Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Track record

Armstrong made his original prediction of a collapse back in 1985. So, how is his track record?
"The Greece crisis started precisely on the turning point for the Sovereign Debt Crisis to the DAY from our original projection in 1985. It was just amazing to watch things unfold with such precision. Now, as we approach October 1st, 2015 (2015.75), one must wonder how fast are governments going to act."
Greece Has Done All it Could – Final Days Approach | Armstrong Economics
"Merkel is tearing Europe apart with this whole obsession with inflation from the German hyperinflation. She fails to comprehend that inflation is NOT the result of an increase in the supply of money or QE1-3 and the ECB monetization would have worked. Inflation will soar when confidence in government collapses."

[Danny B]

war on cash

GOV / Banks want all wealth available to them so that they can piss it away. There is a HUGE lack of liquidity and they want your cash available.
"The Banksters War on Cash" "Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which has enacted a policy restricting the use of cash in selected markets; bans cash payments for credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans; and disallows the storage of "any cash or coins" in safe deposit boxes.”
The Banksters War on Cash

"It’s exactly like what Ron Paul said: “The cashless society is the IRS’s dream: total knowledge of, and control over, the finances of every single American.”
The War on Cash: Transparently Totalitarian | International Man

Interest rates are negative. If you hold cash to get around this robbery, they will come looking for you.
How cash became illegal - MoneyWeek

"he Goal Is to Force You to Deposit Cash and Charge YOU Interest"
https://www.moneymetals.com/news/201...calates-000698
You get the idea,,, TOTAL control.

[Danny B]

No losses to the banks

People are tired of the tax-payer being forced to bail out failed banks. NO problem. When a bank fails, the loss will be borne by the stockholders, bondholders AND depositors.... called a "bail in". 5 banks have at least $ 40 trillion each in derivatives that are expected to crash. NO PROBLEM. After they have fleeced the stockholders, bondholders and depositors, then, they will be bailed out by the taxpayers. About 12:00,,,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtN5QqH6LLM
So, the dollar crashes,,, everybody defaults,,, the banks take ALL tangible collateral. Since the derivatives will crash when the dollar crashes, the banks will take ALL deposits to cover their losses in derivatives. If the amount comes up short, the taxpayer will make up the difference.
And you wonder why GOV bought a billion bullets

[skribat]

scum continues to float ..

[Danny B]

No morality,,, no economy

General Douglas MacArthur
"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject
to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.
There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse,
or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
"The collapse in the rule of law is so vital for sustaining the economy that it is often overlooked."
"There is nothing more damaging to the viability of a nation than the collapse in the rule of law. Without the rule of law, nothing else can exist from human rights to property. "
The Collapse in the Rule of Law – What is Wrong With Government? | Armstrong Economics
GOV is rotten through and through. BUT, they are handing out pay checks so, we ignore their trespass.
"Over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. This figure does NOT include the 64 million in Social Security or 54 million in Medicare. "
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...crisis-looming

"With 54% of this prime working age-group sitting outside of the labor force, it is not surprising that in a recent poll 78% of women in the U.S. want a "man with a J.O.B."
54% !!!. Wait a minute. Our currency is backed by our productive capacity. "After operating on a fiat system for 20+ years people are starting to realize that the only thing that backs a currency is the real productive efforts of their people. Yes, over time we always borrow more than our productive efforts can pay back and proceed to crash the money system.
But what else is new?

We call this a money's "timeline" and it's as new an idea as life, death and taxes! Time and debt age any money system until it dies. The world moves on. " FOFOA
The average life of a fiat currency is 40 years. Abuse kills it.
At the moment, GOV is faking it. The productive sector is still working and producing goods. The nagging problem is that nobody is buying them. Biggest Inventory Build In History Prevents Total Collapse Of The US Economy
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...pse-us-economy
So, how long do you think that this can go on?
The PTB are charging you to store your cash in the bank. Also, they try to force you to do just that. The “War on Cash” in 10 Spine-Chilling Quotes | Wolf Street
OK, so lots of people survive on a check from GOV. What is the plan for them when FED GOV defaults?

