Economic pressures

[Danny B]

The intensityAND speed of negative feedback loops

A week ago, the Chinese authorities said that they were going to stop the growth of the debt bubble. They stared into the abyss and; 5/17 A week later, China’s debt keeps flowing at record rate – Fortune
5/17 China’s debt bubble is getting only more dangerous – Washington Post

"This is the greatest monetary experiment in history. Why wouldn’t it lead to the biggest collapse? My strategy doesn’t require that I’m right about the likelihood of that scenario. Logic dictates to me that it’s inevitable."
"Markets Have No Purpose Any More" Mark Spitznagel Warns "Biggest Collapse In History" Is Inevitable | Zero Hedge

Venezuela was one of the 20 richest nations several years ago. Now, they are out hunting cats and dogs; Watch Venezuela, Because Food Shortages, Looting And Economic Collapse Are Coming To America Too

"The first thing we saw as Venezuela began going down was that the government cracked down on the ability to stock up on food. They instituted a fingerprint registry for buying food, made prepping illegal, and began to dole out supplies. The government took over most of the stores, then forced farmers to hand over the majority of their crops at the price the government chose to pay. These crops were then marked up extravagantly and sold to people who suddenly found they could no longer afford to eat. Eventually, the government announced that the country was out of food and that if people wanted to eat, they’d better grow their own."
Corruption at it's worst.
You are being redirected...
5/17 Venezuela declares state of emergency, orders factory seizures – Oil Price Seizing a factory is pretty stupid when the problem is an inability to pay for imports.

‘We’re running a f—ing casino’: Politician tells all in manifesto | New York Post
5/17 Financial Armageddon looms on the horizon – Gold Eagle
Cognitive dissonance writes about "rogue waves" Rogue Wave | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

Too many people trying to control the economy

"If one dates the beginning of a depression from the beginning of the unsustainable expansion of debt that preceded it, then the current depression began in 1987."
":If one dates the beginning of a depression from the time when the benefits of debt are, in the aggregate, outweighed by its burdens, the depression began in 2000, with the implosion of the fiat-credit fuelled, high-tech and Internet stock market bubble"
" What David Stockman defines as “breadwinner” jobs in construction, manufacturing, white-collar professions, governments, and full-time private services, which on average pay more than $50,000 per year, peaked in January 2001"
The Humungous Depression « The Burning Platform

The death of the Euro is assured
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...h-of-the-euro/
Financial Armageddon Looms On The Horizon As The EURO UNION IMPLOSION Nears | Gold Eagle
Euro Forecast Via Cartoons?Can The PIIGS Fly? | Gold Eagle
While it's true that automation and the demographic crash have made things worse, the 2 biggest problems are ; trying to save EVERY bank and Trying to create a command economy to force socialism.

• Deutsche Bank’s Woes May Be ‘Insurmountable’ (BBG) No doubt about it.
• ECB Grants Debt Relief To All Eurozone Nations Except Greece (Vox) It probably won't matter in the end.
• China’s Economy Is Past The Point Of No Return (Chang)
• Money Trail Shows China Sticking To ‘Original Sin’ (R.)
2 weeks ago, China vowed to cut back on credit expansion. They now, CLEARLY realize that the Western monetary system that they are using has NO exit.
• Climate Change Puts 1.3 Billion People, $158 Trillion At Risk: World Bank (G.) $ 158 trillion? Where do these bozos get their numbers?

"The Dead Panda Bounce" ; China’s Economy Is Past The Point Of No Return | David Stockman's Contra Corner
"Markets don’t have a purpose any more — they just reflect whatever central planners want them to.” http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...e-history-inev
The central planners pride themselves in knowing everything that is going on and how to manipulate everything.

At the same time, the corporatocracy is planning to do to America what the economic hitmen have done to developing countries for many decades.
"Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations."

"Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.

If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of state. That is, indeed, what happened to Allende, with the backing of the CIA.



Perkins has just reissued his book with major updates. The basic premise of the book remains the same, but the updhttp://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Rickards_The-Death-of-Money.pdfate shows how the economic hit man approach has evolved in the last 12 years. Among other things, U.S. cities are now on the target list. The combination of debt, enforced austerity, underinvestment, privatization, and the undermining of democratically elected governments is now happening here.

Sarah van Gelder: What’s changed in our world since you wrote the first Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?

John Perkins: Things have just gotten so much worse in the last 12 years since the first Confessions was written. Economic hit men and jackals have expanded tremendously, including the United States and Europe.
Back in my day we were pretty much limited to what we called the third world, or economically developing countries, but now it’s everywhere.
van Gelder: So how has this switched from us being the beneficiaries of this hit-man economy, perhaps in the past, to us now being more of the victims of it?
Perkins: It’s been interesting because, in the past, the economic hit man economy was being propagated in order to make America wealthier and presumably to make people here better off, but as this whole process has expanded in the U.S. and Europe, what we’ve seen is a tremendous growth in the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else."

