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  • Europe is toast,,, no escape

    My computer was successfully attacked. There's no heat in this office. If I turned on the power switch and, pressed start, after 15 seconds, I got a message that the device was over-heated. Both fans were on. There was other related stuff. I STILL don't know what my password here is.
    I'm running an I5 now. I'm using LINUX and UBUNTU. This has saved me before when a cyber attack window showed up. I hit power real quick and, it didn't get hold of me. My 20 year old (at least) dinosaur had a couple of organ transplants but, it was still pretty bad.

    Back to the topic of the thread.
    12/13 Fed will flood market with gargantuan $500 billion to avoid year-end repo crisis – ZH
    When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
    Armstrong; I'm going to do a lot of copying, rather than cites.
    "The countless analysts who keep preaching that the dollar will collapse have been singing the same song since 1971. They NEVER look outside the USA and simply preach how the US debt (over $20 trillion) will result in hyperinflation and the end of the US economy. They ignore the fact that the US is a tiny fraction of global sovereign debt. They also ignore the fact that there is already $17 trillion in negative yielding euro bonds out there.

    I have been warning that the USA will be the last to fall. The stress on the world monetary system will be seen outside the USA. We have seen defaults on foreign denominated debt by now in Lebanon. This is just the beginning. We are looking at a contagion spreading in 2020 on a global scale."

    "What do you think of this latest claim that the Fed will inject $500 billion for the year-end?
    ANSWER: No I cannot comment on this open blog. It is far too serious an issue and since nobody is discussing the real issue, I would be blamed for setting a crisis in motion because the governments will never admit they caused anything.

    As far as this $500 billion, yes, they are painting this as Quantitative Easing the same as it was in 2008-2009. It has ZERO impact economically. They still do not understand even what Repo is all about. At year-end, it is not just banks using Repo to window-dress their books, it is hedge funds and corporations. "
    The Fed did not lower rates BECAUSE they cannot. This Repo Crisis is all about them trying to PREVENT short-term rates from rising. They have stated that the economy is strong. This is not QE to stimulate the economy as it was 2007-2009. This is a liquidity crisis BECAUSE banks no longer trust banks and everyone is running scared to lend money for nobody knows who has exposure in Europe goes belly-up.

    This is NOT QE, and it does not have the same economic consequence. The Fed has been buying T-Bills desperately trying to PREVENT short-term rates from rising because banks no longer trust banks – PERIOD!
    QUESTION #1: Would you comment on Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse calling this QE4 for year-end.

    QUESTION #2: Martin,

    You said that the Fed didn’t raise rates a few days ago because the Repo crisis won’t let them. Interestingly, Trump hasn’t blasted Fed chairman Powell for not lowering rates more over the past few weeks. Do you think Trump is aware that the Fed can’t lower and that’s why he’s hasn’t attacked Powell lately on Twitter?
    This is by no means a “fourth version of quantitative easing” when the US economy remains strong The finance sector is strong but, the rest of the economy is screwed.
    "It does seem to me that he is trying to deflect people from looking at Europe and pointing his finger at the Fed. The Fed is compelled to be the man in the middle because banks have withdrawn from lending to banks because they do not know who has the risk with Europe."
    "This is not Quantitative Easing, which is lowering interest rates and stimulating the economy. The Fed is trying to prevent short-term rates from rising because there is a liquidity crisis created by banks refusing to participate in the repo market."
    The BS runs deep here. QE is, by definition, Printing liquidity. It has no direct stipulation on interest rates.
    "The unannounced meeting between the Fed and Trump was a briefing on the Repo Crisis BECAUSE the real crisis cannot be discussed publicly. I have not been getting much sleep lately. This is a very serious crisis and all the BS on TV of these pretend analysts giving their two cents is really amazing. They are making up stuff and speculating because they have no idea how the global economy truly functions and they do not advise institutions. They do not understand the risks for year-end and calling this QE proves they do not understand what is taking place."
    The FED intends to inject $500 billion. What part of money printing do they NOT understand?

    I appreciate the severity of this crisis. Requests to attend board meetings I have only been available by phone. I simply cannot fly all over the place. I really wish I could just come out and spill the beans, but this situation is too critical at this point and I fear that if someone does not blink here, we are headed into a global political contagion.
    This is why a deal had to be tentatively arranged with China on trade. There are politicians out of the loop and this whole thing which is way too far above their heads to even grasp an understanding."

    Everybody is chasing yield. America has yield. If Powell lowers interest rates, yield and, fleeing capital don't come here. If he prints money to keep the banks solvent, investors stick around. BUT, at the same time, American markets suck capital OUT of Europe and China. The money printing isn't especially inflationary if it stays in the upper loop. Much of the money (contrary to Armstrong) is used to satisfy counter-parties to failing derivatives. NOBODY will talk about this.
    I don't know about blinking but, China is starting to fold.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china...043514293.html

    Comment


    • The message seems to be; $500 billion from the FED won't stop the repo crisis

      Tough times everywhere.
      https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...get-shortfalls
      "According to Roey Tzezana, a future studies researcher at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, technology will continue to advance, and therefore, so will automation. As this happens, the gap between the wealthy and the poor will increase as the middle class fades into nonexistence.
      According to Haaretz, this is the grim reality Tzezana sees for our future: one without jobs or purpose. He argues that the jobs that will survive automation will be lower-paying, unskilled laboring jobs. And since machines won’t need to be paid, companies can profit without having the overhead costs of labor. But what most of the futurists fail to mention, is that without jobs and some sort of income, people won’t have the money to help corporations profit anymore"
      Recently the Boston Consulting Group released a report on global trends in future jobs and found that the jobs of the future are ones such as waiting on tables, cleaning, child care, and nursing care – and the groups of job skills with the highest rate of growth "

      "Now factories are returning to the United States, and this doesn’t help anyone because those jobs are not back; they are now automated, he says.

      “This is not the problem of just one or two people,” Tzezana continued.

      “When a lot of people experience this drop, we are talking about an economic crisis: It is not just a problem only for those who can’t pay their mortgages — 60% of the sales of most companies are to the general public and if the public can’t afford to buy a new computer, the entire economy enters a crisis."
      https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...average-person


      "In January, Oxfam reported that the world’s 26 richest individuals owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.

      Billionaires grew their combined fortunes by US$2.5 billion (A$3.66 billion) a day in 2018, while the relative wealth of the world’s poorest 3.8 billion people declined by US$500 million a day."
      The world is in worse shape than during the GFC
      The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08 was a period of intense uncertainty
      https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...ikely-be-worse

      "In other words, Powell echoed the general market consensus that just because nothing bad has happened to the repo market since September, that things are under control and there is nothing to be concerned about, and certainly no need to intervene proactively. Which means that Pozsar's worst case scenario is effectively greenlighted, one in which the Fed will have to react to turmoil in the market if and when the reserve shortage strikes in the coming days. As for whether the Credit Suisse strategist is correct, earlier we laid out the two key things to watch into year end to see if the doomsday prediction is coming true.

      So who will be right: Powell or Poszar? The answer will be revealed in the coming days."
      https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/po...-repo-doomsday

      We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe - Scientific American
      Well, it's official. Scientific American, the once-reputable publication, will publish absolutely anything. Just like The Huffington Post or InfoWars.

