Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Economic pressures

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Running on fumes emanating from huge piles of steaming BS

    THAT is the story on Europe. Armstrong said that the collapse would start there.
    The story in America is somewhat different. I need to post more and, excerpt less. The articles are just too good.
    C.H. Smith;
    "
    The global economy and financial system are both running on the last toxic fumes of financialization and globalization.

    For two generations, globalization and financialization have been the two engines of global growth and soaring assets. Globalization can mean many things, but its beating heart is the arbitraging of the labor of the powerless, and commodity, environmental and tax costs by the powerful to increase their profits and wealth.

    In other words, globalization is the result of those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid shifting capital around the world to exploit lower costs of labor, commodities, environmental regulations and taxes.

    This manifests as offshoring of jobs, the stripmining of forests, minerals, etc., the degradation of local ecosystems, the decline of tax revenues derived from capital and the explosive rise in stock market valuations as wages stagnate or decline.

    A key element in globalization is the transfer of risk from the owners of capital to the workers and public resources. Examples of this transfer of risk abound: rather than pay workers benefits, corporations game part-time/full-time labor laws so workers' health insurance is paid by taxpayers (Medicaid). Corporations pay wages too low to survive so workers depend on public-sector assistance (food stamps, etc.)"
    Yes, privatizing the gains and, socializing the losses. Did it never occur to them that the public purse might go bust?

    "

    Financialization is the exploitation of assets/income that were previously safe from predation by those with access to low-cost central bank credit. While definitions vary, mine is:

    Financialization is the mass commoditization of debt collaterized by previously unsecuritized assets, a pyramiding of risk and speculation that is only possible in a massive expansion of low-cost credit and leverage for those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid: financiers, banks and corporations.

    One example is the student loan "industry," which prior to financialization did not exist. A previously safe from predation asset/source of income--college degrees--has been securitized so that loans issued to students for largely worthless diplomas can be sold globally as "secure assets with guaranteed yields."

    That the exploited class of students have little to no income and no guarantee of income doesn't matter. What matters is a previously unexploited asset can be turned into debt that can be sold at an immense profit."
    "
    And so student loan debt has skyrocketed from near-zero to $1.6 trillion in less than a generation. This rapacious, ruthless exploitation would not have been possible without the central bank (Federal Reserve) and federal government enabling and enforcing the supremacy of private capital and the predation of the higher-education cartel."
    "The subprime mortgage loan bubble was another example of financialization: a previously inaccessible asset/income--the earnings of households with poor credit ratings--was suddenly available for exploitation, and guaranteed-to-default subprime mortgages were packaged with lower-risk mortgages and sold globally as "secure assets with guaranteed yields."
    "Alas, all good predations end when the herd of prey has been dragged to the ground and consumed. All the fruit of financialization and globalization have been plucked by the powerful, and now both the engines of "growth" are sputtering."
    "The prey always seem limitless to the predators, but this illusion expires when suddenly there is no longer enough for the ravenous pack of financial predators. At that point, the predators turn on each other. That is the narrative that will come to the fore in 2020 and play out in the decade ahead."
    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com...ecline-of.html

    David Stockman;
    "The trade chaos that Trump’s creating is probably the catalyst that will bring down the whole house of cards.

    At end of the day, it’s about the Red Ponzi. The world economy would be not nearly as good as it looks had the Chinese not been borrowing like there’s no tomorrow and building regardless of whether its efficient or profitable.

    This has kept the global economy inching forward on a totally artificial basis. You could track it; some people call it the “China credit impulse.” Every time they get into trouble, they turn on the printing press. That causes commodity prices to rise and industrial activity and trade to pick up. It shows up in the GDP numbers, and then everybody gets all excited."
    "Each time, we have to remember the rulers in Beijing are digging themselves deeper into the hole. They’ve got an economy now that they claim is worth $13 trillion of GDP, but it’s got $40 trillion of debt on it. That’s just bank debt! I’m not even talking about the other forms of debt, such as trade debt, bond debt, so on and so forth."
    LARGE TIGER.

    "China is getting clobbered by Trump’s trade war.
    Recently, exports to the United States were down 23% from the prior year." maga, BABY
    "Whether President Trump knows it or not, in the guise of pursuit of MAGA [Make America Great Again], he is shaking the Red Ponzi to the core, and I think it’s very fragile.

    The whole global economy is really dependent on China piling even more debt onto the $40 trillion pile they already have. Trump’s trade war is basically an economic cruise missile barrage aimed right at that gargantuan pile of unsupportable debt." The damn smilies here don't work either. rofl, rofl,rofl

    "Christine Lagarde, who is even crazier than was Draghi when it comes to money printing. And competing with Japan, which is basically drowning its economy with money printing.
    The Bank of Japan’s balance sheet is 100% of GDP. It’s out of this world."
    https://internationalman.com/article...cial-collapse/
    "“Fed’s Clarida says economy in good place, does see inflation rising to 2%. Clarida says Fed’s repo operations could continue at least through April.”
    April !
    "An economy that’s in a good place does not need hundreds of billion of dollars in central bank balance sheet expansion and certainly not $70B, $80B, $90B, $100B of repo every day or whatever the run rate is on any given day.