'On a global basis, we now know that 62 individuals have as many assets as half the world’s population"
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/527253
Our economy and society depend on the division of labor. We can't do all jobs for ourselves. The only way that division of labor can work in a sizeable population is; we must have some means of accounting for labor and exchanging the "results". This means MONEY of some sort or another. What happens when money dies?
http://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-conte...h-of-Money.pdf
The farms and factories are still there but, sit idle.

[Danny B]

Death cross and possible rate hikes

The talk of the town right now is the death cross " Ashraf Laidi points out that the S&P 500's 50-week moving average is falling below its 100-week moving average.

This "statistically significant" death cross has only happened twice is the past two decades, Laidi points out. The first took place in 2001 and was followed by a 37 percent decline in the index, while the second pattern occurred in 2008 and preceded a 48 percent drop." 37%, then 48%,,, what comes next?
This S&P 500 Death Cross Could Be The Real Deal - Yahoo Finance
5/18 The ‘tide’ has turned… NEGATIVE for STOCKS – GoldAndOilGuy

Nobody ever starts ZIRP becaue you can never accomplish a painless escape. Sooner or later, interest rates go back up.
"But once interest rates peaked in the early 1980s, they’ve been on a downward trend ever since, with little ups and downs now and again but an unmistakable overall downward trend. The Federal Reserve had to do this in order to, in Fed-speak, “support economic activity and job creation by making financial conditions more accommodative.” Once it started doing this, it found that it couldn’t stop." ClubOrlov: The Negative Interest Rate Gap

5/18 Rate hike odds spike across board after Fed minutes – CNBC
5/18 Gold futures drop as Fed hints at June rate increase – MarketWatch
5/18 B of A wants Fed to hike rates – CNBC
5/18 Fed running out of excuses on interest rates – Ciovacco Capital
Both Fed presidents suggested that they continue to see two to three rate hikes this year" "even went as far as to say that his view of gradual hikes also means 3-4 hikes in 2017. "
Citi Warns "Something Seems To Be Going On Here" As Rate Hike Fears Storm Back | Zero Hedge
• Negative Rates Are A Form Of Tax (MW)
So, ZIRP supports economic activity. What do rate hikes do to economic activity?

Obummer is doing his best to ensure that business spends $ billions more complying with stupid GOV regulations. More jobs for lawyers and bureaucrats.
Obama rushes to kill the economy in final months - Personal Liberty®

Jim Rickards; "Yesterday, I explained how the global elite plan to use higher gold prices to unleash inflation. Below, I show you the second part of their plan, which may already be underway. Read on…

Gold’s trading at around $1,280 this morning. So, if you buy gold today and it goes to $5,000 an ounce or $10,000 an ounce, which I do expect, you’d probably be extremely happy.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Gold will have increased dramatically in nominal terms. If gold goes from $1,000 an ounce to $5,000 an ounce, most people would say that’s a 400% increase in the price of gold.

But it’s really an 80% devaluation of the dollar. That 80% dollar devaluation leads to a world of $5,000 gold. But it also leads to a world of $400 per barrel and $10.00 gas. "
"I explained yesterday how the monetary elites are looking to engineer higher gold prices to generate inflation since nothing else has worked. That’s the first answer. The evidence is very strong for that hypothesis"
You have to read Rickards because he has a lot of good info. BUT, there are a few lies too
The Elite’s Master Plan for Global Inflation, Part II - The Daily Reckoning
Generating price inflation without generating corresponding wage inflation will NOT stimulate the economy. If oil goes to $ 400, the economy will fall FLAT.

[Danny B]

Picking up speed on our downhill run

5/18 China’s housing bubble so big “Goldman will need a bigger chart” – Zero Hedge
5/19 Talk of higher inflation sends panic needle into the red – The Street
5/19 The non-linearity of inflation psychology – GoldMoney
LOTS of BS talk but, wages and consumption have crashed. Stock earnings have crashed. Bond interest has crashed. The inflation was confined to the upper loop of the economy. Even that niche of inflation is crashing.

5/19 Billionaire Soros cuts US stocks by 37%, buys gold miner – Investors
5/19 Warning: The smart money is fleeing US stocks – Daily Reckoning
5/19 Russia and China buy tons of gold getting ready for dollar collapse – Pravda Report

And, on the socialist front;
5/19 Illinois state workers, highest paid in nation, demand 11.5 to 29% hikes – Mish
" This is already occurring in suburban Chicago, where annual property taxes can approach 10% (!) of property values."
Are Property Taxes A "Wealth Tax" On The (Mostly) Non-Wealthy? | Zero Hedge

Central banks are powerless “they should go away” – Mish And, if they go away, what next?
"– Venezuela has entered into currency collapse – no one will admit it or call it what it is, but the country has no currency and the people are, literally, starving to death" - See more at: John Rubino: A Crisis Unlike We Have Seen In Human History - The Daily Coin | If you've got gold, you've got money

[Danny B]

The rejected U.S. dollar

Well, views have passed 100,000 and my profile; "This page has had 4,458 visits "
I do hope that everybody in general has a more clear idea of where the economy is going. The PTB tried to goose the economy with lots of so-called money. Too many people try to live off interest-income. Too many people stashed away the cash to generate this income. At one time, the average CEO earned 15 times what a laborer earned. Now, CEOs Earn 335 Times More Than Employees The actual productive work is done by machines and the owner reaps the profit that the worker no longer earns. This allowed the 1% to get real rich but, their money is held in stocks that depend on solvent consumers to support the producing companies.
5/19 Dow falls triple digits, erases year-to-date gains – CNBC
Their money is held in bonds that also rely on consumers to generate the production & consumption that is siphoned off as taxes for sovereign bonds OR profits that are siphoned off to pay for corporate bonds.

