock market collapse will continue to claim corporate victims as the new Quantum Financial System goes online, the Pentagon sources say."
https://benjaminfulford.net/

"November 8 - Wall Street Journal (Justin Lahart): "Anybody who thought the Federal Reserve might scale back its plans for future rate increases after all the recent turmoil in the stock market has to be disappointed. The Fed on Thursday left interest rates unchanged, and it didn't change much else. "
The FED is (effectively) shrinking the money supply by $50 billion a month. The reverse-leverage effect is shrinking the markets by many $trillions.
"WSJ: "Treasury Bond Auction Draws Weakest Demand in Nearly a Decade."
https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspo...damentals.html
You know what Armstrong said about the coming failure of U.S. debt.

"The U.S. Treasury, if you didn’t know, will issue $1.3 trillion in new debt in 2018. This represents a 146 percent increase in new federal government debt issuance from 2017. By our rough estimation, this number will significantly increase in 2019 and again in 2020.

But who will buy this glut of Treasuries? Not the Fed. Remember, the Fed is currently reducing its balance sheet. Not China. Remember, China, facing a trade war, surely isn’t eager to buy U.S. debt.

Without the demand of these big debt buyers yields will rise at the worst possible time; when public and private debt are at record levels. As interest rates rise, credit becomes more and more expensive. So, too, servicing existing debt takes up a greater and greater percentage of the borrowers budget."
"Rising borrowing costs will also have the effect of strangling inflated asset prices, including stocks and real estate."
11/10 US home-buying sentiment craters to second-lowest level ever recorded – IW
11/08 Seattle home prices down $80,000 from peak amid spike in unsold homes – ST
https://acting-man.com/?p=53759

11/10 New book: America now dominated by monopolies in virtually every industry – FS

The death of true capitalism was brought about by the emergence of crony-capitalism.

[Danny B]

federal Europe,,, China meltdown, not enough people

Apparently, it is desperation time in Europe. Germany has a $ 1trillion current account surplus. The rest of the EU has a $1 trillion deficit.
"In Germany, the SPD is now pushing for a revolution in Europe for all member states to surrender their sovereignty to Brussels. They are arguing to federalize Europe and thereby create an integrated Europe of one government."
"The SPD manifesto calls for a Europe without nations and borders, thus to surrender sovereignty to prevent the resurgence of nationalism. EU Council President Donald Tusk has warned against the emergence of populist and anti-integration forces in Europe and the US."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...ralize-europe/

"Chinese demand, which was up nearly 20% last year, has cooled to just 3% this year" "Some are eyeing Italy as a key scapegoat because not only is the country embroiled in a debt crisis but its manufacturing sector is about one-fifth smaller than it was in 2008."
"A recession is inevitable – both in the United States and in Europe. Unlike the last economic contraction, the ECB will be out of bullets, unless it wants to experience rampant inflation and a currency crisis. European nations are deeply in debt, running budget deficits and witnessing putrid results. There isn’t much left for these bloc members to do, except employ pro-market measures, like rolling back aggressive spending efforts, paying off the debt, and cutting taxes."
https://www.libertynation.com/europe...s-u-s-a-soars/
So, pro-market measures will bring back the millions of jobs that left the country.

"However, the media have to a certain extent turned on Macron, perhaps because he believes his “complex thoughts” cannot be grasped by journalists with their admittedly limited cognitive abilities."
"There is nothing he can do to make the elitist and gridlocked European Union more effective, nothing he can do to improve the “human capital” in the Afro-Islamic banlieues, and not much he can do to improve the economy which the French people would find acceptable. "
"Since the European Central Bank has been printing lending hundreds of billions of euros to stimulate the Eurozone economy, France’s economic performance has been decidedly mediocre, with low growth, slowly declining unemployment, and no reduction in debt (currently at 98.7% of GDP)."
80% is considered the death-cross.

"Collomb then virtually predicted civil war:
Communities in France are coming into conflict more and more and it is becoming very violent . . . I would say that, within five years, the situation could become irreversible. Yes, we have five or six years to avoid the worst. After that . "
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...icts-civil-war

"In the last week, things have gone from bad to worse but all in the future tense. Right now, there isn’t any sign China’s economy is on the verge of collapse or even contraction. But the number of negative factors which could push it that far are piling up; mostly in the monetary therefore financial system."
"The economic stats all keep pointing in this direction. China’s economy isn’t right now collapsing but that isn’t the problem. Again, what the numbers suggest is we’ve seen the best there is and it isn’t (ever) going to get any better. And it isn’t near enough growth.