      FCC announces $9 Billion fund for rural 5G deployment

      12/13 The Japanization of the European Union – Mises Institute
      12/13 Chart shows Fed funding almost all Treasury issuance – Wall St Examiner

      Th Japanization of America
      12/13 US business debt exceeds households for first time since 1991 – Bloomberg
      12/13 Ticking time bomb of record high corporate debt – Mish

      The ticking is getting much louder.
      12/12 The global auto market collapse in 4 charts – Zero Hedge
      we don't need no stinkin cars
      12/13 Democrats agree on one thing: they’re very, very nervous – NY Times
      Yeah, they're on a train loaded with explosives and, no brakes.
      12/13 Water is warming along the West Coast, and the fish are starting to disappear – MIN
      California doesn't get hurricanes because the water is too cold to support them.

      Comment


      • No future for millennial workers,,, disappearing cash

        There has been a sea-change in the West. Socialist and communist groups all over the West have been ousted.
        Socialist Jeremy Corbyn to step down as leader of Labour
        How Labour Lost the Culture War - The Atlantic

        BoJo's Crushing Victory Shows People Are Rejecting Communism - 2020 Dem Donkeys Are Toast - Can Hillary & Pete Pull The Party Back From The Bolshevik Abyss?
        Impeachment Ringleaders Quietly Panic As Moderate Democrats Bail
        "Fu*k Boris" - Antifa Protesters Clash With Police Outside Downing Street As Furious Leftists Revolt
        12/14 Labour voters defected over Corbyn’s leadership, not Brexit – Independent
        12/14 Boris Johnson’s landslide UK win sends socialist chill through 2020 Dems – FO


        All democracies eventually fail. When the people learn that they can just vote for a living, rather than actually working, They break the bank.
        "Fu*k Boris" - Antifa Protesters Clash With Police
        Outside Downing Street As Furious Leftists Revolt


        THEN, there is the other side of the story.

        https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...lennial-worker
        Pay Attention: Robots Are Killing The Millennial Worker
        Socialist candidates may be losing out but, it is painfully obvious that the economy comes to a stop when the rich squeeze all the juice out of the middle class. Consumption has only been upheld by GOV spending. If GOV does indeed collapse, the banks are going finally get what is coming to them.

        "According to Roey Tzezana, a future studies researcher at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, technology will continue to advance, and therefore, so will automation. As this happens, the gap between the wealthy and the poor will increase as the middle class fades into nonexistence."
        "According to Haaretz, this is the grim reality Tzezana sees for our future: one without jobs or purpose."
        https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...average-person
        Life without purpose or family is the future of the millennials.

        No matter what you hear, China and China tariffs are not going to work out.
        https://www.peakprosperity.com/bubbles-are-brutal/
        12/14 China’s hard-liners win a round in Trump’s trade deal – NY Times
        Trump is playing China like a yo-yo. They can't make any plans for productivity because he changed his plan every week.
        12/14 How Canadian debt slaves compare to American debt slaves – Wolf Street
        12/14 Half of American families have zero in retirement savings – MyBudget 360

        GOV told us that GOV would be our life-long security blanket. Now, GOV is broke and, we lost our blanket.

        12/14 San Francisco spends almost $30 per flush for public toilets – Sovereign Man
        China's "Moment Of Reckoning" Arrives: $38BN State-Owned Giant Announces Largest Dollar Bond Default In Two Decades
        MAGA, baby. Too bad that Europe will be collateral damage. They just got too socialist.
        Repo-Market Turmoil: Are We Staring Into The Financial Abyss?
        ". in their efforts to “save” the world economy, central banks have created a monster: a dysfunctional, extremely-speculative and highly-leveraged financial sector."
        Yep, save all banks, no matter the cost to the rest of the economy.

        Rubino Exposes The Central Planners: Desperate Acts By Clueless People
        ""Everything will be on the table and none of it will work..."
        When asked about the $1/2 trillion of year-end stimulation, Armstrong said that it wouldn't work.
        Canceling Debt And The Debate Over 5,000 Year Old Economic Policy
        "Could debt cancellation really create economic stimulus without causing a massive moral hazard?"
        Everybody who is owed money would get the shaft.
        Diamond Crisis Worsens As De Beers Signals Rough Times Ahead
        De Beers has spent the back half of the year slashing diamond prices...

        Millennials have no interest in diamonds and, little interest in gold.

        Greece To Help Tripoli 'Block Turkish Ships' As Libyan War Spills Into Mediterranean
        "I will sink your ships myself," Haftar's navy commander threatens Erdogan."
        That is definitely going to be a big problem.
        Americans Are Lonely, Miserable, & Depressed: The Legacy Of A Society That Has Rejected Family, Faith, & Patriotism
        That problem is coming more into focus as we lose GOV support.

        As. I've mentioned, ad infinitum, a dollar bill is a powerful instrument. It is a bearer bond and, money of zero maturity. It is illegal to mail U.S. currency. Logan airport has cash sniffing dogs.
        Hundreds Of Billions In Gold And Cash Are Quietly Disappearing
        "Something strange is going on: at the same time that central banks are injecting $100 billion each month in electronic money to crush volatility and ramp markets, a similar amount in hard physical currency and precious metals is literally disappearing."

        "As Goldman notes, "CBs globally have been buying gold at a very strong pace" and "2019 looks to be a record year for CB gold purchases with our target of 750 tonnes combined purchases likely to be met.""
        "But it was another, even more bizarre discovery by Goldman, that caught our eye: according to the bank there has been a whopping 1,200 tons, or $57 billion, of "unexplained" gold flows in just the 3 years.
        "And another remarkable observation, or rather lack thereof: "One can see that since the end of 2016 the implied build in non-transparent gold investment has been much larger than the build in visible gold ETFs (see Exhibit 18). This is consistent with reports that vault demand globally is surging."

        "In other words, Goldman points out that just over the past three years, there have been tens of billions in gold flows which have mysteriously and inexplicably disappeared from the official record, yet which are most certainly taking place behind the scenes as the world's "top 1%" brace for a major shock.

        But it's not just gold that is disappearing: according to the WSJ, so is the world's cold, hard cash. Some Australians are burying it. The Swiss might be hiding it. The Germans are probably hoarding."
        "Indeed, while banks are printing more bank notes than ever and, these seem to be "disappearing off the face of the earth" and nobody knows where or why. or as the WSJ notes, "central banks don’t know where they have gone, or why, and are playing detective, trying to crack the same mystery."

        We do know one thing: of the $1.7 trillion in US dollars in cash circulation in 2018 (up from $1.2 trillion 5 years prior), the vast majority is offshore, where it is quickly and quietly disappears as the world's second best physical store of value (after gold of course). A Fed economist, Ruth Judson, wrote in 2017 that about 60% of all U.S. currency, and about 75% of $100 bills, had left the country by the end of 2016 — for a total of about $900 billion in U.S. dollars kept overseas."
        Few are as perplexed by the fate of the missing cash as the German central bank: according to the Bundesbank more than 150 billion euros are being hoarded in Germany.

        This has led the European Central Bank, and others, to ask the public for help.
        “Everyone says that they are not hoarding cash but the money is clearly somewhere,”
        "Meanwhile, with a financial crisis looming - and getting closer by the day - for some countries, such as New Zealand, making money disappear is becoming a national pastime."
        The bank could only identify the whereabouts of around 25% of New Zealand’s cash. The rest, of about 75%, has disappeared. “We can’t fully explain why holdings of cash are rising"
        It is ALL about confidence.

        .rather than addressing the reasons more money hasn’t helped in the past, the union is prepared to spend $2.2 million of teachers’ hard-earned money on a political campaign to hike taxes...
        The blob State.