U.S GOV is printing money as fast as it can to spend as much as it can and hire as many as it can to keep the ball rolling. The rest of the world is tired of our wars and BS. They are dumping our sovereign debt.
"Central banks selling off US debt at record pace "
https://www.rt.com/business/343400-c...anks-us-debts/

Since they don't want to buy sovereign debt to support wars against themselves, they have NO NEED of dollars to buy this U.S. sovereign debt.
(WE) print $ 1.5 billion a day to buy their stuff. If they are dumping U.S. public debt, they won't buy fresh U.S. debt. They don't want or need our dollars. The East is converting as many dollars as possible into gold.
All these dollars come "home" and no longer circulate in the global economy.

At one time, there were many billions of U.S. dollars held by foreign central banks to buy oil. That is why we attacked anybody who tried to sell in other-than-dollars. On the very day of 2015.75, as predicted by Martin Armstrong, Russia proved that Pox Americana can not intimidate Russia away from selling oil in Roubles. America is rattling sabres louder than ever. America is torching off revolutions everywhere.
At the same time, CBs are dumping American debt.

Trump is BAD news for the warmongers. He says, make profit, not war. To a large degree, our future depends on whether or not the Secret Service allows him to be killed.
Confidence in U.S. sovereign debt has been lost. There is no way to overstate just how important this is.
Jim Grant: Central Bankers Have Lost Their Marbles, Government Debt Is A Short | David Stockman's Contra Corner
The FED is already buying most of new debt issuance. The problems will appear at our ports. America is printing $ 1.5 billion a day of confetti. Nobody needs this confetti because all confidence has been lost in U.S. Treasury bonds. If they don't want our dollars, they have no reason to sell stuff to us.

Jim Rickards and others have been pushing the SDR as the new store-of-value. It would be created out of thin air and controlled by the IMF. The Chinese took a sniff of this and walked away in disgust. They prefer gold.
The Chinese are talking good about the SDR for now,,, anything that would draw investment from the dollar. " Washington can run endless budget deficits knowing well that countries like China have no serious alternative to invest its foreign currency trade profits but in US Government or government-guaranteed debt. In effect, as I have pointed out, that has meant that China has de facto financed the military actions of Washington that act to go against Chinese or Russian sovereign interests,
http://journal-neo.org/2016/05/18/china-quietly-prepares-golden-alternative-to-dollar-system/"


The SDR would be the international store of value. We would slowly slide into a one world currency. We would all live happily ever after.

The U.S. dollar has been grossly over-printed to finance the welfare-warfare State. The U.S. dollar is in the process of being rejected for international trade. The new Russian weapons were key to this rejection. The SDR is an American tool. IF we had this one-world currency, the rest of the world would NOT be able to reject the American SDR for trade. We could continue to print our confetti to buy everybody's good stuff. The wars would continue also.

The SDR will never fly. The stock market should crash within 2 months. China will reject the U.S. dollar after the crash. Everybody will ship their oil using Russia as the broker. No more oil for confetti. U.S. GOV can print unlimited dollars for INTERNAL trade. This isn't completely true because it is difficult to actually get the dollars into the economy. They might need helicopters. The U.S. dollar will be rejected for external trade. That means a $ 1.5 billion a day reduction in imports. Oil will be much harder to come by.
The banks will all collapse because the derivatives will all turn toxic. The derivatives WILL be defaulted on. China will, of course crash but, they aren't in as bad shape as some people believe. https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/the...on.html?acc=17
International trade is crashing and will continue to get worse. The bottom line will be; Can your State feed it's people with it's home agriculture? Russia will do OK. Russian Dacha Gardening - Homescale Agriculture Feeds Everyone

[Danny B]

A disturbance in the Force

Change is screaming at us so fast that it is close to impossible to make long-term plans.

The Future Is (Almost)Here!


In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.
What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
Electric cars will become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are. Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more that one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

Boom!

[Danny B]

Retirement is dead... View from the ivory tower

We'll all be out of work and we'll all by a tiny cog in the Matrix. Every last thing that we do will be monitored and recorded. The birth rate will continue to fall because we don't want our children to be slaves on the plantation.
Owned by the State | Farm Wars
I see a lot of people who WANT the collapse to come.

FED GOV offered to supplement the income of retirees. People quit saving. " A recent survey from GoBankingRates.com finds more than half of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, with one in three having nothing saved. The National Institute on Retirement Security estimates the nation’s retirement savings gap is between $6.8 and $14 trillion."
10 Retirement Statistics That Will Scare the Crap Out of You

"The government workers’ retirement systems effectively had no gains last year, eking out a median increase of 0.36 percent, " Yep, ZIRP and NIRP will do that. The FED is desperate to raise rates and rescue thousands of Investment funds. If they raise rates, they wipe out most corporations,,,, and then, the funds crash anyway.
Total GOV debt is reckoned at $ 212 trillion (Kotlikoff) That 0.36% gain must be matched up against the inflation rate also.