There just isn’t sufficient economic momentum anywhere in the world to overcome eurodollar tightening. "
The FED is tightening and, the ECB plans to tighten in December.
"Reflation #3 was given a fair shot especially in commodity markets, and it just didn’t pan out. The screeching, emotional pleas for globally synchronized growth were never really based in honest analysis."
"the economy is stuck, which means markets and financial agents are going to realize that this if this is as good as it gets the “stimulus” panic in early 2016 didn’t actually create the economy everyone was looking for "
https://www.alhambrapartners.com/201...-freaking-out/

NOT ONE MENTION, "China's labor market: Shrinking workforce, rising wages. The country's working-age population is expected to continue to decline in 2016 after 20 million stepped out of the market in the past five consecutive years, said a leading labor expert on Saturday, China Business News reported.Nov 21, 2016"
"China's working-age population, aged between 16 and 59, decreased by 5.48 million in 2017. "
"Forty countries now have shrinking working-age populations, "
How can these idiots write an article on the economy and, ignore the population?

“Central Bank arrogance is one of the main reasons why we should still be scared. As a former official at the NY Fed, Peter Fisher, recently noted, the Fed has acknowledged no failures."
“So, let’s look at the Fed’s track record, shall we? Did you know that in 105 years, the Fed has never accurately forecast a recession?
…. Or that the current running total is nine straight annual economic forecasts that they’ve had monumentally incorrect?"
"Overall global debt has surged: last year it was 217% of gross domestic product, nearly 40 percentage points higher – not lower – than 2007.”
"CNBC reports, “Analyst who called February correction says the Fed will trigger a bear market with two more hikes”:
"Mr. Powell and Ms. Yellen tell us happy days can go on indefinitely. Who are you betting on?"
"If a .44% drop equals $1.5 trillion, would investors lose over $67 trillion in a 20% decline? " "“…. A recent JPM report suggests, that the next financial crash may be so cataclysmic that the Federal Reserve may have to enter the market to buy up stocks….”
"The Fed is aggressively hiking rates, while unloading trillions in treasuries, driving rates even higher. Does that look like “very gradually” or are they slamming on the breaks while putting the car in reverse?"
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...g-market-crash

Here is an article on the future of energy that shows EVERYTHING all carefully planned out.
https://blog.usejournal.com/the-futu...y-4ade70cd21c0
Here is the hockey stick that you have all been looking for.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...Debt-Chart.png

[Danny B]

Spreading desperation

It seems that desperation is slowly setting in.
The battle of confidence. Fear vs greed.
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/palpable-sense-panic/
"Corporations have been buying back their shares since 2009 and are projected to buy another trillion or so dollars worth in the coming year. "
11/12 Swiss National Bank dumped over 1 million Apple shares in Q3 – ZH
11/12 “iPhone story showing cracks”: Apple under $200 after supplier forecast cut – ZH
11/12 Reasons to be bearish on stocks now are swamping the bull case – CNBC
11/12 Not terrified of a recession? These stocks hint you should be – Yahoo
11/12 China rate-cut chatter becomes louder as growth risks gather – Bloomberg
The working age population falls 1 million a year and, they are mystified about growth risk.

11/12 Japan PM Abe calls for public works spending plan to help economy – Reuters
They already tried that years ago.
11/12 Debt ceiling will be set to record $22 trillion, fund government to just summer – WE
So, do you think that it is time to start worrying?
11/12 Europe in panic mode over economy – Liberty Nation
PANIC is NOT a plan.
11/12 Yuan extends losses after worst week in 4 mths – NASDAQ
11/12 Euro slides to 16-month low, pound sinks as EU risks reignite – Yahoo
11/12 Italy, Brexit worries are a drag on European currencies as dollar rallies – MW

So, the dollar is rising BUT, the SNB dumped Apple. The rising dollar will wipe out everything but, nothing else will be safe.
11/12 New home inventory forecasts a recession – Ufina
With ZIRP, the banks gave us no interest on our savings. This profited them by about $400 billion a year. Interest rates are going up and, wiping out mortgage demand but, we still don't get any interest on our savings.
11/12 Real rates continue to soar while Fed does & says almost nothing new – Upfina

Malaysia wants a $4.5 billion refund from the crooks at Goldman.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...und-1mdb-deals

"He explained that America’s wealthy kleptocrats, tax-dodgers, and particularly multinational companies have been massively parking money offshore. By 2017, US multinationals have “accumulated about $2.6 trillion offshore while they didn’t have to pay the 35 percent US corporate tax,” the economist said.

Henry points out that the Trump administration has slashed that tax to about 15 percent and now they have eight years to pay it while not even being required to repatriate the money hoarded offshore.

“The new tax bill was a disaster but it did benefit the major companies by allowing them to get their $2.6 trillion back home tax free,” Henry said."
https://www.rt.com/business/443759-u...ultinationals/
Here is an excellent vid explaining every aspect of why the State and banks refuse to do anything about the drug trade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2v8uyCA9w&t=11s

[Danny B]

The bust of globalism

The British people wanted to leave the EU but, the politicians did not. The London bankers wanted free access to European capital markets.
The Italian people AND the politicians wanted a Euro exit. They are on their way.
Poland is now planning to leave. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...th-eu-by-2020/
The momentum shows that the EU bond market / project has NO future. The capital flight will only make the dollar stronger.