        Comment


        • World economic collapse might be closer than we thought,,, FX

          Gresham's law states that the "best" currency will go into hiding. You can see that has ramped up in the last year. Armstrong calls for a crash of the world economy January 18. So, what gives? Why don't we see more visible signs that we are just weeks away from collapse? The REPO crisis was an indication that there just wasn't enough liquidity in the system. There is lots of liquidity, it's just that nobody will lend to troubled banks and funds. Warren Buffet has; $128 billion and growing: Warren Buffett's Berkshire cash puzzle

          Even at 10%, he wouldn't risk his cash.
          What has happened is that too many big funds have their cash locked up in illiquid
          assets. They need cash for day-to-day business. They don't trust each other and, won't loan. CONFIDENCE
          The REPO market is frozen solid.
          https://gnseconomics.com/en_US/2019/...nancial-abyss/
          "The global financial crisis (GFC) or “Panic of 2008” was a shock not just to bankers, but also to economists—not to speak of ordinary citizens. It was a massive failure of risk-hedging in the financial sector, combined with both regulatory failures and dangerous and deeply-embedded incentives. We summarized the factors leading to the crisis in our blog: 10 years from Lehman and nothing has been fixed.

          While the extraordinary measures used to stop the crisis from mutating into a systemic meltdown can be considered appropriate, the fact these measures were continued cannot. "
          regulatory failures Yes, regulatory capture
          The banks should have been let go in 2008. This didn't happen and now, confidence and trust are things of the past. Same with morality,,, GONE

          December 12 2019
          This is an excellent vid explaining the nuts & bolts of the systemic problems.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZvVD8M3k54
          He projects that the liquidity shortage will move into the foreign exchange FX
          markets . That may not matter to you but, it is very important to worldwide trade.
          According to the Bank for International Settlements triennial report of 2016, the foreign exchange market cap averaged $5.1 trillion per day.

          OK, so the FX market freezes up. Who wins,,, who loses? The Russian Rouble is the safest currency because Russia already had their crash. They have zero GOV debt. Just the same, the Rouble just isn't traded much on FX markets.

          FX markets panic and freeze up. Where does liquidity flow? The Chinese Yuan is NOT a candidate because it isn't freely traded. That leaves the Euro, Pound and, Swiss Franc. The Japanese Yen is going to tap out early. That leaves only the Euro and dollar as being big enough to absorb all that liquidity looking far a safe haven.

          ABOUT THE EURO

          In Bizarre Admission, ECB Warns Its Policies Threaten Financial Stability, Could Lead To A Crash
          https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bi...uld-lead-crash
          Armstrong;

          The Institutional Report on world bond markets will be going out for year-end. Given the seriousness of the Repo Crisis, this report has been timed to deal with the real crisis that confronts the institutional bond investors. This covers in detail the European, North American, and Asia bond markets

          PRIVATE BLOG – Craziness into 2020

          Private blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers. To sign-up for Socrates or to learn more, please visit Ask-Socrates.com.
          PRIVATE BLOG – What Should Europeans Do

          Private blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers. To sign-up for Socrates or to learn more, please visit Ask-Socrates.com.
          https://ask-socrates.com/

          PRIVATE BLOG – When Will Europe Cancel its Currency
          Posted Dec 15, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

          PRIVATE BLOG – When Will Europe Cancel its Currency Private blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers.

          Speculation, the liquidity crisis moves into the FX markets. FX locks up and, nobody will touch the Euro. All those Euros that are stashed under the mattress lose most / all of their value.
          https://www.investopedia.com/article...euro-fails.asp
          Armstrong asks, "will governments be barred from ever borrowing again?
          https://d33wjekvz3zs1a.cloudfront.ne...al-600x775.jpg
          Who would bar them? Who would enforce it? The FED has no army. The bankers have no army. The bankers could try to cut off government credit. Wouldn't that be a hoot.
          No, the GOV can just print money. Armstrong actually recommends that they do just that.
          Something is fishy here.
          51% of Americans receive a check from GOV. What will they do if the banks refuse to loan to the GOV? They will hang bankers from lamp posts, once again.

          Ron Paul talks about the FED and gold.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndcb2SPRU7M&t=30s
          Last edited by Danny B; 12-15-2019, 06:54 PM. Reason: Need another link

          Comment


          • The genesis of the REPO crisis

            A friend asked, how did the liquidity crisis get started? I'm sure that others would like to know also.
            So, Alan, this one's for you.
            The Elephant In The Room: Deutsche Bank's $75 Trillion In Derivatives Is 20 Times Greater Than German GDP

            Deutsche bank market capitalization is $14.2 billion.

            Deutsche Bank clients withdrawing $1 Billion daily – MINA


            Now, here is the important part. Here is a diagram of the counterparties to Deutsche bank derivatives.
            https://www.ft.com/__origami/service...rce=Alphaville
            As various derivatives fail, those counterparties demand settlement.

            After a $354 Billion U.S. Bailout, Germany’s Deutsche Bank Still Has $49 Trillion in Derivatives
            Inquisitive minds want to know where all the money from the REPO crisis is flowing. Look at the list of systemically banks that are counterparties.

            BIS Drops a Bombshell: Four U.S. Mega Banks Are Core of Repo Loan Crisis
            So, the most important banks are holding most of the failing derivatives.

            It’s Official: JPMorgan Chase Is the Riskiest Big Bank in the U.S.

            New York Fed’s Repo Loans Are Foaming the Hedge Fund Runways

            That conjures up a strange mental picture.
            https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0qm6CpzLGgU/hqdefault.jpg
            The failures that originated at Deutsche bank require huge liquidity injections to keep systemic banks from defaulting further down the line to everybody else.

            Comment


            • REPO,,, base money,,,inflation & hyperinflation

              I quote Armstrong regularly BUT, He never mentions;
              Birth control & falling population
              Derivatives
              Automation
              israel
              Regulatory capture
              Deutsche bank
              etc

              He may be right about the world economy collapsing or, he may be wrong. Just because he does not mention these items does not mean that Socrates does not factor them in.

              The REPO crisis seems to be gathering steam.
              " Total Credit (Non-Financial, Financial and Foreign U.S. borrowings) jumped a nominal $1.075 TN, the strongest quarterly gain since Q4 2007"
              Why does 2007 keep popping up?
              "Non-Financial Debt (NFD) surged $835 billion during the quarter – double Q2’s growth and the strongest expansion since Q1 2004’s (aberrational) $1.234 TN. At $53.896 TN, NFD ended September at a record 250% of GDP, up from previous cycle peaks of 226% at year-end ‘07 and 183% to end 1999."
              "Our federal government continues to command the debt bullet train, expanding borrowings at a 10.4% pace during the quarter"
              " Treasury Securities surged a notable $757 billion during the quarter to a record $18.572 TN. Treasury Securities jumped $1.154 TN over the past year and $2.341 TN in two years. Treasury Securities-to-GDP increased to 86%, up from Q4 07’s 41%"
              So, just how fast can this "bullet train" go?
              Credit Bubble Bulletin : Q3 2019 Z.1 Flow of Funds: Repo Madness

              "Indeed, the evidence increasingly suggests the Fed, desperate to fix a leak in the hull, is lighting the whole ship on fire in the process by blowing a historic asset bubble setting markets up to fail and on course for a massive reversion."
              Because 2019 has revealed a fundamental truth: Central banks can’t extract themselves from the monstrosity they have created and made markets dependent upon.