    Reality is the Fed is forced to do repo or overnight rates go out of control, and if that were to last for more than a few days the economy would suddenly not be in a “good place”. The house is not on fire as long as I keep dousing it with water."

    ‘We are going to have a horrible time,’ Jim Rogers tells Boom Bust as global debt skyrockets
    Invest in popcorn. thumbsup thumbsup P.O.S.

    "Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers dismissed the optimism of former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who recently said the central bank could likely fight off the next recession despite the low level of interest rates.

    Bernanke’s speech was “a kind of last hurrah for the central bankers,”
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...rnd=markets-vp

    E-mails are forever + the 737.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/pl...management-faa

    Comment


    • How you got poor,,,, China overplayed it's hand


      "For two generations, globalization and financialization have been the two engines of global growth and soaring assets. Globalization can mean many things, but its beating heart is the arbitraging of the labor of the powerless,"
      I need to expand on this snip from Charles Hugh Smith.

      Where did your manufacturing job go?
      It went to China.
      How did it get there?
      THAT is the essential part to understand.
      Slick Willie and the bankers pushed through the Graham-Leach-Bliley act. This gave ALL of your savings to the bankers to play with. They took your 401k money and, used it to build up China inc. That money was pretty much locked in to the banks. With that situation, they had a guaranteed return because of the labor-rate arbitrage. Not happy with just that, "they" finagled a most favored nation trading status. This gave them an even greater rate of return because of the lack of tariffs. As an added bonus, off-shore labor competition forced down domestic labor rates. It was a win-win situation for the banking cartels.
      When HRC got to the White House, this deplorable situation was sure to continue. HRC never made it to the White House. The multitudes of criminals did NOT have a back up plan in case something went wrong.

      They damn near sunk Trump. They certainly stalled him. His trade war sunk China.
      China economy slows further as industrial output growth slumps to lowest in a decade
      Most of the jobs just won't come back because there are so many other low-wage competitors.
      China’s manufacturing exodus set to continue in 2020, despite prospect of trade war deal

      "There is acceptance that the “Goldilocks Zone” provided by China’s industrial heartlands for the last 30 years – in which the mixture of costs, quality, human resources and infrastructure was just right – will not be matched in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam or anywhere else."
      "As a direct result of trade war tariffs, China has fallen behind Mexico and Canada to become the US’ third largest trading partner. Before the trade war, it was number one.
      Tariffs saw China’s trade in goods surplus with the US fall by 7.9 per cent in November, according to data released by the US Census Bureau on Tuesday. This was amid a 20.84 per cent fall in Chinese exports to the US from a year earlier"
      "Compared with June 2018, the month before the trade war began, US imports of goods from Vietnam
      have soared 51.6 per cent, Thailand 19.7 per cent, Malaysia 11.3 per cent, Indonesia 14.6 per cent, Taiwan 30 per cent and Mexico 12.7 per cent"
      This so-called new normal has helped drive a long list of big-name companies out of China,
      For every foreign company that left China in 2019, there were two to three more seriously contemplating doing so
      https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-e...e-2020-despite

      The birth rate in China is back to where it was in 1965 during the Great Famine. The state pension fund is going broke and, 18% of the population (249 million) is at retirement age. New workers much pay 24% of their salary to the State pension fund.
      Trump and, demographics are going to sink China.
      Forget the trade war, China is already in crisis,, Bloomberg
      Chinese credit is the growth engine of the world.

      "China now has 938 shrinking cities, according to Long Ying,"
      https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-e...-city-planners

      Comment


      • What WILL happen on 2020.05?

        The bankers took $14 trillion that was safely locked away in retirement accounts and, used it to build up China inc. This was quite profitable.
        The bankers report that they sweep accounts up to 28 times a month. They take all that idle money and, invest it.
        The enormous growth of China demanded a LOT of raw materials. The bankers use your money to buy up these commodities and, sell them to China, et al.
        This is / was hugely profitable. Not being satisfied with this amount of profit, they invented new ways of squeezing out more.
        In the case of the 2008 crash, they put together terrible credit risk loans and. rated them AAA. They sold these to investors around the world. This was very profitable.
        They made quite a killing selling these mortgage backed securities. When it all blew up, they got the expected bailout.
        They then proceeded to focus on creating all sorts of other derivatives. The warnings sounded by people like Brooksley Born were all ignored by the GOV.
        The mountain of derivatives eventually reached a nominal value of $ 1.45 quadrillion. This mountain started to look wobbly and dangerous.