11/13 Sunrun installed 100 megawatts in Q3, its biggest quarter yet – Green Tech Media
11/13 US crude falls for 11th straight session, longest losing streak on record – CNBC
The fallout from renewable energy is; the low-cost producers will do OK. Fracking will just keep falling and, the debt markets will abandon it.
11/13 Funds keep dumping blocks of GE shares at an exceedingly rapid pace – Atlantic
The speed of the unwind is amazing.

11/13 Fitch finds state pension liabilities rose faster than debt – Bond Buyer REALLY?
11/12 Yuan extends losses after worst week in 4 mths – NASDAQ
11/12 Euro slides to 16-month low, pound sinks as EU risks reignite – Yahoo
11/12 Italy, Brexit worries are a drag on European currencies as dollar rallies – MW
As the Yaun and Euro weaken, dollar strength will be self-reinforcing. As the dollar gets stronger, we import more and drive up our trade deficit. We lose out on exports. Foreigners find it impossible to service dollar-denominated debt. Powell is going to run this train until something breaks. That will be the currencies of our economic competitors.
11/13 Global leaders snub Trump and his nationalistic vision – Politico
This snub is all over the news. These snubbers are a bunch of panty-wastes,,,, like Macron and Trudeau. I doubt that Trump gives the snub even a moment's thought. He and the dollar are running the show. Snubbing Trump shows that this is ALL they can do.

The globalists are pushing as hard as they can to bring world socialism. They plan to be running the show. The bankers claim that nationalism has caused ALL of the wars. A not-so-close examination shows that the bankers cause all the wars. Here is a good article about the push to socialism in Europe.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...-and-patriots/

The world is now in a debt trap. The CBs created something like $ 250 trillion of new debt. There are claims that this was done to bring on a crash. We would then all clamor for the IMF and SDR to rescue us. Here is an excellent article that is a must-read.
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/the...ences-of-debt/

[Danny B]

Oil volatility and the fallen angels

As Of October 2018, The US Is Now Energy Independent
"This number is broken down into 11.35mn b/d of crude oil and 4.57 mn b/d of natural gas liquids (NGLs" No where to store all that gas.
"With Some Tar Sands Oil Selling at a Loss"
"The larger-than-expected surge in North American oil volumes has come primarily from the Permian, Canada's oil sands,"
"according to Bank of America forecasts US crude oil volumes alone will exceed 12MM b/d in 2019."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...gy-independent

"oil prices have plunged more than $20 a barrel since the start of October,"
"Along the way, U.S. crude has posted its longest losing streak since it began trading in New York more than three decades ago. "
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/why-...ar-market.html
" Rising U.S. shale oil production will overwhelm the nation’s refining capacity, with three-quarters of the additional oil produced in the United States by 2023 shipped to Europe and Asia, according to a new study by consultancy Wood Mackenzie. "

How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking 'Revolution' That's Losing Billions
https://www.ecowatch.com/wall-street...566742237.html

"market cap of GE now is $69.5bn"
"1993-2005) at a market cap of $296bn"
"GE’s market cap peaked (ironically) during the dot com bubble in August 2000 at $594BN"
"GE is already trading like junk, and has become the proverbial canary in the coalmine for what many have said could be the biggest risk facing the bond market: over $1 trillion in potential "fallen angel" debt, or investment grade names that end up being downgraded to high yield, resulting in a junk bond crisis."
"Since 2005, BBBs have been steadily rising as a percentage of HY climbing back above the previous peak in 2014 (175%) before extending that growth to a current level of 274%. Meanwhile, the total notional of BBB investment grade debt has grown to $2.5 trillion in par value today, a 227% increase since 2009, and now represents 50% of the entire IG index. "
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...w-trading-junk
11/13 Funds keep dumping blocks of GE shares at an exceedingly rapid pace – Atlantic

11/13 Apple loses $150 billion in a week – Zero Hedge
Not much of a bounce / recovery these days.
11/13 Italy expected to defy EU request to present revised budget – Guardian
Poland, Austria and Hungary are watching from the sidelines to grab on to the Italian train when it leaves the station.
11/13 France calls for Europe to become ‘an Empire’ to rival China and the US – Daily Mail
That evil twit Macron is on his last legs. The French can thank Trump for causing Macron's mind to snap.