"With global growth stalling, the International Monetary Fund has repeatedly revised down its forecasts and is now calling for more assertive policy action to boost demand" There must be some kind of force-field around all those ivory towers that blocks awareness of all those unemployed people.
Column: The world economy is running on monetary fumes | PBS NewsHour

Torsten Sløk, Deutsche Bank's chief international economist, wrote in a note out Thursday."
"But the longer the market ignores the Fed, including the fact that the economy is soon at full employment and therefore closer to a broad-based uptrend in wages and inflation, "

What are these people smoking?
If their chief economist is that deluded, Deutsche bank doesn't have a prayer of surviving. Market risks repeat 1994 bond sell-off - Business Insider

[Danny B]

Cranks, fools and wankers in high office

"You might conclude that our monetary politburo consists of feckless and befuddled academics and apparatchiks who are tilting at inflation windmills, but you would be mainly wrong.

The truth is, these are power-hungry bureaucrats who have usurped their charter in manner so brazen and excessive as to be fairly described as a coup d etat. "
"What they can’t do is micromanage the GDP or fine-tune the short-term rate of wage, price, production and job gains on domestic ledgers that are rooted in an integrated global economic and financial system."
"Needless to say, the effect of this Peak Debt blockage of the old monetary transmission channel to households and business is that cheap credit never leaves the canyons of Wall Street"
"The Fed has been hijacked by a posse of fools who are tilting at inflation targets that are irrelevant and unachievable. "
"That problem is plainly evident in the chart below. You could very easily make the argument that goods prices are beyond the Fed’s reach because they are set in the world markets and by the marginal cost of labor in China and the EM."
The bozos at the FED seem unable to absorb or understand the fact that they can NOT goose the price of labor or goods. Those are set by the global market, NOT by a bunch of FED bozos.
The Inflation Targeting Scam And Why It Guarantees The Mother Of Financial Meltdowns | David Stockman's Contra Corner

The CBs pump in more debt but, it remains in the upper loop of the economy. The lower loop of the economy is struggling with "peak debt".

Bernanke, "But as the economy recovers, banks should find more opportunities to lend out their reserves. That would produce faster growth in broad money " More ivory tower bullcrap. Wages were / are crashing and peak debt is a fact of life for people who actually work to survive.
The Tragic Consequences of Quantity Theory | David Stockman's Contra Corner
The CBs sent tons of excess reserves to the banks thinking that they would lend them out at these wonderful new LOW rates. This would fire up the economy yet again. 100 million out of work and wages crashing,,,, and we would start borrowing like fiends?
GOV is the mega-parasite. The FED channels LOTS of bucks into economic education at the university level. They fund bogus theory and bogus teaching that permeates all levels of education. Several knowledgeable people predicted the sub-prime meltdown. The Harvard investment fund lost many $ billions because they were blind to the obvious.

The socialists desperately wanted to get gold OUT of the system so that they could do unlimited currency expansion. By about 2008 they had dumped a lot of gold on the market. China, India and Russia absorbed all of it. These are big producer countries and the Western CBs came to the conclusion that; even if they could erase gold from Western minds, they couldn't erase it form the East. They started buying it back; https://srsroccoreport.com/the-gold-...emely-worried/

The situation in Japan clearly shows us that you can't get economic growth if you don't get population growth. China seems to be learning this lesson; Hambone's stuff: Mother of all Head & Shoulder Patterns & China Just Completed the Right Shoulder
Merkel seems to think that saturating Germany with immigrants to boost the population to save Keynesian economic growth is worth destroying the very fabric of the country.

Italy is the tenth largest economy with the third largest bond market. Italian GOV thought it would be great to pull in all that money to support GOV programs. "Officially, the Italian government’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 130%, and since the public sector is 50% of GDP, government debt is 260% of the Italian tax base." https://www.goldmoney.com/the-eurozo...efcode=dollarc
GOV spends 50% of the GDP. What could go wrong?

GOVs everywhere are searching for nickels and pennies to fund all their promises. Chicago seems to be a
the avant garde at this. http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics...-pension-fund/

[Danny B]

Keynes and family destruction

J. M. Keynes, "The third element was his deep hatred and contempt for the values and virtues of the bourgeoisie, for conventional morality, for savings and thrift, and for the basic institutions of family life."
Keynes joined a group at Cambridge called the "Apostles"
" And all of them energetically pursued a lifestyle of promiscuous bisexuality, as was brought to light in Michael Holroyd's (1967) biography of Strachey."
"Keynes and his friends accepted only what they held to be Moore's personal ethics (i.e., what they called Moore's "religion"), while they totally rejected his social ethics (i.e., what they called his "morals").
https://mises.org/library/keynes-man
Keynes never married and hated the "family" intensely.