        The mountain was trimmed back to a bit under $ 1 quadrillion. The bankers were expecting the mountain to eventually blow up. Naturally, they expected to get bailed out once again. They are hanging on to their derivatives waiting for the explosion and, their payout.
        True to form, Deutsche bank started to melt down. Monte di Paschi is not far behind.
        The notional value of the collapsing derivatives is just TOO HIGH for any extensive bailout. The FED sent $264 billion to DB to satisfy counterparty claims.
        Now, the FED is having to inject about $ 1 billion every week or,,, every day. Who knows?
        Armstrong did a special report about the blowup in the REPO market. Everybody is cashing-in GOV debt to get cash. The blowup of the mountain is accelerating.
        Armstrong indicates that the REPO crisis is what will shove the system off a cliff. I haven't bought the report so, I can only speculate.

        Armstrong studiously avoids in predicting a shutdown of the banks. He doesn't want to be crucified for creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
        He did say to have 1 month's worth of bill-paying cash at home. He also said to use this cash for essentials only,,, Forget your mortgage.
        Failure to pay mortgages combined with a shutdown of most business activity will definitely push the banks off the edge of the cliff.
        I've been searching for a long time to find out; will credit cards / instruments be accepted while the banks are shut down.
        You need to read this article for yourself and, decide. It appears that checks just won't be accepted. I still don't know if credit cards will work, or not.
        https://www.thebalance.com/bank-holi...counts-4152139



        Armstrong's program, Socrates predicted in 1985 that a huge change in the confidence model would occur in 2015.75.
        You probably didn't notice anything of note. On that very day, Russian military went in to Syria and, proved that they outclassed U.S. military weapons.
        Since then, the American military has had to do whatever it takes to avoid showdowns with Russia and, the S-400 and S-300 missiles. This has had a dramatic effect on the projection of U.S. military power around the globe,
        The date of 2020.05 is the date given for the collapse of the world economy. Does that mean that you will see great turbulence on that day? I doubt it.
        Then again, a bank closure could happen on that date,,, or in following days.

        Comment


        • The messy details

          The globalists and "aristocrats" are all for total centralization and central control. The British House of Lords is completely against Brexit. The house of commons is completely
          FOR Brexit. Here is a good vid.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4ZSgiMytBE
          Armstrong said that GOV debt is going to crash.
          "the Federal Reserve has continued its ‘QE-Not QE’ operations, which has dramatically expanded its balance sheet. Many argue, rightly, the current monetary interventions by the Fed are technically ‘Not QE’ because they are purchasing Treasury Bills rather than longer-term Treasury Notes."
          The FED is buying up treasury paper with REPO money. FED money is also pumped out to cover failing derivatives from Deutsche bank.

          The financialized economy – including stocks, corporate bonds and real estate – is now booming. Meanwhile, the bulk of the population struggles to meet daily expenses. The world’s 500 richest people got $12 trillion richer in 2019, while 45% of Americans have no savings,
          In so doing, they help other financial markets to function smoothly. Thus, any sustained disruption in this market, with daily turnover in the U.S. market of about $1 trillion, could quickly ripple through the financial system.
          U.S. Treasuries are the most rehypothecated asset in financial markets, and the big banks know this. [They] are the core asset used by every financial institution to satisfy its capital and liquidity requirements, which means that no one really knows how big the hole is at a system-wide level.

          This is the real reason why the repo market periodically seizes up. It’s akin to musical chairs – no one knows how many players will be without a chair until the music stops.

          YES, musical chairs while tossing hot potatoes.

          "For my own part, my loss of trust in what is termed the ‘mainstream media’ (MSM) is nearly complete. Its sins of omission and commission have piled up too high to forgive – the bank of trust I once had in it has lost every penny and is now in deep overdraft.
          In my opinion its gravest sin is the willful and deliberate fracturing of society into many disparate warring camps. The MSM has a lot to answer for in that regard.
          Similarly guilty is our political system. "
          So, who owns the MSM? Why have they been kicked out of 109 countries?
          https://www.peakprosperity.com/surfs-up/

          "The Fed’s minutes… acknowledge that its most recent actions have tallied up to “roughly $215 billion per day” flowing to trading houses on Wall Street. There were 29 business days between the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and the latest Fed minutes, meaning that approximately $6.23 trillion in cumulative loans to Wall Street’s trading houses had been made in that short span of time.
          For emphasis: The Federal Reserve has extended $6.23 trillion of loans in 29 days. That is equal to $215 billion per day."

          A $29 Trillion Bailout
          Wall Street on Parade sets the backdrop:

          During the 20072010 financial collapse on Wall Street the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression the Fed funneled a total of $29 trillion in cumulative loans to Wall Street banks, their trading houses and their foreign derivative counterparties between December 2007 and July 21, 2010.