[Danny B]

Weapons, YES,,,clueless FED,,,Merkel's destruction of Europe

Rense;
Cost of US 'War on Terror' Will Soon Pass $6 Trillion
Pentagon Wants More Money for Lasers to Shoot Down Drones, Missiles
VP Pence said to be gearing up for all-out Cold War with China unless it bows to all US demands
There you have it. We need to spend every penny on building up the military.
US Military Could Lose Potential Conflict Against Russia, China - Report to US Congress
We don't actually want a hot war. We just want to spend as if a hot war was coming.
11/15 General Electric seeks urgent asset sales as bond fears rise – Reuters Fire sale time.

11/14 Mall owners handing over the keys to lenders before they even default – Zero Hedge
11/15 When this liquidity bubble pops, we’ll face the biggest crisis yet – Forbes No kidding.
Starbucks is axing 350 jobs so that: "“Starbucks is raising its dividend and increasing its share buyback program to return $10 billion more to shareholders by 2020 than previously promised, CEO Kevin Johnson told analysts on a conference call Thursday."
https://northmantrader.com/2018/11/13/its-coming/
AI is taking over fixed income trading.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...income-trading
"The new virtual assistant, dubbed Skynet 2.0 "Abbie 2.0", specializes in identifying bonds that human portfolio managers have missed. She can also help spot human errors and communicate with similar bots like herself at other firms to arrange trades, making humans redundant."

The FED;
"The Fed uses equilibrium models to understand an economy that is not an equilibrium system; it’s a complex dynamic system.

The Fed uses the Phillips curve to understand the relationship between unemployment and inflation when 50 years of data say there is no fixed relationship.

The Fed uses “value at risk” modeling based on normally distributed events when the evidence is clear that the degree distribution of risk events is a power curve, not a normal or bell curve.

As a result of these defective models, the Fed printed $3.5 trillion of new money beginning in 2008 to “stimulate” the economy, only to produce the weakest recovery in history.
The U.S. is now getting a triple shot of tightening in the form of higher rates, reduced money supply and a stronger dollar. At this rate, we may be in a recession sometime next year unless the Fed reverses course. We’ll see if the Fed wakes up to the danger before it’s too late."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...htening-crisis
This is a danger to the upper loop. Not so much the lower loop. Wait and see if / when the FED reverses.

Hobgoblin Merkel;
"French MEP Bernard Monot accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of ruining the bloc by ushering in 4 million migrants from Africa and the Middle East during her visit to the plenary session. He warned that the “worst times” are yet to come, when 10 million so-called economic migrants flee to Europe.

“Your 13 years of staying in power has led the European Union to an economic, social and cultural collapse. What will go down in history as a result of your policies is your compulsive and unilateral decision to open Germany for the migrants,"
https://sputniknews.com/europe/20181...ant-criticism/

11 signs of a slowing economy.
"#8 One new study discovered that 62 percent of all U.S. jobs do not currently pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle.

#10 Right now, more than half of all U.S. children are living in households that receive financial assistance from the federal government."
AND
America's fertility rates just hit an all-time low. Researchers don't know why.
11 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Starting To Slow Down Dramatically

[wayne.ct]

Relative effects

I'd like to gauge the relative effect on the consumers and the economy of oil price, money printing and import taxes as being imposed recently. I don't know that any of this is a worry in the "upper realms" but in the lower loop it seems that the tail is wagging the dog. I'll try to explain.

From the very superficial research I was able to do in just a few minutes, it seems that there is about $38 billion of imports projected to be taxed at 25%. So, thinking this is an annual figure, consumers will pay roughly $9.5 billion in additional out of pocket from whatever family budget they may have.

Now, looking at out of pocket for fuel, gas, whatever. Supposedly for a $10 change (increase) in crude oil prices, the impact on the economy is (negative) $50 billion. The price of crude, low to high and now back down has ranged about $20. It has been trending up for the whole year but has dropped about $20 in the last month or less. So, it seems the impact on the pocket book of the price of crude is 5 to 10 times that of the price of import fees.

Lastly, compare to the bloat in the "money supply". That figure is about 1 trillion or more per year. I.e. $1,000 billion. So, that does not directly impact my personal cash flow but the size of it seems to be out of proportion. For every $1 that my situation gets affected, big brother is out there giving $20 to Wall Street and the big banks. What am I missing?

For the year leading up to the midterm elections, the price of oil is creeping up as much as $20. Starting a week or so before the mid terms the price of oil has dropped the same $20. That alone is weird, but is still small potatoes compared the monetary inflation. So curious. Yes? No?

Also, one more thing. Other than a few voices here and there, everybody is focused on the edges where Trump has done this or that. What a travesty it is.

[Danny B]

December will be very bad for Europe

Dunno Wayne, I just cut and paste.