"But analysis of the social science literature demonstrates that the root cause of poverty and income disparity is linked undeniably to the presence or absence of marriage. Broken families earn less and experience lower levels of educational achievement. Worse, they pass the prospect of meager incomes and Family instability on to their children, ensuring a continuing if not expanding cycle of economic distress.

Simply put, whether or not a child's parents are married and stay married has a massive affect on his or her future prosperity and that of the next generation. Unfortunately, the growth in the number of children born into broken families in America--from 12 for every 100 born in 1950 to 58 for every 100 born in 1992 --has become a seemingly unbreakable cycle that the federal government not only continues to ignore, but even promotes through some of its policies."
How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chances for Future Prosperity

Keynes, Marx, Hegel,,, all of them wanted the family destroyed so that the State would be your only God. GOV hands out tons of money in many areas that actually promote destruction of the family and general irresponsibility.
" But generally, children who grow up in a stable, two-parent Family have the best prospects for achieving income security as adults."

So, what do all those broken families bring us?
"#6 Approximately one out of every four prisoners on the entire planet are in U.S. prisons, but the United States only accounts for about five percent of the total global population."
#14 The incarceration rate for African-American men is more than 6 times higher than it is for white men.

#15 An astounding 37.2 percent of African-American men from age 20 to age 34 with less than a high school education were incarcerated in 2008.
#14 The incarceration rate for African-American men is more than 6 times higher than it is for white men.

#15 An astounding 37.2 percent of African-American men from age 20 to age 34 with less than a high school education were incarcerated in 2008.
WTF Headline Of The Day: GOP Senator Says "US Is Under-Incarcerated," Should Lock Up More People | Zero Hedge
Almost nobody is willing to talk about it; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fPMSqebjxg
Manning also talks about conditions before GOV took to mandating support for black families; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4AqspFK2QM
The State may very well destroy the family but, it will destroy social cohesion at the same time.

[Danny B]

2 detonators,,, which to push first

"Commenting on the crisis, Le Pen said the EU is using immigrants as a tool to drive down labor costs across the 28-country bloc.

“That’s why the European Union supports tens of millions of immigrants in the coming years which will come onto the European Union labor market to push down wages,” Marine Le Pen: "EU is collapsing on to itself" | Europe | Worldbulletin News
The Hildebeest looks to be sliding FAST; Trump Victory Odds Soar As The Hillary Clinton 'Death Cross' Strikes | Zero Hedge

"You said interest rates would start to rise in 2016 as early as March and that would be the fuel behind the dollar and help create the Sovereign Debt Crisis"
ANSWER: The Fed is between a rock and a hard place and is trying to be that little flower that sees the light. It has two choices: (1) deal with the pension crisis at home by raising rates to prevent defaults, or (2) keep rates low to save other governments in emerging markets who continue to borrow and are doomed anyhow. Then there is the question of whether the budget deficit in the USA will explode with rising rates.

The Fed has really lost control of the economy, but the mainstream still needs to figure this out. Our model goes nuts from 2018 into 2020. This is part of the peak in 2015.75. Of course, the general public does not see this yet. They should by next year and then the game will change."

"Governments will not go quietly into the light. They will rage at every possible moment. They are moving toward electronic money since their solution is to force everyone to pay whatever tax they demand. "
"The old guard is near death. People like John McCain and Barbara Boxer, who was shouted down in California by Bernie supporters, are out the door. We are looking at new people coming to power — the changing of the guard."
" Currency is not “money,” it never holds its value, and by no means is it a store of wealth. It is just a medium of exchange like a language. "
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...vs-hard-place/

Matt King from CITI explains what you need to know; "We Are Becoming Convinced That The System Won't Stabilize" - Citi Explains How Central Banks Broke The Market | Zero Hedge
Albert Edwards and Andrew Smithers & James Dale Davidson; 80% Stock Market Crash to Strike in 2016, Economists Warn - The Sovereign Investor

"The Keynesian gods have failed, and as a result we're in the eye of a global financial hurricane.
The Keynesian god of growth has failed.
The Keynesian god of borrowing from the future to fund today's consumption has failed.
The Keynesian god of monetary stimulus / financialization has failed.
Every major central bank and state worships these Keynesian idols:"
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com...financial.html

The FED has destroyed future returns, http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc160523.htm "borrowing from the future to fund today's consumption "
5/23 Japan May factory activity shrinks most in over three years – Reuters
5/23 Japan trade collapses – Mish
5/23 Eurozone business growth “unexpectedly” slows down to 16-month low – Zero Hedge
5/23 Companies ‘drowning in debt’ despite almost $2 trillion in cash – CNBC

ZIRP has destroyed pension funds. "Watchdog: Unfunded pension debt approaching $1 trillion (just for orange county)?" http://www.ocregister.com/articles/p...ic-nation.html
The whole system will blow if interest goes up OR if interest remains the same.

[Danny B]

Strange times

Armstrong mentioned that emerging markets will blow up if interest rates rise. He didn’t mention that domestic markets will do the same thing. "Removing the top 25 cash holders from the equation paints an even more concerning picture: Total debt rose $730 billion in 2015, while cash declined by $40 billion," Chang and Tesher wrote, as cited by Business Insider."
"The economists mention that the $1.84 trillion of cash funds held by the 2,000 companies they covered is the largest amount ever. However, even this amount of cash can't distract one's mind from a much larger mountain of debt.