          A good comparison between 2000 and current conditions.
          https://northmantrader.com/2020/01/1...hosts-of-2000/
          It must be time to crash the markets. The "greed" gauge is maxed out.
          1/12 Institutions, retail and algos are now all-in, just as buybacks tumble – ZH
          1/11 Central bankers are quietly freaking out about the next recession – Forbes
          Some very thick BS from the FED.
          "At the same time, inflation has remained stubbornly below the Fed's 2% inflation target for most of the past seven years. While few people are concerned by low inflation, the Fed prefers to maintain a cushion against deflation, a destabilizing drop in prices and wages."
          The FED claims that we MUST have 2% price inflation to maintain stability. ALL BS, of course.

          The blob state grows non-stop and, is feeling the pinch of price inflation/
          1/11 Inflation surge will be driven by fees, tolls, and taxes – Advancing Time
          This is deflation of the working man's wallet AND, inflation of the parasites.
          1/12 Greta Thunberg tells world leaders to end fossil fuel ‘madness’ – Guardian
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve8JzyjHz0Y
          Facebook Glitch Reveals Greta Thunburg's Father Posting As Teenage Climate Activist

          Feds To Bill California Fire Victims If PG&E Doesn't Pay $4 Billion Owed: Report

          "In State Of Shock" - Former CIA Spook Warns Dems, Deep State "Getting Desperate" To Stop Trump
          "...[Deep State] are in a state of shock. They want to get rid of Trump because for the first time in their careers, they can be prosecuted for what they have done..."
          "The Other 1 Percent": Morgan Stanley Spots A Market Ratio That Is "Unprecedented Even During The Tech Bubble"

          "Currently, the top five companies in the S&P 500 (the other 1 percenters) make up 18% of the total market cap.
          A ratio like this is unprecedented, including during the tech bubble.
          During 2019, the net income concentration for the 1 percenters didn’t keep pace with their market cap concentration, similar to what happened during the 1999 concentration peak.

          I think this divergence is the result of the extraordinary liquidity being provided by the world’s central banks, which is flowing to the most liquid and largest names in the S&P 500. "
          Fracking has lost $280 billion. This is FED money underwriting the energy bills of Americans.

          Iran Says De-Escalation 'Only Solution' As Anti-Government Protests In Tehran Turn Bloody
          Trump is blowing up China economically. "Death To Liars!" Iran Swept By Wave Of Protests Demanding Ayatollah Quit Over Airplane Downing


          In the case of Iran, the current theocratic government is very unpopular. Trump is trying to exacerbate that problem.
          With Stocks The Most Overvalued In History, Goldman Lists The 4 Biggest Risks
          https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/st...t-risks-stocks

          Self destruction.
          https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...self-destructs
          Gridlock on pensions.
          https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...e-of-gridlock/

          Comment


          • Fast rising pressures,,,wildcard, external sources.

            I'll start with Armstrong;
            "Not even the central banks understood what was going on because even they tend to be domestically oriented. Despite the obvious fact that we live in a global economy, all the economic theories, analysis, and experience have been domestically focused. Unless someone has been in the trenches globally," [B]they will never see the wildcard coming from external sources.{/B] This POS new board will NOT do bold when you use "controlV"
            "The question that is now dominating everyone’s inquiries, can the Fed exit the repo market after being the dominant source of liquidity for more than three months? What will it take for the Federal Reserve to withdraw from its daily liquidity operations in this $2.2 trillion market for repurchase agreements (repos)?

            All I am prepared to say publicly is that the solution is beyond the powers of all the central banks combined. The solution is not attainable without political concessions, which politically are just off the table."
            https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...e-repo-market/

            Side note on the dems;
            The fact that Joe Biden is now running in fourth place has the Democrats insisting that there needs to be an investigation because Russia must be behind the fact that Biden cannot save the party.

            The Democrats have insisted that Russia is behind trying to kill Biden’s run for President. U.S. officials are now investigating whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden."
            AND
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uIDiZP6u5I&t=20s

            C.H.Smith, "but the Fed can't conjure up wage increases the way it can conjure up $6 trillion to boost Wall Street and the banks: Federal Reserve Admits It Pumped More than $6 Trillion to Wall Street in Recent Six Week Period (via U. Doran)."
            "
            For a suitable warning about the consequences of this unlimited hubris, let's turn to Darth Vader, in paraphrase:
            Don't be too proud of this financial terror you've constructed. The ability to control a market is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
            Put another way: Those whom the gods would destroy they first make powerful."
            http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com...th-vaders.html

            "It is on record that global planners want to ‘reset‘ the current financial system and replace it with a new set up underpinned by intangible assets. Global elites refer to this as either the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or a ‘new world order‘ of finance. What is a carefully preordained agenda has been fashioned to appear as nothing more than the innocent evolution of technology.It is on record that global planners want to ‘reset‘ the current financial system and replace it with a new set up underpinned by intangible assets. Global elites refer to this as either the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or a ‘new world order‘ of finance. What is a carefully preordained agenda has been fashioned to appear as nothing more than the innocent evolution of technology."
            https://stevenguinness2.wordpress.co...ital-currency/