[Danny B]

Parasites everywhere you look

The bankers eventually buy all the politicians. After that, the financial sector controls the political sector. Bankers are parasites in that they never produce anything physical. So, the parasites dominate the producing sector. With the mentality of a parasite, how can you expect the physical economy to survive?
"The financial markets don't just dominate the economy--they now control everything. In 1999, the BBC broadcast a 4-part documentary by Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set ( Episode 1: "Who Pays Wins" 58 minutes), that explored the way financial markets have come to dominate not just the economy but the political process and society."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...rol-everything

"This spells the end of the electoral-political control of the economy, as politicians of all stripes quickly abandon all their ideologies and policies and rush to "save" the markets from any turmoil, because that turmoil could destabilize not just the financial markets but the economy, pensions and ultimately the government's ability to finance its own profligate borrowing and spending."
Ahh yes, A symbiosis of parasites.

Jim Rickards was asked by the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to "war game" the possibility of an economic collapse. The conclusion is that collapse is unavoidable. Here is a fictional account of a dystopian future where GOV has absolute control.
CIA insider Jim Rickards’ predictions for society in 2024
Pretty ugly.

[Danny B]

Dr. Edwin Vieira

Dr. Edwin Vieira is a very astute constitutional scholar. He has an excellent article on the FED.
"All right, the system gets up and running in time for World War l in 1914. But after the end of World War l you have the first depression under the Federal Reserve in 1921–22."
Of course !!! How can you have a war if you can't put it on your (our) credit card. A depression 7 years later is just a coincidence.
"Then comes the banking crisis after the 1929 stock market collapse. In 1931 and 1932, this was the great collapse of the Federal Reserve System.

Roosevelt comes in, in 1933, seizes the gold from the American people, turns Federal Reserve notes into legal tender for the first time"
"Under our constitutional system, the only powers Congress has are the ones given to it by the Constitution. They struck out this provision from the Articles of Confederation, so it logically follows that the power isn’t there. There is no power to create paper currency of the debt-based variety in Congress."

"In that industry, legal code was created by the participants, by the private parties."
"This goes up the Supreme Court in the Schechter case and unanimously they declare that structure unconstitutional because it amounted to a delegation of legislative authority to private parties.

That is the exact structure of the Federal Reserve System: it’s a delegation of some kind of monetary authority to private parties, the 12 regional reserve banks."
"So why is the Federal Reserve still here? Because its statute was enacted in 1913, and it wasn’t a part of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Nobody succeeded in bringing a case to the Supreme Court to challenge the Federal Reserve System on the same basis on which the National Industrial Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional."
Is the Fed Unconstitutional?

When the founding fathers created the constitution, they were unhappy with the fact that the SCOTUS was a federal agency. They rightly suspect that it would always "find" for more federal power. Gold was the limitation so gold was tossed.

Paul Volcker: Gold Was the Enemy
Former Fed chairman talks about the Fed and gold
Paul Volcker: Gold Was the Enemy
"The Treasury holds the gold, not the Federal Reserve. The Treasury issues a gold certificate to the Fed. The paper gold is on deposit at the Federal Reserve. It belongs to the United States. If you say: ‘We want an audit of the gold stock, we want to go to Fort Knox and count the gold bars.’ That was a popular idea at that time, but the Treasury never did it. For all we know the bars don’t exist,” he said with a smirk."

[Danny B]

Illiquidity, insolvency and default

Economists write endlessly about the "consumer economy". What happens to the consumer economy when the consumer loses his job? First off, you get income inequality and even more job loses.
The Institute for New Economic Thinking

Human nature ensures that there is NO possible way to run an economy absent morality. A corporation has no brain, heart, responsibility, nor, morality. As it gets more powerful, it threatens everybody.
"Anat Admati: Too Big to Fail is a license for recklessness. These institutions defy notions of fairness, accountability, and responsibility. They are the largest, most complex, and most indebted corporations in the entire economy.

We all have to be really alarmed by the fact that not only do we still have such institutions, but many of them are ever-larger and more complex and at least as dangerous, if not more so, than they were before the financial crisis.
They are too big to manage and control"
The Institute for New Economic Thinking

Big GOV is an entity of the infinite appetite of a runaway parasite. It is willing to prostitute itself and the State for any perceived return. Reducing corporate taxes and printing money for the banks may seem like a good idea but, it reduces income in the long term.