According to the S&P analysts, such worrying statistics was triggered by the companies' limitless investment appetites. The companies have opted to issue debt in order to fund operations or return cash to shareholders"

Read more: US Companies? Debt Reaches Menacing Proportions
Deflation threatens everything because all debts become unpayable if the money supply shrinks. GOV is having a very hard time trying to inject more cash into the system. BUT, price deflation is happening anyway. The upper loop is inflating but, slowing a lot. The lower loop is in monetary and wage deflation that is bringing price deflation. Those in the upper loop didn't worry about our falling wages. NOW, they are very worried about our diminished spending power. Forget a Dollar Collapse…This Is a Much Bigger Threat to Your Wealth Right Now | Casey Research

The U.S.S.R. proved that wide socialism just doesn't work. Japan is now proving that money printing is counter-productive, http://www.alhambrapartners.com/2016...-qes-combined/
Saving all the too numerous banks and zombie companies just wipes out the rest of the economy.
Pox Americana tries to inject money into the economy by spending to conduct as many wars as possible. Over Half of Every Tax Dollar You Give to Uncle Sam is Spent on This : Waking Times

The FED is doing a good job of trying to corroborate the findings of the Japanese; "Seven years after the financial crisis, the Fed’s monetary expansion pumped more than $7 trillion into the financial system in an effort to stimulate lending and revive economic activity. However, instead of a pickup in growth , this cheap money created bubbles in the bond, stock and currency markets while the US national debt jumped to $19 trillion or 100 percent of GDP. Since so much money produced so few results, the Fed’s ultra-low bond policy forced investors to chase higher multiple stocks which became more expensive than ever."
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/ing/ing052216.pdf
The FED killed all interest income to save the banks. This brought us an 8? year postponement of the death of banks. BUT, it brought the death of investment funds. If nobody else is making any money, the banks can't make any money. The FED and GOV in general fund academia. Academia was asleep at the wheel when it came to warning that QE has never worked.

The FED and U.S. GOV are holding the bag. The taxpayer can't ever pay this back. The bag-holders are going to blow all to hell.
Here is the guy who blew the whistle on the Swiss banks. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...iss-bank-heist
" In a memoir recently published in Europe, “Earthquake on Planet Finance,” Falciani writes of his motives: “I wanted a different world for my daughter. I didn’t want her to grow up in a reality where money rules, where the abuse of power and the constant bypassing of the rules was the norm.”
Some things are more important than money.

5/25 Citi fined $425MM for manipulating interest rates – Zero Hedge How much was the FED fined for manipulating interest rates?
5/25 Venezuela fights crisis with biggest sovereign gold sale since 2007 – GATA What happens when they burn through that money?
5/25 Shootings in Chicago are up astonishing 50% year-over-year – Zero Hedge They need more gun laws.
DollarCollapse Podcasts 5/23 Hard times for obsolete entities Do they mention FED GOV?
5/25 The monetary system has devalued 47% in 10 years – GATA how much did wages devalue?
The business of central banks is like pornography – Finanz und Wirtschaft Just don't let Yellen take her clothes off.
5/25 ‘Massive bailout’ needed in China – Bloomberg Who or what is going to bailout China? China's $5 Trillion in Toxic Bank Debt Is About to Collapse: The Street
China Created A Record Half A Trillion Dollars Of Debt In January : Zero Hedge


America is financially screwed up pretty badly. The rest of the world is worse. The worse the world gets, the better the U.S. dollar will look. The dollar will continue in popularity even if it falls in value. This rise in value will screw up the rest of the currencies.. Only then will the final blowup come. Martin Armstrong. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...petro-dollars/
"The disease always begins in the limbs and then moves to the chest and finally strikes to heart. So dollar up as the disease is in the limbs. Then the rise in the dollar will force political change on many levels. Not the least will be a new monetary system, but that is the end-game once it hits the chest. We are not there yet. It’s coming."

Keep in mind that Armstrong's advice for investors is not necessarily appropriate for the little guy.
"force political change" That is a nice way to say complete collapse and revolution.

[Danny B]

Raise interest,, blow EMs, banks and derivatives... Sr. price

Armstrong again; Armstrong mentioned that emerging markets will blow up if interest rates rise. AND, "This comes to roughly $156 trillion in interest rate-based derivatives… sitting on the TBTF balance sheets.
If even 0.1% of this money is “at risk” it would wipe out 10% of the big banks equity. If 1% were “at risk” it would wipe out ALL of the big banks’ equity.
Suffice to say, the Fed cannot afford a spike in interest rates without imploding the big banks: the very banks it has funnelled TRILLIONS of dollars to in an effort to prop up."
The FED temporary killed all the funds to save the banks. The banks wrote interest rate swaps on the very-low interest rates. This locked the FED into continuing ZIRP. These derivatives are a $ 600 trillion poison pill.
Is the Derivatives Market About to Implode the Big Banks Again? | Zero Hedge

Reportedly, conditions now are worse than in Great Depression 1.
Worst Economy Since the Great Depression | Zero Hedge
We see the failure of academia for not raising the alarm. We see the hubris of politicians and economists for believing that they could control the economy.
Sr. Price writes very well where they went wrong.
Indeed, the trouble is that the physical sciences have been so successful, that today their methodology is being applied in fields that are completely inappropriate for such methodology. Specifically, we refer to "Mainstream Economics" - the "Economics" that is taught today at every single prestigious university in the world.