              2018 was the only year since the financial crisis that central banks reduced liquidity on a net basis and it blew up in everybody’s face:"
              THAT is why you don't blow bubbles to begin with.
              "It’s not based on economic reality, it’s not based on earnings growth, it’s not even based on a trade deal that is opaque and ill-defined without details.

              And because of it markets keep disconnecting ever farther from an economic basis. In fact on an economic basis markets have reached record levels not seen since the year 2000. Party like it’s 1999:"
              "Market cap to GDP is now overtly flirting with the 150% level last seen in 1999:"
              https://northmantrader.com/2019/12/15/system-failure/

              It's D-Day For The Repo Market: On Monday $100 Billion In Liquidity Will Be Drained - What Happens Next?
              "an imminent market crash and loss of control of overnight rates by the Fed would spark nothing short of QE4, sparked an unprecedented panic at the Federal Reserve, which just two days later unveiled a historic liquidity injection, in which the Fed promised to inject no less than $500 billion in the next 4 weeks to avert a catastrophic freeze in the repo market as we approach the year end "turn", which would consist not only of a continuation of the Fed's T-Bill POMO, but also a massive injection of nearly $500 billion in overnight and term repos in the coming days."
              "This also means that by Jan 14, the Fed's balance sheet would have grown by a cumulative $365BN in "temporary" repos, and together with the expanded overnight repos, and the $60BN in monthly TBill purchases, and by mid-January, the Fed's balance sheet, currently at $4.066 trillion, will surpass its all time high of $4.5 trillion!"
              "one which was supposed to launch QE4, or will the Fed's gargantuan liquidity injection still not be enough and lead to a collapse in the repo market."
              https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/it...t-happens-next

              FED GOV and the CB use various market interventions to add liquidity OR, withdraw liquidity. This only works with electronic money. That is why the State does not want paper money in circulation. Previous episodes of hyperinflation involved runaway printing of paper money.
              Base money refers to money owned by banks and, CB money.
              Low-power money refers to most of the money supply that is loaned into existence. As long as the CB keeps the supply of base money at a minimum, hyperinflation is held at arms length. Technically, the REPO money is not inflationary. It is created,,, loaned out to desperate banks,,, destroyed when repaid. It was originally "overnight" money. Now, the terms are out to about 4 weeks. The CBs try to stimulate the economy by pumping in debt-money. The CBs try to hold back hyperinflation by limiting base money.
              The debt-money is burdened by an interest charge upon repayment. This is deflationary.
              The more debt-money that is created, the higher the interest burden.

              Non-Financial Debt (NFD) surged $835 billion during the quarter
              Yes, it did. Original debt had to be rolled over. This requires an ever-greater supply of liquidity to meet principle + interest + previous interest.
              This "bullet train" is not running on the level. Federal debt is expanding at an exponential rate. Just how long can this train climb at an ever-steeper angle?

              Hyperinflation, Money Demand, and the Crack-Up Boom
              https://mises.org/library/hyperinfla...and-crack-boom
              This is an excellent article from Mises and the Austrian school of economics

              Armstrong, We live in a Republic, not a Democracy, which means these politicians do as they are told by party leaders and are up for sale to the highest bidder. When the money is too overwhelming to ignore, then corruption flourishes. The Congress in Washington actually made law:

              No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death…
              https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ying-immunity/

              12/15 Trump says he sees political benefit in dragging out impeachment trial – NBC News
              12/16 India headed for a ‘great slowdown’ says executive – Business Today
              7000 die of starvation every day
              836 million Indians survive on less than Rs.
              Over 20 crore Indians will sleep hungry tonight. Over 7000 Indians die of hunger every day. Over 25 lakh Indians die of hunger every year."
              I never did get that "crore" and "lakh" stuff. If India is going to slow down, things will get a lot worse.

              Comment


              • The Central Bank ruse is falling apart

                Big, Bad, bald Ben Shalom Bernanke admitted that the FED caused the 1929 crash. He said that the crash happened because the FED did not inject enough liquidity. The crash started with an AUSTRIAN bank. This time, it looks to be a German bank. Bernanke claimed that he could have forestalled the '29 crash with more liquidity. Armstrong has made it clear, the quantity of money theory is 8ull$hit.
                Notional liquidity is growing by $trillions. The big money in the upper loop told GOV, "give us lots of money and, we will create lots of jobs". They grew their bonuses and stock buybacks instead. The FED can create liquidity but, they control where it flows.

                Charles Hugh Smith,
                "A "market" that needs $1 trillion in panic-money-printing by the Fed to stave off a karmic-overdue implosion is not a market: a legitimate market enables price discovery. What is price discovery? The decisions and actions of buyers and sellers set the price of everything: assets, goods, services, risk and the price of borrowing money, i.e. interest rates and the availability of credit."
                "The U.S. has not had legitimate market in 12 years. What we call "the market" is a crude simulation that obscures the Federal Reserve's Socialism for the Super-Wealthy: "
                The apologists claim the bubbles must be inflated to "help" the average American, but that claim is absurdly specious. The majority of Americans "own" near-zero assets that earn income; at best they own rapidly-depreciating vehicles, a home that doesn't generate any income and a life insurance policy that pays off only when they pass away."

                The dirty little secret that nobody dares whisper lest the whisper trigger a self-reinforcing avalanche is that this Fed-manipulated "market" is illiquid: if any serious selling were to arise, there wouldn't be enough buyers to stave off a complete implosion of the bubbles.
                The Fed's game is to create the illusion of liquidity by being the buyer of last resort, only now the Fed is the only buyer. This is the toxic consequence of the Fed's 12 long years of Socialism for the Super-Wealthy:
                "Why has the Fed been forced to panic-money-print $1 trillion to stave off an implosion of their phony "market"? Moral hazard is coming home to roost, and the Fed is having a full-blown panic-attack because the Super-Wealthy (banks, corporations, financiers) have no fear that liquidity could dry up and markets go bidless"

                "If you want to understand how liquidity can dry up overnight and bids disappear, please read Mandelbrot's book The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence. The point Mandelbrot makes here is that markets are intrinsically unstable and prone to sudden, chaotic turbulence. In a legitimate market with intact price discovery"
                https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...959db44c6c6fd1

                "But in our bogus Fed-controlled "market," buyers and sellers are supremely confident the Fed will always buy assets regardless of price, and so they trade accordingly: There are no limits on leverage, derivative positions, credit lines, stock buy-backs or currency (FX) swaps: the Fed has been reassuring the legalized looters that the sky is the limit, go ahead and gamble hundreds of billions of dollars, we'll buy your overvalued assets if things get dicey."
                Ah yes,,, but, what happens when derivative failures reach hundreds of $trillions?
                "The Fed's thorough destruction of price discovery and its elevation of moral hazard have created a monster that is about to devour the Fed's phony facade of a "market". It was all fun and games enriching the super-wealthy but now the karmic cost of the Fed's manipulation and propaganda is about to come due,
                oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: A "Market" That Needs $1 Trillion in Panic-Money-Printing by the Fed to Stave Off Implosion Is Not a Market

                BUT
                There are only certain instruments that you can drag in to the FED to hock for new liquidity.
                12/16 Fed’s emergency repo operation oversubscribed; repo rates spike – ZH
                Panic is setting in and, everybody is trying to hock all the U.S. GOV paper that they can dig up.