"U.S. bankruptcy code (Sec. 101 (32)) defines insolvency for businesses as the “financial condition such that the sum of such entity’s debts is greater than all of such entity’s property, at fair valuation.”
"Although the federal government’s $18.2 trillion debt is commonly compared to U.S. GDP of only $17.4 trillion, a far more appropriate debt comparison would be to compare it to assets possessed by the U.S. federal government"
"Most reports estimate such assets at well below $4 trillion, so the net worth of the federal government would be negative $14 trillion. The Federal Reserve is a bit more optimistic: it estimates the U.S. government’s net worth at negative $12 trillion. Either way, the federal government is clearly insolvent under its own law, if it were a business."

"Even with record 2014 tax receipts of over $3 trillion, federal debt levels are almost six times current receipts. It is no different than a household earning only $30,000 a year with $180,000 of debt. And this is the official debt level; include Social Security, pension funds, or any of the other myriad promises made, and financial obligations easily balloon to 30 or more times tax receipts. "
"If the Federal Reserve then continues with proliferate production runs of the printing presses, expect Mises to be prophetic: bondholders will be “repaid”, but with a currency which hardly meets the “terms of the contract.”

How To Prepare for US Government Insolvency

As insolvency will be answered with a de facto default – a repayment to bondholders with a substantially depreciated currency"
The U.S. Government: Adding Illiquidity to Insolvency

GOV has inflated the stock market hinting at a crash. They want investors to flee to the safety of bonds. Russia and China are dumping U.S. bonds. With the price of oil so low, Saudi is dumping dollar bonds. Maybe they just want an excuse to dump them.
As foreign States dump U.S. bonds, the FED is buying close to 90%? of issuance. U.S. entities are being pushed and led to invest in U.S. bonds.

The same thing is happening in Europe. After the Geek haircut, the ECB rescued the markets and there was a sustained flow of funds OUT of each country and INTO home bond accounts. The U.S. is seeing the same thing. Foreigners leaving and Nationals expected to take up the slack.
When the cascade of defaults comes, GOV will print a new currency to pay off the bond load. This new currency already has a name.
The Split Birth of New Scheiss Dollar

GOV has tried to create hyperinflation to evaporate a big portion of the debt load. This hasn't worked. The new currency will carry a devaluation of about 50%. Bondholders will be repaid with garbage. That is why foreign States are trying to exit. FED GOV is hard at work to ensure that Americans have no way to exit the dollar monster. They wanted a dollar devaluation and they will get it one way or another.

[Danny B]

Martin Weiss newsletter

There are lots and lots of people selling financial newsletters. Most of them will tell you what to invest in next. A few are doom and gloom like Marc Faber. Their track record at accurate prediction varies considerably.
Jim Willie recently said that the oil majors were going to crash from margin calls related to failing junk-bonds and derivatives in the oil patch.

Martin Weiss has long published a newsletter;
"In 2005, we were one of the first to warn homeowners and investors of an impending collapse of the real estate market:

In July of 2007, we publicly warned the Federal Reserve about the rapidly unfolding crisis and presented nine proposals for a long-term recovery.
In September, 2008, we warned the White House, Congress and the Fed that the $700 billion bailout was like applying a band-aid to a sucking chest wound.
In October, 2008, we warned the International Monetary Fund that global banking bailouts would do more harm than good.
And in March of 2009 — in a special press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. — we warned that the bailouts would only prolong the crisis and weaken any recovery.

Moreover, we were the ONLY firm in the world that issued low ratings — and specifically NAMED — nearly every major company that collapsed during the last big financial disaster. "

"In a moment I’ll explain why this crisis is inevitable, carved in stone. Why it will likely begin on “Bloody Wednesday” — June 17, 2015, possibly even before."
"What is the historic, life-changing, world-changing event that will vaporize massive amounts of wealth?

It should be very obvious: It’s the singular moment in time when interest rates suddenly begin to RISE. And the Fed is likely to make that decision to raise rates at its meeting on June 17."
Money and Markets

Alan Greenspan, " I never said that the FED is independent".
Given that, I don't understand how the FED could raise interest rates knowing that it will blow 90% of the economy out of the water.