Well, everybody knows about black swans. Now, there is a new term, Grey Rhinos.
" Edwards notes that back then these "grey rhinos" were dismissed as serious threats by mainstream commentators - the same way they are being dismissed now - "in large part because they had been in plain sight for a long time, and yet the global economy had continued to go from strength to strength"
"the US and China, but Japan, the eurozone and UK certainly have glaring macro imbalances and financial bubbles that might burst at any time.'
"Two years of massive UK public sector fiscal tightening, in both 2016 and 2017, removed some 1¼% from both years' GDP growth"
Side note, the budget cuts just in London resulted in 20,000 fewer cops and, a runaway murder rate.
https://www.rt.com/uk/443833-crossbo...aign=Miximedia

He goes on to mention Italy.
"In Edwards' view, without radical measures Italy will likely never ever grow inside the eurozone (Italian GDP is barely above where it was when they joined the euro). Instead, the SocGen strategist is convinced that "Italy will leave the eurozone during the next economic crisis as youth unemployment roars upwards from the current 30% towards 50%,"

France;
"Time is running out before the EU’s make-or-break summit on the future of the euro next month. The global expansion is looking tired and fragile. Mr Le Maire said Europe’s leaders had failed to learn the lessons of 2008 and the 2012 debt crisis. They had not completed the banking union, or broken the ‘bank-sovereign doom loop’ with full help from the bail-out fund (ESM). Nor had they completed the capital markets union, or established a fiscal entity to bind EU economies closer together. “I am not being pessimistic, I am facing reality,” he said."
They were all told in the beginning that it would NEVER work.
Every major economy is close to falling into a deep hole from which they will struggle to emerge. The monetary and fiscal ladders thrust down into the 2008 pits of despair will no longer be as available next time around. "

"As noted above, while Edwards "totally agrees" with Bruno Le Maire’s realism, he doesn’t think time is running out, instead "I think time has run out."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...me-has-run-out

The Central Bankers have come to realize that gold is necessary to limit the runaway bond market created by the State in it's pursuit of freebies for everybody. Good article.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...r-many-realize

" As for the price of money, I think Powell is really in the mold of Volcker. He's a practical guy, and what he's decided to do is pretty much just to hike interest rates until the market collapses. That would indicate that pausing from this tightness is probably 5-10% below the recent low that we saw in the stock markets. If we don’t get to that level again, he's going to continue the hiking.

So you almost have a self-feeding process by which, ultimately, the stock market will have to collapse because behind the scene, the pragmatic way that Powell does his policy really means the interest rate is going up and, hence, you haven't seen your move to safety yet in terms of Treasurys."
Armstrong said that Treasuries are going to collapse.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podca...nful-reckoning
So, is Powell going until he sees the flight into treasuries?
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podca...nful-reckoning

Good read on crypto currencies, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...cryptocurrency

STRATCOM says that America needs to spend zillions of dollars on hypersonic weapons.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...cryptocurrency

We need to get away from the whole war mindset.
Nobody is going to invade America. Trans-Jordon is a different story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YDju9Ah2UM&t=302s
Defense (offence) spending is supposed to trickle down. Yes, it does but, not enough to do any good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnR84h7t5kI&t=121s
Keynes advocate counter-cyclical spending by the State when the economy cooled down. He also preferred perpetual war to keep the economy stimulated. I don't think that he every entertained the idea of the State going broke from wars.

[Danny B]

Uber parasite,,,, 3 articles

John Maynard Keynes Quote
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

Armstrong, "The entire problem with this Quantitative Easing has been the plain fact that the government is the biggest debtor. This is the same model around the world. Lowering interest rates to encourage people to borrow is absurd when the greatest impact will be upon the government. Europe is now on life support thanks to the ECB. Even if we look at the United States, every 1% rise in interest rates adds $220 billion annually to America’s deficit."

Lord Acton, "power corrupts",,,, and attracts the already corrupted.
Since the State is a non-producer, the only role left to it is, PARASITE. The parasite eventually strangles the host. The founding Fathers knew this and refused to create a democracy for America. A democratic republic has a better chance of survival in the long term. They knew that the supreme court was the weak point in their plans. It would eventually distort the balance of power until the States were subservient to the Federal Government.
So, here we are with a terminally bloated central government. The State is clamping down on civil liberties in the hope of retaining control when the default cascade hits. The genesis of the problem was when the chains of gold were removed and the State could expand the bond market without limit. This paid for lots of wars for a greater israel but, it only killed and impoverished the average American.

Powell is blowing up the stock market, probably in the hopes of driving investors into the "safe haven" of U.S. treasury bonds. Armstrong has stated unequivocally that GOV bonds will blow up. Investors can see what is happening to Japan and European bonds. It doesn't take much imagination to see U.S. bonds doing the same thing.