                Central Banks have recently had an epiphany, Gold is the only asset that isn't somebody else's liability.
                https://aheadoftheherd.com/Newslette...patriators.htm
                London has loaned out all the gold that they held for safekeeping. As more of it is taken from their vaults by the legitimate owners, the vaults will run out.
                12/16 Failing U.S. pension system may need federal bailout to survive – Birch Gold

                Question for Armstrong, "My question is this…..what the hell does everyone expect to happen? Here is a short list of everything we know to be corrupt on this planet (you correctly encourage us to think globally): Central bankers, politicians, financial markets, the commodities markets, fiat currencies, the insurance industry, the healthcare industry, automobile loans, mortgages, credit card industry, the education system, unions, lifelong self-serving bureaucrats, and the military industrial complex (I grew up in the US Army, son of a warrant officer during the cold war). I will repeat the question. What the hell does everyone expect to happen?? The system as we know it MUST collapse so that something new, something better, something more trustworthy, can be born. Of this, there is no doubt. It is simply a matter of when. It’s going to hurt. It’s what we deserve."

                Armstrong, "ANSWER: It all depends on whether the politicians in Europe blink. As part of that report, I will provide updates because this is indeed the worst situation I have ever seen in my long career. My greatest fear is that politics never works the way people think it does.

                If I were to run for president and said, “Vote for me because I just prevented a crisis that you were unaware of and I saved you from losing everything.”

                Most people would not believe that statement.

                Politicians realize they cannot run for office by actually managing the economy or preventing a crisis. They LOVE a crisis, for then they can say, “Vote for me and I will get the guy that caused your loss.”
                "As a result, I can scream as loud as possible and show them all the data. They will NEVER act to prevent something"
                "Therefore, I am NOT optimistic that they will do ANYTHING to prevent the crisis. The questions become 1) how long will it take for Europe to respond, 2) and will it result in the breakup of the Eurozone"
                https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...ity-of-crises/
                Armstrong has been adamant. The politicians will NEVER act to stop the crisis. Truth be told, they don't have a fracking clue what to do. There is NO roadmap of what to do when automation takes all the jobs.
                The labor markets of the world have evolved. At one time, society demanded people with great physical strength. Today, it demand high intelligence. 16% of Americans have an IQ below 85. What should they do? Where will they fit into society?

                Armstrong claims that Europe must do something. He laments the fact that Europe did not bail out it's banks. Well, the FED bailed out the banks here. What good did it do?
                Bernanke claimed that he could hold back a depression. The CBs try to hold back price inflation by limiting the amount of increase in base money. They are fine with an increase in low-power debt money, though. The CBs created continuous price inflation that outran wage inflation. They are now powerless to do anything about stagnant wages.

                Comment


                • Everybody wants your money,,, some of them will get it

                  Armstrong, "ANSWER: It all depends on whether the politicians in Europe blink."
                  Armstrong knows that the Germans have a 1 trillion account surplus. Likewise, he knows that the rest of the Eurozone has a conglomerate 1 trillion deficit. He advocates that the Germans just hand over their hard-earned money. Keep in mind that handing over 1trillion Euros would NOT inspire the Greeks, Italians and Portuguese to work harder and pay more taxes.

                  "Because of the long-standing economic downturn, the banks in Italy still have bad loans on the books because Europe refused to engage in a bailout as was the case in the United States. Instead, the ECB kept lowering rates in the hope that the banks would make up the losses. But the economy has never recovered beyond just superficial images. The bank’s losses have reached one billion euros."
                  Bailing out American banks did NOT cure them of taking deep dives into moral hazard and financial hazard. Sure, they were bailed out. Just a short-term fix. They never changed their crooked practices. The American banks are just as illiquid as the European banks.
                  https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ll-in-trouble/

                  PRIVATE BLOG – REPO & the Big Fear
                  PRIVATE BLOG – Eurozone Bonds


                  "Over time, every fiat currency ever created has failed and always for the same reason: Governments become overextended (generally due to warfare), "
                  The US had joined both world wars late. In the early years, the US became the suppliers of munitions, equipment and vehicles for the two wars. And more to the point, they insisted on being paid in gold.

                  (It should be noted here that, as often as the US government and the Federal Reserve have tried to argue to Americans that gold is not really money, during wartime, the US would accept nothing else in payment for goods shipped to other countries.)"
                  "But along the way, weaknesses began to appear in the bubble. Oil producers such as Iraq and Libya announced that they would begin dealing in currencies other than the dollar. The US reacted swiftly, killing their leaders and destroying their governments.

                  Soon, Iran made the same decision and, this time, it was supported by India, China, Russia and even the EU. Additionally, both China and the EU created their own international payments systems (CIPS and INSTEX, respectively), bypassing the dollar."
                  https://internationalman.com/article...mulberry-bark/

                  Crypto Ponzi Scheme; China Dominates Bitcoin Mining - Forbes
                  https://www.forbes.com › sites › cryptoconfidential › 2019/12/15 › crypto...
                  2 days ago

                  12/17 Chinese crypto scammers helped inspire recent bitcoin market carnage – ZH
                  Did you hear that this also happened to gold?? Neither did I.

                  12/17 Sacklers withdrew $11 billion from Purdue Pharma as opioid crisis worsened – LAT
                  12/17 We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in American history – Most Important News
                  Purdue Pharma offers $10-12 billion to settle opioid claims
                  New York state Attorney General Letitia James leveled the fiercest legal .... New York is now saying they're going after the Sacklers' vast private wealth, ...

                  "The Sackler family-owned Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy as ... The Sacklers, who are Jewish, would cede control of Purdue"
                  No amount of money can make up for the millions of lives destroyed.

                  12/17 US official gold reserves auditor caught lying – Voima Gold
                  WHAT gold?
                  12/17 More borrowers are getting rejected for auto loans – MarketWatch
                  7 million Americans are 90 days or more late on their auto loans

                  The Fed's Recent 'Not QE' Is 'Not Working' and People Are Starting to Notice
                  Iranian Professor Invents Polymer Nanocomposite Able to Reflect Electromagnetic Waves - Reports
                  Kinda cool !
                  French Pension Reform Commissioner Resigns Amid Protests - Reports
                  He is afraid that somebody, somewhere has a guillotine with his name on it.
                  Transport workers erect flaming barricades as France brought to standstill in massive strike - Vid
                  Brigitte Macron keeps her golden locks looking good with the help of her ... The French President and First Lady spent €62,400 in a year on hair ...

                  What is the real reason? Insane levels of credit creation in the third quarter of 2019.
                  The article has all the numbers. I seriously doubt that liquidity injections can hold off the crash until after the elections.
                  "So either this debt binge continues or liquidity dries up and financial assets get sold. Which means chaos of one kind or another is heading our way. "
                  https://www.dollarcollapse.com/sell-news/
                  The FED conjured up about $1 trillion in the last 4-5 weeks.
                  "Total US credit (financial and non-financial) jumped by $1.075 trillion in Q3, the strongest quarterly gain since Q4 2007’s $1.159 trillion, ending September at $74.862 trillion (348% of GDP). "I just don't think that this rate of growth can continue all the way to the elections.

                  Comment


                  • Planners, plotters and space war

                    The whole "green" agenda is a good idea because Mother Earth has taken a good thrashing in the last few decades. The globalists are trying to force their carbon plan through just to squeeze out more money. They don't care about doing anything positive for Earth. Their bank accounts are the only thing that they care about.
                    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/75...nbergs-success
                    Armstrong, "The major trend on a broader basis is moving toward a steep cooling trend. The few years that saw rising temperatures were nothing more than a three-day reaction in market terms on a daily chart.

                    The major concern remains the broader long-term trend. The activists are trying to use the climate to force socialism down the throats of society to take over the global economy. That agenda has been sold so well that they have distracted society from the real climate threat that is unfolding before our eyes. "
                    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...the-president/
                    "On December 3, 1972, Brown University wrote to the president concerning the climate changing back to a potential Ice Age."