Current rates 00000.0 in the bond market are killing all manner of investment. If bond buyers flee, GOV defaults. Armstrong states this for 2015.75. If interest rates to preserve the bond market, the economy goes off a cliff. Without a viable economy, the bonds can't be paid back anyway.
My advice; buy a big sailboat and lots of beer.

[Danny B]

Loss of faith

Martin Armstrong is a historian extraordinaire. He has stated over and over that extra money printing does not cause hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is caused by a loss of faith in GOV.
"The final and ultimate round of the Crisis that began in 2008 will occur when faith is lost in the Central Banks."
"As a result, today, more than 90% of market price action is based on investors’ perceptions of what the Central Banks will do… NOT fundamentals."
"Here is former Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, stating openly that Mario Draghi had “no plan” and was simply bluffing when he claimed, “we’ll do whatever it takes.”
The Final And Ultimate Crisis Will Be a Crisis of Faith | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

World socialism as a cure for automation

Armstrong created "Socrates" like IBM created "Watson". Armstrong was thrown into the deepest, darkest hole GOV could find. He served the longest sentence for civil contempt ever handed out. Why so much fear? One could easily speculate that if; Socrates got loose, all financial manipulations would become obvious and probably, impossible. Watson reads all the RSS feeds. They made a movie about Armstrong. "The Forecaster" was only shown briefly in 2 cinemas in America but, is widely shown in Europe.
"Many people have asked the question why have they not killed me since it appears that most others central to events covered in the movie, the FORECASTER, are dead."

There is a worldwide push to socialism. There is an ever growing army,, the "free $hit army". This is occurring at the same time that we are sliding towards a global-mean-wage. Productivity has moved to low-wage markets at the same time that there is a huge increase in the number of people demanding support. MANY of these people legitimately WANT to work.
the solution from GOV is to tax EVERYTHING that can't escape.
"French citizens and tourists will then only be allowed a limited amount of physical money. They have financial police searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize. "
The New Age of Economic Totalitarianism & the London Meeting to End Currency | Armstrong Economics

GOV is hard at work trying to eliminate cash in the belief that they can suck up more money if all transactions are recorded. The ALWAYS ignore the fact that; for every $1 increase in taxes, the GDP is diminished by $3.
Australia will have a compulsory tax on savings.
Australia First to Introduce a Compulsory Tax on Money Itself | Armstrong Economics
This is socialism at it's finest.

In the larger picture, the West built up a high standard of living. We lost our job and don't want to cut our standard of living. By using credit, we spend tomorrow's wages today. By implementing heavy taxes, we rob operating capital from the producing economy. By selling GOV bonds, we steal our children's wages.

There is no easy solution to massive job losses.
Study Sees Robots Cutting Labor Costs in Factories 24%
Robots leave behind Chinese factory workers | The Japan Times

Employment has died. Productivity has died. We want consumption to remain the same. It's not working very well.
Sucking Spoilt Milk From A Bloated Dead Sow - The Automatic Earth

[Danny B]

We Just Broke 2008′s Record for the Fastest Economic Unraveling!

"Now remember 2007 was just a precursor for the real wealth transfer that took place in H2 08. But as you can see in the above chart while the two periods depict very similar market movements, 2015 has generated the same pattern in a much more accelerated time frame."
"If things do breakdown as they did in 2008 the pain and suffering will be much worse this time around. The reason is that median net worth is down 40% from where it was just before the last collapse. U6 unemployment is already twice what it was prior to the last downturn. Debt levels, both individual and public are at record highs. All of that means a much worse bottom than last time.

But probably the most disheartening aspect of the coming reset is that almost every retiree or soon to be retired household has just about 100% of their nest egg currently in equities. This means a significant market crash will create the largest single wealth transfer in the history of the world."
We Just Broke 2008′s Record for the Fastest Economic Unraveling! | First Rebuttal

[Danny B]

Too many parasites,, too little wealth

The economy in America gives capitalism a bad name. It is crony capitalism at it's worst. Crony capitalism is anti-competition.
"Paperwork. Expenses. Regulation. High taxes. High labor rates. Entrenched competition with aging, loyal customers. All are endemic from Boston to Berlin to Beijing.