Paul Volker ran the interest rates up to ~21% to wring the excesses out of the system. How high will Powell go?
I found 3 articles that are too good to excerpt. If you live in Western Europe, read them as if your life depended on it.

https://qz.com/1463327/the-global-ec...ppening-today/

https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspo...in-credit.html

https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/...primacy-income

Any time that the State has the power to inflate the money supply for welfare-warfare, it will do so. America has had a LOT of help at using our Bretton Woods credit card for very expensive wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9OGs6PrPU

[Danny B]

Money vs assets,,, parasites vs workers

"Allow me to print the money and I care not who writes the laws." You know how this story goes. At the start, the U.S. dollar was gold-convertible. The dollar had positive value. It had limited issuance. For the purpose of waging war, the State demanded that the CB produce and sell war bonds. This was seen as as such a great arrangement that the State demanded that the practice continue after the end of the war. The gold-link was eventually broken to the private individual in about 1931. It was broken to foreign States in 1971.The Viet-Nam war and the Great Society were just too costly.

The U.S. dollar went from having a positive value to being just a debt-note. As a positive note, it could only be produced in limited quantity. As a debt note, it could be produced in practically unlimited numbers.
Paper money is just one level on Exter's Pyramid.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/exter...amid-refresher
It ranges from Gold to Credit default swaps.
Each level on the inverted pyramid has it’s own level of "moneyness".
ALL levels of the pyramid are considered as ASSETS.
"Are the forward thinkers of the world only now understanding that in a world with hundreds of trillions of imaginary collateral whose ultimate owner will never be tracked down"

It is more accurate to talk about the supply of assets instead of just the supply of money. At one time the notional value of credit default swaps was right at about $1 quadrillion. The money supply is actually fairly limited. BUT, with every State and corporate entity issuing corporate bonds and stocks, the ASSET supply is enormous. These assets have value because investors agree to buy and hold them.
Price inflation has been muted because there is very little increase in the money supply. The huge increase in the number of assets does not have the same affect as an increase in the money supply. Every nitwit with some kind of charter is increasing the asset supply. This spoofing and financial engineering has been profitable to many but, it hasn't helped the producing economy. It also has a finite life expectancy.

"Philosophers and economists have decried the parasitical effect of finance on productive economic activity.
Indeed, many modern economists argue that we are entering an era of “rentier capitalism,” in which financial capitalists thrive at the expense of good, productive industrialists.
And they have a point. There is mounting evidence that an ever-increasing portion of economic output is accruing to those who gain their money from unproductive economic rents
is a process that began in the 1980s with the removal of barriers to capital mobility. Global capital flows rose from about 5 percent of world GDP in the mid-1990s to about 20 percent in 2007. This is about three times faster than world trade flows.

"While UK banks’ lending to the non-financial economy rose 50 percent between 2005-8, their lending to other financial institutions rose by 260 percent.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, UK house prices were almost ten times what they had been in fourth quarter of 1979, while consumer prices increased just five times over the same period. The FTSE index increased from under 100 points pre-1980 to almost 3,500 in 2007.
Minsky moment in 2008 when lending slowed, house prices fell, and financial assets such as mortgage-backed securities and credit-default swaps effectively became worthless. Mass panic ensued when the banks suddenly found that many of the assets on their balance sheets were not really assets at all. This drove some of the world’s largest banks into insolvency — a situation from which they were quickly rescued by frightened governments.

But saving the banks couldn’t save the economy. In the UK today, we are in the longest period of wage stagnation since the 1860s. We are entering a period of zombie capitalism, in which little new debt can be created to drive growth, but there is not enough productive economic activity to pay the old debt off.
As Marx argued, each adaptation of capitalism merely kicks the can down the road. The crash of 2008 was a structural crisis of the financial capitalist model.
But government debt doubled practically overnight during the financial crisis, primarily due to the bailout of the banks. This isn’t an economic problem, but a political one.
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/09/finan...ization-crisis

"U.S. corporations have engaged in a borrowing binge since the Global Financial Crisis. Total outstanding non-financial U.S. corporate debt is up by an incredible $2.5 trillion or 40 percent since its 2008 peak, which was already a precariously high level, to begin with."
"U.S. corporate debt is now at an all-time high of over 45% of GDP, which is even worse than the levels reached during the dot-com bubble and U.S. housing and credit bubble:"
Jesse Colombo Blog | How The Bubbles In Stocks And Corporate Bonds Will Burst | Talkmarkets
Wages stagnated decades ago so, money was printed to save ALL of the corporate world. The parasitic finance sector should have downsized but, regulatory capture allowed to grow enormously.