            1/13 Iran protests: Crowds in Tehran refuse to walk on U.S. and Israeli flags – NBC News
            So, the Iranians hate the ayatollahs more than they hate the Great Satans.
            1/13 Stocks pinned near record highs ahead of US-China trade deal – Reuters
            1/13 “Nothing can go wrong… right?” Trader warns everyone’s all-in – Zero Hedge

            "We do not often quote Lord Keynes at the JWC, but here he is in 1923: “[t]he individualistic capitalism of today…presumes a stable measuring rod of value and can not be efficient – perhaps can not survive – without one.” "They seem to have been glacially unconcerned that modern economic life – indeed, any social organisation more sophisticated than a primitive barter society – needs a sound accounting unit in order for long-term obligations or depreciation schedules to have any meaning at all, let alone to be accurately calculable. An exponentially expanding stock of paper or electronic units does not contain the information needed for any large or lasting enterprise to match off values, any more than jelly can be nailed to the wall."
            "radually, this easy calculation was replaced by a labyrinth of paper claims against paper whose expansion was not even readily susceptible to measurement, because the definitions of money and credit were now so close as to be virtually indistinguishable" (Bold turns itself on when I don't want it.
            https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...assacre-theory
            This is a very interesting article that lays out some of the pitfalls of MMT.

            Comment


            • The economic future of the world is inextricably tied to falling population

              "The best definition ever offered came from John Maynard Keynes in his 1936 classic, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Keynes said a depression is, “a chronic condition of subnormal activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency towards recovery or towards complete collapse.”
              "In my 2014 book, The Death of Money, I wrote, “The United States is Japan on a larger scale.” That was six years ago now.

              Japan started its “lost decade” in the 1990s. Now their lost decade has dragged into three lost decades. The U.S. began its first lost decade in 2009 and is now entering its second lost decade with no real end in sight.
              What I referred to in 2014 was that central bank policy in both countries has been completely ineffective at restoring long-term trend growth or solving the steady accumulation of unsustainable debt."
              https://dailyreckoning.com/helicopte...is-no-panacea/
              So, what brought about Japan's decline,,,, America's decline?

              "Family formation and child rearing ultimately drive spending and consumption. The chart below shows what is at the heart of global inflation; the year over year change in the female childbearing population (red columns), mirrored by the Federal Funds rate (yellow line), and the impact on annual global births (black line). The soon to be declining quantity of females of childbearing age coupled with ongoing declining fertility rates means births will continue declining...and organic demand declining...and only via destructive federal government / central bank ZIRP, NIRP, and market manipulation, can consumption and asset prices be manipulated upward."
              Here is the most important graph of al.
              https://static.seekingalpha.com/uplo...9735977671.png
              The graph shows that the federal funds rate TRACKS the yoy change of 20--40 year old females.
              The article is loaded with all the graphs and info you could ever ask for.
              https://econimica.blogspot.com/2020/...-potenial.html

              Just as Japan has NEVER been able to escape their downward economic trajectory, the same will happen to the rest of the world. We have a shrinking population and, a shrinking birth rate. The debt pile ABSOLUTELY must grow. The State has been commandeered to grow the debt pile. Armstrong said that the State debt is going to crash.
              NOT a surprising forecast. The bankers have engineered a wealth transfer from the middle class to the very rich.
              https://pentoport.com/playing-taps-f...-middle-class/

              "period without any marked tendency towards recovery or towards complete collapse.”
              Don't worry, the collapse has been held at bay for decades but, will eventually make an appearance. The bankers have engineered a wealth transfer because normal business activity was insufficient to keep all of them rich. The fallout from our impoverishment has been a reduction in population. The more that they steal, the fewer future victims are born. We have a rising pile of debt with a falling population and falling earning power to service it.

              Comment


              • The thread view count is WAY down. I must have lost an army of bots.
                Armstrong said that the collapse would start in Europe. European banks are definitely short of liquidity.
                "The banking crisis in Europe is expanding. European banks have no liquidity and the negative interest rates have done so much harm to traditional banking in Europe, we are witnessing excessive fees unfolding. HSBC is raising its overdraft rate of 39.9% for UK customers from March 2020. Santander’s latest bank to set a 40% overdraft rate. Savings accounts which were soliciting people at 3% are dropping to 1%."
                They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for cash.
                https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...king-up-steam/
                Armstrong criticised the ECB for not bailing out European banks. The FED is bailing out American banks but, will this make any difference in the long run?

                Russian troops test-fire latest S-350 anti-aircraft missile system
                This is just one more weapon that will limit Neo-con warmongers from attacking any State that doesn't like the delirious-duo FED + CENTCOM.