"Mainstream Economics" is the child of Physics, and it looks and walks and talks like its parent, Physics:
First of all, the central fallacious concept: "The Economy":
When mainstream economists talk about "The Economy" each economist, when pressed to do so, will give a different version of what exactly is "The Economy". So right there, the fallacies take their start.
Here are some of the babblings of these children of Physics, mainstream economists who apply terms appropriate in physics to human activities:

Where the babbling becomes utterly disconnected from any human reality is when the variables are assigned quantities, just as variables are quantified in Physics, and are then combined in mathematical functions to produce indecipherable equations.

Mainstream economists love equations, they adore the simplicity of E=mc2.
But human activity does not operate on the basis of equating one thing with another, it operates by choosing between what is preferable and less preferable, in other words, not by equating things, but by differentiation in power of satisfaction.
One of the fundamental elements of mainstream economics is the numerical calculation of a nation's activity. This preposterous attempt at quantifying, or putting a number on the total human activity of a nation is called the "Determination of GDP

The error of displacing Quality, and the preferences which quality of comparative satisfaction gives rise to, and introducing Quantity into human affairs, when it belongs to the realm of Physics, is born of the spiritual decline of humanity. In essence, the flight from Quality is the denial of the existence of Spirit in human beings, whence is born the capacity of each human to value. The mainstream economists, as such, consider humans as simple machines which consume or produce, and treat us as such, in their specious formulas. The valuations or preferences of flesh and blood humans are disregarded because numbers cannot be assigned to them.

Since "Mainstream Economics" is only a sham science that imitates the methodology of Physics, it turns out that "economists" - at the Fed, at the ECB, and at every Central Bank in the world - in fact do nothing "scientific" at all; they do nothing more than impose upon whole nations their own personal value judgments while they destroy the free markets, that are truly impersonal.
.:Plata:.

[Danny B]

pushing towards war to gain/preserve world control

Criminal bankers threaten entire world economy – USA Watchdog
America and much of the West is in the grip of megalomaniacs. The neocons are pushing us towards WW III. We are already at war economically with the East. The neocons seem to believe that the MUST control Russia and then, China. It is "do-or-die" time. They are trying to surround Russia with NATO bases and missiles.
“We have been watching for nearly a month a steady buildup of American and NATO forces along Russia’s borders – on land, on sea and in the air. There has been nothing like this on Russia’s borders, such an amassing of hostile military force, since the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.”

Pepe Escobar advises Washington to “beware what you wish for: Russia is ready for war.” * Beware What You Wish For: Russia Is Ready For War** :* Information Clearing House - ICH

Escobar reports that recently the Rand Corporation, “essentially a CIA outpost,” concluded that “Russia could overrun NATO in a mere 60 hours, if not less.” On the level of nukes and missile systems, Russia is four generations ahead of the US military/security complex, which is mainly interested in inflating profits with cost overruns.

If Hillary becomes US president, the neoconservative threat to Russia will escalate. The Atlanticist Integrationists will be eliminated from the Russian government, and Russia will move to full war standing.

Remember what an unprepared Russia did to the German Wehrmacht, at that time the most powerful army ever assembled. Imagine what a prepared Russia would do to the crazed Hillary and the incompetent neoconservatives.

As I have previously written, pushing Russia to war means the demise of the US and Europe and, considering the destructive power of nuclear weapons, most likely of all life on earth.
Will The November US Presidential Election Bring The End Of The World? -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org

Much of this is a reaction to Russia positioning itself as the world’s broker for oil OUTSIDE of the petro-dollar. The neocons are jewish and know that the end of the petro-dollar means an end to israel. Armstrong has said that the petro-dollar is done with anyway. That doesn't seem to stop them from suiciding America to preserve israel. America has a space fleet and much of the battle would take place in space. Still, the damage to earth would be extensive. Search on "rods of god". One was used recently on China.

Neither China, nor Russia want to be enslaved and subsumed in Pox Americana to preserve and further the mad dreams of the neocons.
Putin is a smart guy and China will follow his lead. Russia would have a chance of avoiding WW III by crashing America economically. The closer America gets to a crash, the more desperate the neocons get. Russia/China need to kick America off a cliff financially to keep the neocons busy here at home. The smarter people in GOV can see that war is a distinct possibility. There are a lot of people who are working against the Hildebest so that their children have a chance at survival.