"Now today some 18 months on even one of Britain's supposedly strongest retailer, the John Lewis Partnership (includes Waitrose) has felt the full force of the ongoing collapse of the retail sector, by announcing a 99% profits CRASH."
" the next Financial Crisis is Already underway, playing itself out not in the housing market, or the banking sector but the retail sector! This is nothing new to those who have been reading my articles for the past 4 years as I have been charting the unfolding collapse of the retailer sector right from the retail sectors giant TESCO downwards "
"Tesco was worth approx £30 billion against debt and liabilities of approx £12 billion, against today Tesco is barely worth £13 billion with debt and liabilities of approx £15 billion (debt+pensions hole).a couple of years ago Tesco was reporting profits of £4 billion, which was ample enough to service its debt mountain and waste on junk such as private jets for CEO's, but today that profit has been wiped out to just £112mln, "
Next Financial Crisis Is Already Here! John Lewis 99% Profits CRASH - Retail Sector Collapse :: The Market Oracle ::

Here is an article on making Central Banks into public utilities. The article goes on and on. This is a tired old diversion. There is one question and ONE question only. Will fresh printed money be paid to speculators OR, will it be paid to workers? If CB money is first passed through the banks, the actual producers will ALWAYS lose ground to price inflation.
Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk :: The Market Oracle ::

[Danny B]

RRE meltdown,,,margin debt

The upper lop of the economy consists of finance, insurance and, real; estate. Since anyone with some kind of a charter is allowed to create debt instruments like stocks and bonds, that is exactly what they are doing. Never mind that most of this is just debt paper. Even though stocks are supposed to be shares of a legitimate company, the company itself may be nothing but a ponzi scheme. Witness the evaporation of General Electric.
The FIRE economy meets the productive economy (lower loop) primarily in residential real estate since RRE is a large capacity store of value.

All that hot money that the CBs flooded to the speculators flowed into RRE and blew up the system in 2008. RRE was inflated by the upper loop BUT, depended on wages in the lower loop.
10 years later and, the hot money is flooding into RRE again. The number of Owner-occupied dwelling haven't gone up in many years. The prices are all inflated by speculators. Since wages are stagnant and employment is dropping, price inflation in RRE is all driven by speculation.

11/17 Why the housing market is slumping despite a booming economy – New York Times
11/16 Rising home prices and interest rates squeeze all but the richest homebuyers – NBC
11/15 Mortgage rates may hit 6% sooner, as Fed sheds mortgage-backed securities – WS

Sure, the economy is booming in the upper loop.
"The FED sheds" should be a stark warning to anyone who is paying attention. The FED is doing serious risk-reduction.

" Grant is taking dead aim at one of the biggest bubbles that has been encouraged allowed to re-inflate thanks to the infinite wisdom of our former Fed-heads: the housing market. "
"To defend that last point, JP Morgan Chase in a recent strategy paper noted that just 20% of global asset classes are generating positive returns this year, a number so low that it was only seen during the stagflationary 1970s and the depths of the Global Financial "
"Particularly stunning is the fact that one of the most important banks in the world, Germany’s gigantic Deutsche Bank, is now trading below its financial crisis trough. But, once again, there’s scant concern about the severity of the price breakdowns."

"As Grant shows, it’s also surprising that with median new home “values”* now falling on a national basis there isn’t some serious trepidation in the air. But, instead, most investors seem much more in the greed, rather than fear, mode."
It further doesn’t seem to distress the US investor class that 70% of US residential markets now have prices above where they were during the mother of all housing bubbles."
"Fed is determined to continue its unprecedented “double-tightening” campaign (both raising rates and selling hundreds of billions of bonds from its bloated balance sheet,"
The risky ones first.
"As I speculated in a recent interview with Grant, I believe the so-called Fed Put (i.e., the notion that our central bank will ride to the market’s rescue whenever it sells off) still exists. However, I also believe under Jay Powell the strike price (or the level at which it might consider reversing to its former “Big Easy” status) is much lower than most investors believe. How much lower? Admittedly, this is just a guess but I’d say 30% below the S&P’s September peak."
https://blog.evergreengavekal.com/br...urgits-plewds/

“algorithms” that are driving roughly 80% of the trading in the markets. To wit:

“When the ‘robot trading algorithms’ begin to reverse (selling rallies rather than buying dips), it will not be a slow and methodical process, but rather a stampede with little regard to price, valuation, or fundamental measures as the exit will become very narrow.”
The reason I bring this up is that, so far, the market has not declined enough to “trigger” margin calls.
At least not yet.
But exactly where is that level? "
"There is no set rule, but there is a point at which the broker-dealers become worried about being able to collect on the “margin lines” they have extended. My best guess is that point lies somewhere around a 20% decline from the peak."
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/bea...weak-11-16-18/
Powell is driving down the stock market, possibly to drive money to GOV bonds. Chances are that he will force the margin call from hell long before he drives any money into bonds.