Leading industries – heavily controlled and regulated, including defense, education, health and finance – are practically arms of the government. All are protected with high barriers to entry and low expectations. Competition is barely tolerated. Innovation is discouraged. Mistakes are forgiven and reimbursed."
"Third, the developed economies have been zombified. The US, for example, is way down at No. 46 on the World Bank’s list of places where it is easiest to start a new business."
There Will Be No 25-Year Depression |

The money is being squeezed out of the economy to pay GOV debt.
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/30541a..._Version_4.pdf
Then, there is the pension load. Just how many hundreds of $ billions can be pulled from a weak economy to pay people who no longer produce?
California's government pensions are a crippling burden - Watchdog.org

Any bubble market needs WIDE participation. Bubbles go on until a large number of people decide that the asset is over-valued.
The Godfather Of All Bubbles, US Treasury Bond Market
GOV, bankers, et al recognize that there is a business cycle. Their greatest vanity is that they can manipulate it. They have failed every time. They can make the volatility greater but, can't change the peaks and valley.
Understanding a New World Order in Economics Is Possible | Armstrong Economics

Debt instrument are backed by the productive ability of the workers. When that productivity is diminished, so too is the value of the debt instruments.

[Danny B]

It's the flow, NOT the stock of money that is critical

Socialism is a operating system to intercede between environmental pressures and people who just don't measure up to Mother Nature's hard demands. Most of our politicians are in that category. Keynes came up with an economic system that routes support to those who often don't merit it or work for it. The average life of a democracy is 150 years so, we can see that it takes time for unravelling. The unravelling of the operating system is becoming more obvious.
" the good news for investors is that the Fed now tells us where it thinks the economy is headed. The bad news is it has been consistently, and sometimes spectacularly, wrong. Talk about the blind leading the blind."
The FED has missed EVERY downturn even though it employs hundreds of PHDs. Could their models be wrong?
Why Monetary Central Planning Can’t Work—-The Fed’s GDP Forecasting Record Is Atrocious | David Stockman's Contra Corner

Germany refuses to print more money because of their FEAR of hyperinflation. Martin Armstrong has thoroughly proved that hyperinflation is caused by a loss of faith in GOV, NOT by excessive money printing.

The FED is operating on the principle that it is the QUANTITY of money that controls economic activity rather than the flow. The FED does NOT subscribe to this belief,,, so much for Keynesian oriented schools.

"following 4 pictures would paint more than a thousand words on why The Fed will need to restart the flow soon... or the game is up."
"All suggesting it is indeed the flow.. and not stock that has pumped everything... and now that it is officially in decline, Yellen is going to need to find an excuse to crank the flow once again..."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...-4-ugly-charts

The parasites, both major and minor depend on bad models so that they can divert resources for their own consumption. These models are failing rapidly. If the models are abandoned, the mega parasites lose control of wealth. If the models are not abandoned, the markets crash. The mega bubble can only be sustained by uninterrupted confidence. As more people perceive the models to be unworkable, there will be decreasing confidence.

[Danny B]

Doo-doo runs downhill,,, cash flows uphill

" We Just Broke 2008′s Record for the Fastest Economic Unraveling!"
Many aspects of the economy move just a bit slower than the prevailing speed of communication. As the speed of communication increases, reflexive moves in the economy speed up.
"If Western interest rates were ever normalized, to somewhere between 3 – 5%, most of these Western nations would implode on the dramatically higher interest rates in a matter of months. Some (most notably the United States) would implode in a matter of weeks."
The FED and treasury create bonds and sell them to the banks.
"Most of these bond debts are no longer owed to ordinary citizens, or even public/private institutions. The holders of most of these $trillions in (Western) IOU’s are the Big Banks of the West.
Our motive is clear. The One Bank wants to prop-up these debtors (and continue to blood-suck our economies with massive interest payments) because if it fails to do so, the debts implode and its “assets” immediately go to zero."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...e-debt-jubilee
"The “gamblers” holding the vast majority of the $1.5+ quadrillion in bets in this rigged casino are (surprise! surprise!) the Big Bank tentacles of the One Bank.

Supporting a crooked financial system is VERY expensive. Supporting a welfare system is far less expensive but, it does add up over time.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...nancial-system

So, at a guess; treasury bonds crash,,, this causes the banks to crash,,, this wipes out pension, hedge and insurance funds. The banks have a get-out-of-jail-free card in that their derivatives have super-seniority.