                    Fascinating vid about all the fires burning around the world. You hear nothing about fires in Africa.
                    https://earther.gizmodo.com/watch-ev...vis-1840388952
                    Germany’s migrant-smuggling activist switches to climate cause, calls for civil disobedience and ‘eco-socialism’

                    NATO's Real Purpose: Welfare For The Military-Industrial Complex
                    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...strial-complex
                    It's no different in America.
                    Central banks in most countries are ‘magic money machines for politicians’ – RT’s Keiser Report

                    Argentina has gone through a number of financial crises in the past 100 years and it looks like it is on the cusp of another one, Giambruno says.
                    "According to him, the South American nation is facing another currency cataclysm “which is relatively normal for this country, it has happened repeatedly over the past 100 years.”

                    And there are reasons for that, the analyst says, explaining that 100 years ago Argentina and the United States were “really kind-of on the same level.” That was “kind-of a golden era for Argentina.”

                    However, everything changed, a lot, since Argentina instituted a central bank in 1935, Giambruno points out.

                    “The golden era was prior to the establishment of the central bank… like in most places the central bank is the magic money machine for the politicians and that’s really how Argentina started its long descent downhill,” he concludes."
                    It may very be a magic money machine for politicians but, it is a magic money machine for bankers also. Here is Victoria Grant to explain perfectly that Canada had a great economy until it got a Central bank.
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5Sc3vWefE

                    12/18 The space force will become the sixth branch of the U.S. military – Popular Mechanics
                    China Tianjin Explosion Was Caused By Pentagon 'Rod Of God'
                    https://www.inquisitr.com › News › Odd › News

                    Aug 18, 2015 - China Tianjin Explosion Was Caused By Pentagon 'Rod Of God' Space Weapon ... space-based weapons system dubbed “Rods from God” to support its ... Pentagon launched the attack as a “kinetic retaliation” against China ...

                    I don't think that the "planners" have thought this through.

                    Comment


                    • Summation,,, fighting back against MMT

                      Here is a great summation of all the various financial problems. I won't cite because all of it is worth reading.
                      Is 150 Years of Bank Credit Expansion Nearing Its End? – Alasdair Macleod (12/18/2019) – WallStreetWindow.com
                      Even Goldman Bristles As Junk Bond Rally Smashes All Records
                      "When the next recession hits, the downturn in the financial markets could be worse than the economic effects" - Vanguard"
                      Elderly In Japan Are Wearing Exoskeletons To Continue Working Into Old Age
                      Bank Of England "Hijacked" Audio Feed Was Used To Secretly Leak Confidential Information To Hedge Funds
                      BOJO will fix it.

                      Will Modern Monetary Theory Blow Up The Dollar?
                      The FED is monetizing 94% of GOV debt and, it can't stop. MMT would formalise GOV printing to pay it's bills. The bankers will find long and hard to keep GOV from creating debt-free money.

                      China Is Facing A $400 Billion "Liquidity Hole" In January
                      Females & Births, As Rudimentary As We Can Get
                      https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...ary-we-can-get
                      The US Stock Market Hasn't Been This Rich & Overbought Since 1933
                      Rickards: World On Knife-Edge Of Debt Crisis
                      Stocks Set For New All Time High On Trump Impeachment Day
                      Never Trust A Failing Empire

                      "when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures..."

                      SoCal Millennials Are Piling On Most Credit Card Debt
                      Boeing 737 MAX Production Halt Will Slash A Third Off Q1 GDP

                      Krieger: "It's A Systemic Looting On A Massive Scale"
                      "Financial services as currently structured is the most pernicious, predatory and corrupt industry on earth..."
                      Bad Capitalism And Good Socialism
                      Senate Sends Mammoth $738BN Defense Bill To Trump's Desk, Creating Space Force

                      Virginia Activates Official Militia After Gun Confiscation Threats. Lawmakers Want To Make This A Felony

                      "As Virginia lawmakers prepare to pass a draconian gun control bill that would make most guns in the state illegal, Tazewell County has formed an official active militia as per the Second Amendment to the Constitution..."

                      The Trump effect, "10 Self-Evident Truths That 'We, The People' Have Spontaneously Come To Realize..."
                      https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...y-come-realize
                      Last edited by Danny B; 12-19-2019, 04:03 AM. Reason: jumped the gun

                      Comment


                      • 2 great articles

                        Academics are all too often full of $hit when they open their mouths about non-technical subjects. MIT has a must-read article here. I've often claimed that there is NO cure for efficiency. This article tears into the current sea-change.
                        "Switching from Friedman to Keynes means more than tinkering with the economy’s operating system"
                        For Keynes the most dangerous kind of avarice was not trying to make money, but holding it in your pockets for too long. The only way to keep popular well-being high and employment up was to produce and consume more and more—not because it’s in our nature, but because that’s how the system works: it must grow to survive. But someday soon, he predicted, the race will be over, and we can all stop pretending capitalism isn’t a psychotic, Earth-destroying way to live."

                        "In “Grandchildren,” Keynes looked forward to the day when “we shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value.” He continued:

                        “The love of money as a possession—as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life—will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities"
                        https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...have-it-worse/

                        The bond bubble,
                        https://pentoport.com/economic-tribu...d-here-is-why/

                        :They" inflated the upper loop, hoping that trickle-down would help out the upper loop, without causing hyperinflation of prices in the lower loop. The inflation of the lower loop crosses over in anything that can be considered a "store of Value". Much of the money poured in residential real estate. Owner-occupied housing has barely gone up since 1985. Housing is unaffordable to may people. There is enough bleed-over of upper loop inflation moving into the lower loop that prices are rising at 6--10% (Shadowstats)
                        This wouldn't matter much of wages had seen some kind of inflation. It never happened.
                        The State and the CBs are now stuck in the unenviable position of printing new money to subsidise the upper loop, at the same time that they have to print new money to support the unemployed.

                        The stimulus required to keep the upper loop solvent has now reached insane numbers. MOST of this is due to the failure of derivatives originated by Deutsche bank.
                        https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/kr...-massive-scale

                        Is 150 years of bank credit expansion nearing its end? – Alasdair Macleod
                        12/19 IMF: Leveraged financial risk-taking could endanger major economies – CNBC

                        Always stating the obvious when the edge of the cliff is behind us.
                        12/19 $10 trillion corporate debt burden could hit the stock market and Amazon – CNBC
                        Always stating the obvious,,,
                        12/19 Negative interest rates are destroying our pensions – Bloomberg
                        12/19 ‘System failure’ is what investors got from the Federal Reserve in 2019 – MW

                        Always,,,
                        12/19 The US stock market hasn’t been this rich & overbought since 1933 – Zero Hedge
                        12/19 Rickards: world on knife edge of debt crisis – Daily Reckoning
                        12/19 Even Goldman bristles as junk bond rally smashes all records – Zero Hedge

                        Said the pyromaniac,

                        12/19 Can the central banks actually generate inflation? – Jay Taylor
                        The CBs have inflated the snot out of the upper loop. Only higher wages can inflate the lower loop.
                        12/18 Automated hacking, deepfakes are top cybersecurity threats in 2020 – CNBC
                        I sincerely hope that cyber-war will replace kinetic war in the case of China.
                        The carbon tax was supposed to finance the implementation of one-world government. That didn't fly so, many millions of bureaucrats are looking for a new source of finance for their worthless paper-passing salaries & pensions.
                        European Parliament Adopts Resolution Supporting An International Digital Economy Tax
                        Last edited by Danny B; 12-20-2019, 03:49 AM. Reason: nistook

                        Comment


                        • Questioning the legitimacy of the State,,,, cheerleaders keep us from getting prepare

                          "To address the latter question, we need to remember that Fourth Generation war is rooted in a crisis of legitimacy of the state. As people shift their primary loyalty away from the state to a wide variety of other things, the state loses its monopoly on war and on social organization. And as those monopolies vanish, disorder spreads.