                1/15 Is France beyond reform? – American Thinker
                The French GOV spends 57% of the GDP. They pass money out to militant muzzies who have 5 wives and 15 kids. They squeeze money out of working people and pensioners.
                Marseilles appears to be the role model for the rest of the country. The Kalergi Plan has run amuck. France is beyond salvation.
                France has over $43,000 debt per-person.
                https://learnbonds.com/Top-30-Countr...bt-per-Citizen
                The whole list here is pretty scary.

                Systemic distortion
                http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com...0-will-be.html
                Here is an interesting graph comparing FED stimulus to the stock market.
                https://dailyreckoning.com/wp-conten...moking-gun.png
                It can be considered 100% correlation.
                https://dailyreckoning.com/central-banker-comes-clean/

                Comment


                • NO LEAKS in Kansas
                  Dunno where to put this.
                  "This description is not accurate. Sources in Kansas are saying the "briefing" was a "life-altering" event which "utterly horrified" attendees.

                  In fact, the subject matter was so dire, Kansas Deputy Attorney General Jay Scott Emler sent a letter to Speaker Ron Ryckman Tuesday saying that the DHS briefing should be given in a closed Party Caucus, one for Democrats, the other for Republicans. This way, no one had to comply with any Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or Open Public Meetings disclosure requests! ! ! ! !
                  Reporters and staffers were not allowed on the buses."
                  https://halturnerradioshow.com/index...urity-briefing

                  Comment


                  • Just a few notes;
                    "
                    • Famed economist and global financial market consultant David Rosenberg expects household debt to spark the next recession.
                    • Terrifying consumer credit and auto loan data are a colossal debt bubble in plain sight. They’re on the verge of crashing the economy.
                    • $16 trillion in household debt and soaring auto debt puts Americans in a precarious position to weather headwinds and shocks."
                    • https://www.ccn.com/the-next-recessi...ash-economist/
                    • Not one word about public debt or corporate debt
                    • "Fed Quietly Confirms Fears About Stock Market’s $10 Trillion Powder Keg"
                    • https://www.ccn.com/fed-quietly-conf...on-powder-keg/
                    • Ho-Hum
                    1/16 Second hottest year on record capped warmest-ever decade – Bloomberg
                    ALL the models are severely handicapped because they ignore so much energy flow that isn't included. The next IPCC report will include the plasma flows that change everything.
                    1/16 Americans have been brainwashed to accept war without question – SHTF Plan
                    MSM and the war profiteers have done a good job.
                    1/16 Honda, Isuzu Power up fuel cell partnership for heavy-duty trucks – Reuters
                    I'll believe it when I see it.
                    1/16 Nigel Farage gets his way, and last laugh Brexit is coming – Mother Lode
                    Why is this story from Mother Lode? Won't the MSM touch it?

                    1/16 1/4 of prospective millennial home buyers have less than $1,000 saved – ZH
                    That won't even get you first & last on a decent apartment.
                    1/16 The zombification of America – 40% of listed companies don’t make money – ZH
                    This isn't about money. It is about jobs.
                    1/15 Global debt-to-GDP ratio has now hit an all-time high of 322% – Financial Post
                    I searched on ... central bankers meet next week... Really got nothing.
                    Armstrong has this,
                    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...t-week-on-ecm/

                    Lagarde and MANY others have talked about a RESET. OK, that's nice. What does it mean?
                    "They" formed the EU knowing ahead of time that it would fail because it lacked a debt union.
                    China has doubled down on Marxism even though they know that it has always failed.
                    Wishful thinking seems to rule the day. "They" want to crash the currencies bad enough that we will demand a State Crypto or an SDR or world GOV.
                    I suspect VERY bad planning.

                    Comment


                    • https://original.antiwar.com/danny_s...ies-they-tell/
                      I had a great anti-war post and, the board ate it when I added this link.

                      Comment


                      • Still saving the bankers

                        The Bretton Woods agreement made the U.S. dollar the reserve currency. ALL States had to sell us stuff by undercutting our prices so that they could accumulate dollars. The dollar was locked in to the price of gold. America could only create a limited number of dollars. The supply of gold grows by about 2% a year. The wealth of the post-war Western world was growing much faster than this. The Plaza Accord is a 1985 agreement to weaken the dollar. America was forced to greatly expand the number of dollars in circulation to satisfy the demands of foreign Central Banks. We had to run a huge current account deficit to supply dollars to the world. This is all coming to an end but, who knows when. If the CBs are getting together next week, you can bet that they are very worried about the debt bubble and, rising hatred.
                        In Lebanon, they are attacking banks.
                        "Following an extended stand-off in front of the headquarters of the Central Bank, protesters came into conflict with security forces that resulted in at least seven wounded.

                        ...Several people attempted to storm the Central Bank building, breaking through the outer fence and calling for “the fall of the rule of the bank” and the resignation of Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh. "

                        "In fact, it is being projected that approximately 20 million manufacturing jobs around the globe could be taken over by robots by the year 2030…"
                        “As a result of robotization, tens of millions of jobs will be lost, especially in poorer local economies that rely on lower-skilled workers. This will therefore translate to an increase in income inequality,” the study’s authors said.