Armstrong, "The latest hat being thrown into the ring is the European Commission is planning to enter their sanctions against Italy. As it stands currently, they have proposed disciplining Italy under EU fiscal rules on November 21st, 2018, unless the country’s government agrees to change its draft budget plan according to EU dictates. This could set in motion a drop in Italian debt which may force the ECB to buy more Italian debt or stand back and watch rates go crazy. This may also be the starting point of sending Italy into an exit position from the EU."
The EU has been a losing deal for Italy,,,, financing golden salaries and pensions for legions of do-nothing bureaucrats in Brussels. Italy is the third largest bond market in the world. They can't possibly service their debt load when interest rates go up. If the ECB starts OMT, they will have to continue it forever.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/f...018-pi-target/

11/19 Speculation rife over BOJ’s easy-money exit – Nikkei
Essentially the BOJ printed trillions of Yen to compensate for a falling birth rate and falling effective wages and, falling confidence in the future. They have finally faced the fact that printing free money can't buy confidence.

11/19 Anti-carbon revolt: massive road blocks against Macron’s diesel tax – Mish
The French GOV spends 57% of the gdp and, is highly in debt. Macron, the globalist plans to just squeeze it out of everybody. Classic parasite.
11/19 Fire-plagued CA won’t let insurers ‘cram’ through big rate hikes in 2019 – CNBC
11/18 California utility customers may be on hook for billions in wildfire damage – NYT
PG&E started the Camp fire and, has inadequate insurance. Presumably, the PUC will let them gouge ratepayers to cover the difference.
11/18 GE pensioners and stockholders contemplate the unthinkable – Forbes A bit late.
11/19 ‘OptionSellers.com’ goes dark after “catastrophic loss event” in natGas – ZH
The whole fracking industry will go dark eventually.
11/18 Passive investing madness: 50,000 stocks vs 3.7 million indexes – Mish
The algos will blow that up in a million ways.

Germany and Japan are occupied territory, make no mistake.
"According to official information provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) and its Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) there are still about 40,000 US troops, and 179 US bases in Germany, over 50,000 troops in Japan (and 109 bases), and tens of thousands of troops, with hundreds of bases, all over Europe."
Germany is rightly getting very tired of this.
https://sputniknews.com/business/201...riff-occupant/

[Danny B]

Dying FAANGS,,,downgraded bonds

Many institutional investors are forbidden by their charter from investing in stocks and bonds that are not rated investment grade. Typically, they must sell these assets when they get downgraded. There is a level of bonds just above "junk" rating that are still considered investment grade. 93% of stock market gains are due just to FED printing. The FED is now doing a "double tightening". They stopped QE,,, and shrank their portfolio.
The stock market lost more than $2 trillion in October - CNBC.com

The darlings of the stock market were the FAANGS. Facebook, Apple, Netflix, et al.
11/19 Netflix’s ‘death cross’ is the third for FAANG stocks; Nasdaq is next – MW
11/19 Dow closes down nearly 400 points as tech losses batter stock market – MW
As stocks fall, there will be a HUGE margin call for investors to pony up money. The other problem is that, many stocks will fall OUT of investment grade ratings..

"the threat to the credit market that is the downgrade of over a $1 trillion in BBB-rated investment grade bonds - most extensively in "The Next Bond Crisis: Over $1 Trillion In Bonds Risk Cut To Junk Once Cycle Turns" - with recent sharp moves wider by GE, PG&E and Ford bonds confirming that the credit market is starting to crack,"
"credit could soon blow up financial markets due to (amongst other things) the weight of US BBBs about to swamp the HY market, record levels of Cov-lite issuance and due to record high US corporate leverage."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...problems-ahead

11/19 Oil prices fall as Russia maintains wait-and-see approach to output cuts – CNBC
Yep, if Russia refuses to cut production, the continuing fall of oil will be very bad for the banks.
11/19 Brace for corporate defaults as Chinese firms are ‘under increasing pressure’ – CNBC
The Chinese business model was growth, NOT profit. The shrinking population and shrinking marketplace won't allow growth.

Here is a long vid talking about all points of the coming collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHieYyi-vxY
There are dozens of black swans circling and one of them is going to go SPLAT!
BREXIT is looking particularly nasty.
" The total volume of Non-Performing Loans across the European Union is still at around EUR 900 billion, well above pre-crisis levels," \
"2018 was the year of the perfect combination to drive banks shares higher: Confidence in the eurozone, the likelihood of rate hikes, improvement of fundamentals and earnings growth. None of it happened."
https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-euro...lion-timebomb/
Italy looks like it will ignore the dictats out of Brussels.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-establishment

[Danny B]

rollover in confidence AND markets.

Armstrong announced that today is a important Pi target. There are LOTS of candidates for major reversals.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...t-day-2018-89/

Markets have crashed,,,, confidence is still high but,,,, you know how that goes.
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/tec...ion-of-belief/

The darling FAANG stocks have lost between 40% and 20%. Do NOT worry,,, buy the dip.
https://northmantrader.com/2018/11/2...icarus-effect/