                          What we are seeing in spreading disorder is not Fourth Generation war itself. But it is a failure of the state. As Martin van Creveld argues in The Rise and Decline of the State, the state arose for only one purpose: to establish and maintain order and safety of persons and property. States that cannot do that lose their legitimacy."
                          https://www.traditionalright.com/the...order-and-4gw/

                          "different images yet all broadcasting essentially the same message. That message is that everything is fine, same as ever, and can go on and on. But whatever it is that’s going on can’t go on forever, and therefore it won’t. More specifically, a certain coal mine canary has recently died, and I want to tell you about it."
                          "It’s easy to see why that particular message is stuck on replay even as the situation changes irrevocably. As of 2019, 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by four media conglomerates"
                          "As I wrote in Reinventing Collapse in 2008, “...In a consumer society, anything that puts people off their shopping is dangerously disruptive
                          Two years earlier, in a slideshow optimistically titled “Closing the Collapse Gap” (between the USSR and the USA), I wrote: “...It seems that there is a fair chance that the US economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won’t be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the US economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act.” And now, 12 years later, I believe I am finally watching what amounts to preparations for that act’s final rehearsal; the ballet troupe is doing stretching exercises and the fat lady is singing arpegios to warm up…"
                          The writer points out clearly that the cheerleaders have hidden so much for so long that very few people will be at all prepared.
                          https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2019/...final-act.html

                          A good article from Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson,
                          Opinion -Neoliberal Economics Destroyed the Economy and the Middle Class
                          "that the Trump administration appeared in court as a friend of the Indian farmers and fishermen. The US Solicitor General, represented by Jonathan Ellis, rejected the notion that international orgnizations have absolute immunity. The Establishment exists on its immunity. Here we see the ultimate reason that the ruling Establishment wants rid of Trump."
                          The article has a lot of good information.

                          Charles Hugh Smith;
                          " The reckoning is coming, and everyone who counted on "eternal growth of borrowing" to stave off the reckoning is in for a big surprise.
                          We've used a simple trick to keep the status quo from imploding for the past 11 years: borrow whatever it takes to keep paying the skyrocketing costs for housing, healthcare, college, childcare, government, permanent wars and so on.
                          The trick has worked because central banks pushed interest rates to zero, lowering the costs of borrowing more as costs continued spiraling higher.
                          But that trick has been used up. The next step--negative interest rates--has failed to spark the "growth" required to pay for insanely overpriced housing, healthcare, college, childcare, government, etc."
                          " The reckoning is coming, and everyone who counted on "eternal growth of borrowing" to stave off the reckoning is in for a big surprise: revenues will plummet, incomes will plummet, lending will plummet, college enrolments will plummet, and tax receipts will plummet. Defaults will skyrocket, triggering a collapse in debt markets, housing markets and stock markets, all of which are totally dependent on the delusion that we can deal with soaring costs by borrowing more, forever and ever.
                          The smartest most experienced rats flee the ship at the first sign that "this sucker is going down." The complacent rats who believe that extending the line of "permanent growth" will track reality will lose the opportunity to exit before the panic, and they will pay the price for their delusional complacency."
                          oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Skyrocketing Costs Will Pop All the Bubbles

                          Here is a dense but, good article on "gamma flip" It is a situation where a particular strategy in equity markets flips all your positions from positive to negative.
                          https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wh...hould-you-care

                          Italian banks were always a shaky business. They had $trillions in non-performing loans.
                          12/19 Italian bonds tumble on fears another government collapse is imminent – Zero Hedge
                          Italians are good at magic.
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtuRDmkm_7E&t=63s
                          12/19 Wall Street magic tricks make banks look safer than they are – Bloomberg
                          12/19 Afghanistan war ‘the crime of the century’ – Ron Paul Institute

                          The banks need the opium.

                          Years ago, Nigel Farage got up in front of the European Union and told them that he was going to work to destroy the EU. They laughed at them. He gets the last laugh.
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svt4H_n7T6A
                          The eurocrats said that they can block Brexit and Boris.
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMBLz4W0Tek&t=134s
                          "They" are fighting for a cash ban. Everything would be digital.
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw1iiytSC1w&t=282s
                          That would be great. You wouldn't have to sit down and work out how much you owed the government.
                          European Parliament Adopts Resolution Supporting An International Digital Economy Tax
                          "They" will figure out how much you owe.

                          12/19 Stocks near record high as trade pact to be signed in January – Reuters
                          NOT going to happen. China never carries through on their agreements.

                          Comment


                          • A rehash of the banking system

                            Old news;
                            “Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.” ~ SIR JOSIAH STAMP, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920’s, the second richest man in Britain):
                            https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/12/...d-its-economy/

                            "The common man has no concept whatsoever of the true reality of money. This of course is by design, as the monetary process in the U.S. has been structured and presented in such a way as to make it seem extremely complicated, and outside the understanding of the dumbed-down public-schooled population. Most think that money are those assets in their bank and investment accounts, while in fact, over 90% of the entire money supply is created out of thin air by the private banks that control the supply of money in the U.S. This fake money is created, loaned out, and then payable back to these same banks with interest."

                            Marriner Eccles was the Governor of the Federal Reserve System in 1941. On September 30 of that year, Eccles was asked to give testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Currency. The purpose of the hearing was to obtain information regarding the role of the Federal Reserve in creating conditions that led to the depression of the 1930s. Congressman Wright Patman, who was Chairman of that committee, asked how the Fed got the money to purchase two billion dollars worth of government bonds in 1933. This is the exchange that followed.

                            ECCLES: We created it.

                            PATMAN: Out of what?

                            ECCLES: Out of the right to issue credit money.

                            PATMAN: And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our government's credit?

                            ECCLES: That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money.2

                            If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible — but there it is.3

                            The first thing to realize is that the Fed can control the size of the monetary base, but it can't directly control its composition. Specifically, if the public wants to hold more paper currency — rather than keeping their "money" sitting in checking accounts at the bank — then they can begin withdrawing green pieces of paper either from bank tellers or ATMs.
                            Seeing their physical currency depleting, the commercial banks then go to the Fed and draw down their reserves, which basically are the banks' own "checking accounts" with Ben Bernanke.

                            At this point we have reached the top of the food chain; there is nothing backing up the electronic bookkeeping entries in the Fed's computers. The commercial banks' reserves aren't claims on anything else; they are simply units of account, namely dollars issued by the Federal Reserve.

                            So, when a commercial bank has, say, $1 million on deposit (according to the Fed's computers), and the bank wants to withdraw $200,000 in currency, here's what the Fed does:

                            It fires up the printing press and creates $200,000 in new currency, such as $100, $50, and $20 bills, and
                            It changes its computers to reflect the fact that the commercial bank now has only $800,000 on deposit with the Fed.
                            Hemphill's horror at the "tragic absurdity" of our current financial system was understandable. The government and powerful bankers established a system in 1913 that typically works like this: Every dollar of the monetary base (or "narrow money" or "high-powered money") comes into existence with a one-to-one increase in the public debt, collectively owed by the taxpayers. Then, private banks use that base to create more dollars (in "broad money") that come into existence with a one-to-one increase in private debt.