                        The good news is that the full extent of this ominous scenario is not likely to completely play out. The bad news is that this is because our society is rapidly moving toward complete and utter collapse."
                        https://www.zerohedge.com/technology...-millions-jobs

                        Armstrong, "So there is no logic to what Carney is saying unless it is a cover-up for the pension crisis that is unfolding. Governments have ordered pension funds to buy government debts and then they take interest rates down to negative. The governments, without climate change, are ensuring that pensions will be worthless. It seems that he is using climate change as the excuse for the pension system failure."

                        "#18 In one recent year, 17 million more American adults were diagnosed as having “a major depressive disorder”. It is critical to understand that is not the total of all Americans that have been diagnosed with “a major depressive disorder”. Rather, that is just the number that were added to the overall total in one year."
                        http://endoftheamericandream.com/arc...er-been-before
                        1/17 “Buy gold and silver” – Robert Kiyosaki warns of looming global pension crisis – MS
                        1/17 China posts weakest growth in 29 years as trade war bites – Reuters
                        1/17 Deutsche Bank sees ‘distressed debt cycle’ starting in China – Bloomberg
                        I believe that China has no future.

                        1/17 Cass year-over-year freight index sinks to a 12-year low – Mish
                        1/17 NY Fed considers becoming sugar daddy to hedge funds as distress grows – GATA
                        1/17 Student loan debt is over $1.6 trillion and balances aren’t going down – CNBC
                        1/17 Trump tax cut hands $32 billion windfall to America’s top banks – Yahoo
                        YES, but he cut millions of support to America's poorest children.
                        1/16 The Fed “just let the cat out of the bag”, admits being forced to fuel asset bubble – ZH

                        1/16 The Fed is at it again: another $100 billion cash injection – Schiff Gold
                        1/16 The zombification of America – 40% of listed companies don’t make money – ZH
                        This is ALL about employment.

                        Comment


                        • Well, today is the big date from Armstrong's program, Socrates. So far, I haven't seen the sky falling. Armstrong said that maybe today is the planning day of the big change.
                          I'll post some of his latest stuff.

                          "Even the 911 famous attack on the World Trade Center took place on the specific turning point in 2001.695 to the very day. Not all wars begin precisely on this model, it may reflect when the combination of trends forms to create the decision to go to war which may predate the event by months or years. It is difficult to determine that instant of a decision, but clearly war unfolds as the result of some trend set in motion previously."
                          Is that a hint of what he won't talk about?
                          "For example, the Economic Confidence Model also marked the very day of the high on July 20th, 1998 in the US share market from which the Long-Term Capital Management crash began in September. The 1987 turning point picked the very day of the crash and confirmed the low and the capital flow shift which resulted in selling US assets repatriating cash to Japan creating the Bubble on the peak of that wave in 1989.95."
                          "Anyone who attempts to argue against the existence of any business cycle is typically someone who supports the government against the people in true Marxist fashion"
                          "The questions we must now address are; has the stock market reached a temporary high? Will we face the abolishment of money in favor of electronic to prevent bank runs? Will governments seize cryptocurrencies and force the money to be transferred to their own cryptocurrency?"

                          "Welcome to ECM Wave #935. We should expect a very important turning point in 2022 which will market a serious Monetary Crisis. From here on out, the confrontation in government between left and right will intensify and the violence will rise with the rhetoric. Any hope of a responsible government is now extinguished.
                          The Democrats are facing the collapse of their party. They know they really cannot beat Trump in a fair election, so they have adopted the policy that if you cannot beat him, impeach him."
                          I guess that we just have to wait and se

                          Nearly a month after the signing of a $738 billion defense bill, the US Navy’s top officer is now arguing that the service’s portion of the Pentagon budget does not allow it to; Build a bunch of big expensive targets. This is the age of cyber warfare and ultra fast missiles.
                          The purpose of war is to run up big bills and and make the MIC rich.

                          Comment


                          • America needs war
                            https://www.globalresearch.ca/washin...ce-tag/5700817
                            1/18 If promoting wealth inequality and social breakdown is evil, the Fed is evil – CHS
                            1/18 Retail carnage continues: Bose lays off 100s, shutters all retail stores – ZH
                            1/18 The great bond party of 2019 is ending – NY Times
                            1/18 IMF boss says global economy risks return of Great Depression – Guardian
                            1/18 China economic collapse due to debt – Watching Rome Burn
                            1/18 Manufacturing has peaked this economic cycle – Mish
                            Manufacturing has peaked because consumption has peaked, war production not withstanding.