If Trump looks like he will win and they can't kill him, they might rush to attack Russia before the election. I don't know.
China wants to dump all their dollars. They could offer $2,000 an ounce for gold and crash the entire Western markets when gold goes naked. That would cut off all oil imports to pox amercana. China could dump all their treasury debt on the market. That would crash quite a few things.
If the start of WW III looks imminent (the shooting war), the rest of the world will turn on the neocons.
EDIT:Every day, there are a whopping 5,500 tonnes ($212 billion) of gold traded in London
An Inside Look at the World's Biggest Paper Gold Market | Zero Hedge
London has run out of gold. The Chinese could bring the whole gold market down very easily. This would bring down the entire FOREX markets and freeze up ALL foreign trade.


This is all so STUPID. Israel will not survive no matter what. Supposedly, they have plans in place to decamp to some place in South America. The IDF said that if israel is attacked, they can expect to receive 11,000 missiles a minute just from Iran. I've been there. It is a small country. There really aren't many targets.
I do hope that cooler heads will prevail. There is no denying that pox americana is surrounding Russia with missiles. Russia has a cluster of thermonuclear weapons clad in cobalt, set up to detonate if they are attacked. 7 years later, the world would belong to a few insects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_H...nuclear_war%29

Trump isn't going to continue with business as usual. (WAR). The next few months are going to be a critical time. The U.S. military isn't interested in being drug into planetary suicide. They like their nice toys but, they have no plan to die en masse.

[Danny B]

The Euro zone on death watch

Socialism tries to provide sustenance for persons who can't make a living in a free market for labor. Socialism eventually breaks the bank. Fascism is just socialism for the rich. What happens to the people supported by socialism when the system goes bust? Socialism breaks the bank by removing incentive and the profit motive.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...rest-erupting/ " The unions are promising unprecedented violence the first week of June."

The EU is a total failure. This federalization of Europe is a deliberate utopia for politicians with high paying jobs, tax exemptions, and the people have no possible ability to ever vote for a policy change."

The Euro zone is a dead man walking;
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...in-stay-or-go/
" This is a very sad day for Britain. It will see its independence slip away into thin air. You cannot save the EU. This is like someone falls off the cliff so you jump as well to hold their hand on the way down.

Brexit: Wrong Discussion, Wrong People, Wrong Arguments - The Automatic Earth
The corporatocracy is trying to get a death grip on all governments. While socialism is no bargain, fascism is BAD.
When this all lets go, the fires will be visible from the moon.
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Anger of the Unprivileged Is Rising Globally
Borg says that Sweden is a dead duck; Bursting Sweden's Housing Bubble: Economic Crash Only a Matter of Time

[Danny B]

Population reduction.. death of the credit system... more population reduction

We are rapidly moving to a world / system / economy where man isn't needed for production BUT, he is needed for consumption. There is a growing recognition that automation destroys the historical covenants..
The "System" Won't Survive The Robots | Zero Hedge

The preferred solution from part of the PTB is socialism. Socialism needs unlimited currency expansion. The gold standard is incompatible with socialism. BUT, Forbes Welcome

The State creates debt-money to support the would-be consumers who are no longer producers. It's rapidly becoming apparent that all this debt money can't be paid back by the ever-shrinking body of wage-earning producers. Japan shows us the road ahead of for most of the world; LACY HUNT: Debt hurtling US toward crisis - Business Insider

The FED has bailed out banks all over the world. Congress wants to make sure that the FED doesn't bail out individual States. https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/...-states-19551/
There seems to be little appreciation that ALL of this is interconnected.

Japan has a crashing population and can not escape the financial doldrums. Venezuela has a growing population and emerging socialism and it can't seem to escape the doldrums,,, or even worse. Fmr. Fed Chair Greenspan: Venezuela is about to collapse | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance

The whole credit & debt system depends on things like debt growth and consumption. These are crashing and threatening to take everything down; http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Stree.../26/id/730869/

The very-large picture shows that we have reached peak-population-growth several years ago. Apparently, credit growth is dependent on population growth; http://econimica.blogspot.com/2016/0...nt-add-up.html
It takes ever-expanding debt to keep our CURRENT system working. It is rapidly becoming obvious that we can't have ever-expanding debt at the same time that we have a drop in the population of productive workers. With automation, we would naturally expect to see; the former wages of workers accruing to the owners of the machines. This would naturally bring a huge imbalance in income and wealth distribution. A sector of the PTB seem to believe that socialism would be a panacea for this imbalance.

There may be other solutions available to escape the current impasse but, it is difficult to know if they will work. They may work for one country and not work for others. http://www.businessinsider.com/icela...ry-rule-2016-5

The biggest problem is that we don't have much time left; http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Stree.../26/id/730971/
There is NO POSSIBLE way to invent and implement a new system to replace our current one in the remaining time. The solution from U.S. GOV is to but lots of guns & bullets and militarise the police.
The debt system can not survive with a falling population. The wage contract with society has been broken. We get poorer and shrink our families. Automation and low-wage competitors make this a downward spiral. GOV tries to stimulate production hoping that his action will stimulate consumption.

Sr. Price shows us that human action controls the economy, NOT wealth. http://plata.com.mx/Mplata/articulos...idarticulo=288
The world economy has been hugely corrupted by bad plans and bad people. It isn't going to magically shift overnight to a different operating system.
During the transition, DEATH will rule.