                            Going the other way, if people in the private sector ever paid off all of their debts, and the federal government paid off all of its bondholders, then the supply of US dollars would be virtually extinguished.

                            This is the sense in which our fiat-money, fractional-reserve system uses "debt-based money." Although market prices are flexible and can react to deflation much better than most people realize, it is still true that our system is tragically absurd."
                            https://mises.org/library/our-money-based-debt

                            The Central Banks were created mainly to give financial support to non-producers. The producing economy does need a means of exchange. It is the non-producers that need an infinitely expandable means of exchange. Since un-backed currency only acts to convey information, it is easily corrupted by manipulators who create it out of thin air.

                            From the G-30, "Central banks were first established in the 17th century, with the primary purpose of providing war finance to governments and managing their debts."
                            https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...JQzKeomBa-F8QE

                            Keynes and Burke tell us that we need continuous war to effect continuous stimulation of the economy. Shumpeter teels us that we must go around breaking windows to stimulate the economy. That is effected by continuous wars to destroy stuff that needs replacing. A "war on terror" gives us a war without end to give us stimulation without end. This situation seems to be coming to an end. The U.S. dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Well, the U.S. government is effectively bankrupt and, the FED is buying most of U.S. debt issuance.
                            What will be left standing when the credit collapse hits?

                            Comment


                            • Liquidity traps and speed bumps

                              Peter Schiff must not be getting enough attention so, he has gone out on a limb.
                              Peter Schiff: Why The Next Economic Collapse 100% on January 14, 2020?
                              Armstrong said on the 17-18. Maybe Schiff is trying to bump up close to Armstrong's date to get some of the attention.
                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobvaawZ9Ww
                              The blob State in Europe sees a possible end of funding. They are now advocating spending many billions on "green Bonds" to fight global warming,,, and, finance their salaries.
                              https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...-green-agenda/

                              "A report from China suggests that capital flows are fleeing from the region at a record pace. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange commented that the situation is critical in order to maintain market stability."
                              https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...ember-19-2019/
                              The Chinese communist mentality led them to attack Hong Kong for insubordination. Hong Kong is the 5th? largest banking center in the world. Chinese stupidity is forcing capital flight now that China needs it most. China made autonomy agreements with Hong Kong. Then, they broke them,,, figuring that Hong Kongers couldn't do anything about it.
                              Those inscrutable Chinese just look stupid.

                              "Unfortunately, when the U.S. and the global economy finally enters into a recession-depression, the asset values will crash while the debts remain.

                              GOD hath a sense of humor.

                              We saw this happen during the U.S. Subprime Housing Bust. After millions of Americans refinanced their homes by cashing in on the equity, they were upside down with their mortgages when real estate prices plunged. The brutal truth of the market is that the DEBTS will remain while ASSETS evaporate."
                              https://srsroccoreport.com/the-globa...n-gold-silver/
                              "The entire Political Circus from the LEFT or the RIGHT is a complete waste of time. If you have been watching the Impeachment hearings hoping and praying that President Trump is forced out of office, you are WASTING YOUR LIFE AWAY. If you are listening to the RIGHT or Alt-Media about all the conspiracies in regards to the DEEP STATE, you are WASTING YOUR LIFE AWAY.

                              The two political parties are not going to help you survive the next financial and economic collapse phase that is coming. Thus, the extreme Left AOC New Green Party and the extreme Right-Wing Divide and Conquer Regime of Global Domination will become totally meaningless when the ENERGY CLIFF arrives."

                              12/20 US freight shipments fall below 2014 level. Answers emerge – Wolf Street
                              12/20 Kansas City Fed biz survey crashes near 4-year low – Zero Hedge

                              12/20 More than 9,300 stores closed across us in 2019 – Epoch Times
                              12/20 Massive debt wave threatens to engulf developing economies: World Bank – Epoch

                              It will get everybody.
                              12/20 Left behind in a “thriving” economy: we are already in a dark place – SHTF Plan

                              12/20 Median home prices still unaffordable for average U.S. wage earners – PR Newswire
                              12/19 Housing shortage hits new record low, igniting prices – CNBC
                              Investors, speculators plow into US housing market: report

                              12/20 Warning lights are flashing for Democrats as they impeach Trump – CNN

                              Pelosi is afraid to pass the impeachment on to the senate. Buyer's remorse?

                              Comment


                              • Save the banks,,, screw the people

                                The bankers naturally resented any control by GOV. They invented derivatives because they weren't regulated. Derivatives reached a notional value of $1.5 quadrillion. They figured that; if anything went wrong, they would just be bailed out by GOV. An easy bet since they owned the politicians. In 2004, both the SEC and FBI warned that a bubble was forming. Both departments were disbanded. The bankers didn't want any restrictions.
                                Brooksley Born,
                                "Brooksley Born is a retired partner of Arnold & Porter LLP where she practiced for more than thirty years. She was head of the firm’s derivatives practice.
                                Ms. Born was chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that oversees futures and commodity option markets, and strongly advocated the need for federal regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives market. That unregulated market played a significant role in the recent financial crisis. She also served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission from 2009 until early 2011, when the Commission issued its report on the causes of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and resulting economic crisis.

                                Brooksley Born argued loudly for the regulation of derivatives. She was ignored and silenced. Warren Buffet claimed that derivatives were "weapons of mass destruction"
                                The plan ALL ALONG was to threaten the financial stability and,,, get a government bailout.
                                So, where do we find ourselves now?
                                NY Fed Plans to Throw $2.93 Trillion Into Wall St Trading Houses Over Next Month - Almost $7 trillion in Just 3 months...In Trump's 'Booming Economy'!
                                The banks figured that; if they were indispensable to the survival of the economy, they would be bailed out regardless of their numerous criminal actions.

                                Armstrong characterizes the current situation as a ; breakdown of socialism.
                                12/20 Japan cabinet approves record $939 billion budget – Reuters
                                "Japanese workers are strapping on special muscle-enhancing exoskeletons in order to continue working well into old age. ... One such company, Innophys, has built a suit that 'charges' by squeezing a hand pump 30 times to fill pressurised air-powered 'muscles' that are then used to augment the worker's natural strength."

                                That $939 billion isn't going to social support. It is going directly to the bankers. Armstrong would NEVER mention,,,, socialism for the bankers.

                                Cash-Strapped Chinese Banks Are Offering Pork To Lure New Depositors
                                12/21 Stricken local banks in Japan buying riskier debt to survive – Yahoo
                                The big banks don't have this problem.
                                12/21 Congress to bail out one pension plan, opening door to bail out 1,400 more – NA
                                The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a United States federally chartered corporation created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
                                The PBGC insures 42,000 pension plans.

                                Year in review,
                                https://www.peakprosperity.com/2019-...medium=twitter
                                12/21 War on cash rages in the Mediterranean – Brave New Coin
                                The European blob state just can't seem to find enough funds for all the blob entities. Remember, the bureaucratic overlay of the EU on top of existing bureaucracy reduced the GDP by 20%
                                12/21 $2b Ponzi scheme caught dumping bitcoin just moved its $105m ether stash – NW
                                Gold is boring. It just sits there.

                                12/21 Elizabeth Warren releases plan to create millions of green jobs – CNBC
                                GREAT, more "green shoots" just when we need them.

                                Comment

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