                            1/18 Japan government grapples with mountain of debt – Reuters
                            1/18 Aging population is a bigger threat to Japan than China – National Interest
                            1/18 How fake unemployment numbers subdue anger at Wall Street – GATA
                            1/18 The Fed won’t avert the next ‘crisis,’ they will cause it – Seeking Alpha

                            "January 13 – Reuters (Marc Jones): “Global debt is expected to climb to a new all-time high of more than $257 trillion in the coming months, the Institute of International Finance estimated…, adding there was no sign of it retreating either. The amount works out at around $32,500 for each of the 7.7 billion people on planet and more than 3.2 times the world’s annual economic output, but the staggering numbers don’t stop there. Total debt across the household, government, financial and non-financial corporate sectors surged by some $9 trillion in the first three quarters of 2019 alone. In mature markets total debt now tops $180 trillion or 383% of these countries’ combined GDP,"
                            "China’s Credit Bubble saw Total Debt expand from 297.4% to 308.5% of GDP. China’s Corporate Debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 156.7% from 154.4%, while rapidly expanding government Debt increased from 49% to 53.6%. From Reuters (Marc Jones): “China’s government debt also grew at its fastest annual pace last year since 2009…, and household debt and general government debt are now at all-time highs of 55% of GDP.”
                            http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot...is-insane.html
                            "In September, an unexpected shortage of available cash to lend sparked a surge in the cost of repo-market borrowing, prompting the Fed to intervene for the first time since the financial crisis. One potential solution is to lend cash directly to smaller banks, securities dealers and hedge funds through the repo market’s clearinghouse,"
                            Even the little guys need cash.

                            1/18 The great bond party of 2019 is ending – NY Times
                            Hmm, let's see how that works out.
                            All of this is completely unsustainable. The CB heads are meeting next week. There is NO possible exit plan that is compatible with human nature.

                            China is toast;
                            "China is becoming increasingly unable to continue to pay into the base of the world’s largest pyramid scheme of an economy and the cracks in the bubble are showing. This past year, saw three of the 4,279 Chinese lenders almost fail, if not for the massive intervention by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) of immediate liquidity via more debt. The Chinese economic miracle is built on unsustainable debt-based infrastructure projects over the past two decades that have provided China with a face of prosperity to show the world, but this is only a mask to hide the limited countrywide success of the Chinese miracle into the rural areas. The injection of $Trillions in capital has seen China distribute these sums across the base of its economy creating a GDP that hit a high of 14.2 % in 2007 then averaged nearly 9% for the next decade before dropping yearly to 6.1% in 2018. All this growth had produced a personal affluence to a sub-set of Chinese society that has stoked this appearance of a flourishing economy.
                            Sounds familiar
                            This Chinese economic Keynesian trick of interjection of liquidity into national infrastructure is somewhat similar to the TVA and national works projects funded under Roosevelt’s depression-era New Deal. In this approach employment and therefore a growing tax base accelerated year after year as workers and corporations received the short-lived benefits of this massive windfall of available liquidity.

                            China’s method of stimulus is of course distinguished from today’s American model that merely shovels the injection of its own manufactured $Trillions by using multiple fiscal tricks to by-pass the citizenry and instead shovel the cash straight into the wallets of the already super-wealthy. Meanwhile, the US peasant once again pines in the “Hope” of yet another election."
                            Sounds familiar
                            https://watchingromeburn.uk/news/chi...omic-collapse/


                            Comment


                            • https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/in...or-lose-67-now
                              I put in this link. The board zapped my post.

                              Comment


                              • Just a bit more news;
                                "Investors should keep in mind that market valuations stand nearly three times the historically run-of-the-mill valuation levels from which stocks have historically generated run-of-the-mill long-term returns," says John Hussman, president of the Hussman Investment Trust, in his latest note to investors.
                                https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/in...or-lose-67-now
                                "Authored by Mike Adams via NaturalNews.com,

                                In case you didn’t fully realize that something big is about to take place in America, file these two facts:
                                #1: The U.S. military, Carrier Strike Group Four (CSG4), is jamming GPS signals from Jan 16th – 24th
                                ...which may overlap the planned deep state false flag event in Richmond, Virginia.
                                https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...vision-devices

                                Haftar Blocks All Libyan Oil Exports Day Before Berlin Peace Conference






                                Vital oil sector, at over 90% of Libya's revenue, which also supplies Europe is headed for a tailspin...
                                https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...ace-conference

                                944 Trillion Reasons Why The Fed Is Quietly Bailing Out Hedge Funds






                                "If the banks are not benefitting, who is? Leverage funds with huge interest rate derivative positions. And who is on the hook if they blow up? The big banks who are on the other side of the trade, as they would be forced to recapitalize the clearinghouses."
                                https://www.zerohedge.com/

                                Living On Borrowed Time






                                ...there’s no turning back. There’s no graceful way out. There’s no backing away from QE or repo madness...Quite frankly, this ‘going forward’ scenario is unworkable...

                                https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/living-borrowed-time


                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X