Economic pressures

[Danny B]

End of the debt super-cycle

Here is a good article on the FED "put". It is all about the winding down of the credit super-cycle; 2016: The End Of The Global Debt Super Cycle | Zero Hedge
Kiyosaki seems to think that mandatory liquidation of reterement funds for people who hit 70 1/2 years old will cause big problems. I'm not convinced; Why 'Rich Dad' Author Predicts a Looming Market Collapse | Birch Gold Group

Another coin in the fuse box – Credit Bubble Bulletin
4/02 Defiant China slaps steel tariffs on Britain as trade war looms – Telegraph First the currency war,, then, the trade war.
4/02 N.J. pension debt grew to $43.8B last year – NJ.com

[Danny B]

The markets HAVE turned, cheap oil is running out

Every time that stocks went down, the FED, et al swooped in and bought up enough to keep prices from getting ugly. This is the FED "put". Eventually, investors started to notice that valuations were high but, earnings were non-existent. This worked for a while but, the effects are wearing off.
"The bottom line is that the Fed must keep asset prices up because assets are collateral for potentially deflationary systemic debt. "
Well, the divergence between asset prices and growth has gotten so strong that nobody wants to hang around; Shuffling The Deckchairs On The USS Perpetual Growth | Zero Hedge

Here is a graph that shows how extreme our current bubble is; http://www.financialsense.com/sites/...5-inverted.png
The market is winding down and the debt cycle HAS rolled over; NYSE Margin Debt Falls Again: More Confirmation of a Major Market Turning Point Last Year? | Doug Short | FINANCIAL SENSE

Wikileaks just tossed a firecracker in the hornet's nest; Wikileaks Reveals IMF Plan To "Cause A Credit Event In Greece And Destabilize Europe" | Zero Hedge

TOO MANY GOV morons still believe that Keynes was the path to follow. AND, "On the eve of World War II, Keynes delivered the following chilling address [6] on the BBC, talking about the "grand experiment" of curing unemployment through war expenditure:"
"The Coming War Will Solve Our Unemployment & Growth Problem"

Trump has a bit of advice on stocks; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...-invest-stocks
We used petro-dollar finance to thrash the rest of the world. The R.O.W. has cheap oil and we do not. While most of the oil producers are suffering from low prices, they are in general agreement that they must pump like crazy to kill the petro-dollar and the runaway war machine. "They" are holding down the price of oil and U.S. oil is crashing.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...2-months-video

The oil barons very much dislike socialism and Marxism. There is an ENORMOUS amount of oil in the North Slope. The oil barons refuse to build a second pipeline that was planned decades ago. They don't want to facilitate our slide into socialism. The North Slope oil is hot and has sand. It abrades the pipeline. The pipe varies between 7/16 and 5/8 wall thickness and operates at about 300 psi. It is starting to get thin. The original pipe was to be used for natural gas and the replacement pipe was to carry oil.
The gas is all currently re-injected into the caverns.
i've driven along most of the pipeline from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay. Pretty interesting.

[Danny B]

First Monaco, now Panama

Regulatory capture has meant that banks and GOV work (steal) hand-in-hand. What happens if banks are rich and GOV is broke? The PTB are presumed to be above the law. BUT, some of the PTB are competitors. As the economy winds down, some of them appear to be snitching. Last week, GOV raided the heart of corruption in Monaco.
Authorities in Monaco raid oil firm HQ in corruption investigation | Business | The Guardian

Now, there is a new leak that is supposed to be 100 times larger than Wikileaks. " By one estimate -- based on data from the World Bank, IMF, UN, and central banks of 139 countries -- between $21 and $32 trillion is hiding in tax havens"
"But a new trove of secret information is shining unprecedented light on this dark corner of the global economy. Fusion analyzed an archive containing 11.5 million internal documents from Mossack Fonseca’s files, including corporate records, financial filings, emails, and more, extending from the firm's inception in 1977 to December 2015. The documents were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with Fusion and over 100 other media outlets by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as part of the Panama Papers investigation."
Shell Companies

[Danny B]

Gloomy pension outlook

"Since '00, the core population of 25-54yr/olds has risen by 4.6 million (4%) and full time jobs among them have declined by a half million". The old folks see that they won't get a pension. They aren't retiring and there are not many openings. "nearly all population growth is simply the old living longer. This will only get worse." Great graphs;
Hambone's stuff: Ominous Population, Job, & Housing Trends
Pension benefits were negotiated when times were good. Those times are gone; https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...of-bankruptcy/

"When 50% of all households over the age of 55 have $12,000 or less in retirement savings, they aren’t retiring. When even the over 55 households that did save only have $100,000 of retirement savings, they aren’t retiring. That will last them a couple years at most, when their life expectancy is 20 to 30 years. "
THE BOOMER RETIREMENT MEME IS A BIG LIE « The Burning Platform
"while the median income had fallen by 13% from 2004 levels over the next decade, expenditures had increased by nearly 14%." One-Third Of All Americans Don?t Make Enough Money To Even Cover The Basic Necessities « InvestmentWatch

"21:45 US Debt May Reach $20 Trillion Before Obama's Out" World Depression Coming by 2017: Stocks, Currency, Immigration Problems – John Rubino Interview | Crush The Street

There is less and less money to go around. Soon, the poor will be fighting over it; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...ots-everywhere

[Danny B]

The slope is getting steeper

The world birth rate is going down; Birth rate, crude (per 1,000 people) | Data | Graph
There are far fewer young people,, far fewer couples setting up a household,,,FAR more old people spending down their savings. The boneheads in charge are trying to grow the economy while population and productivity are shrinking.
How about good jobs? "The present 12.3 million manufacturing jobs is the same # the US had as of July 1941 " Hambone's stuff: US Manufacturing Jobs Have Rebounded...Back to Pre-WWII Levels
VERY interesting article linking the Nikkei to the S&P 500 When Does The U.S. Stock Bubble Burst: The Best Hedge Fund Of 2016 Has A Surprising Answer | Zero Hedge
This model would assume the S&P would then trade somewhere between 1400 and 1600

The default rate in junk bonds is expected to hit 40%. That makes it numerically impossible to profit from the junk bond market. LOTS of people are piling in anyway. One Junk Bond Analyst's Catastrophic Forecast For What Is Coming
An EXCELLENT article on "time preference". The Path to the Final Crisis |
Japan is CLEARLY showing the world that there is no escape and no growth if population is falling. You can't fudge the numbers on credit and growth unless you have a rising population to mask the bad news. http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/g...06&widgetid=39

"#19 Our government debt continues to spiral out of control. At this point it is sitting at a staggering total of $19,218,516,838,306.52, but when Barack Obama first entered the White House it was only 10.6 trillion dollars. That means that our government has been stealing an average of more than 100 million dollars an hour from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day"
"#5 S&P 500 earnings have now fallen a total of 18.5 percent from their peak in late 2014.
#7 The average rating on U.S. corporate debt has fallen to “BB”, which is lower than it has been at any point since the last financial crisis."
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...six-months-ago
"“not in the labor force” (93.9 million), that gives us a grand total of 102 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now"

"perhaps you should consider that the Federal Reserve also considers the government unemployment number to be so inaccurate that they secretly have been calculating the unemployment rate on their own…" http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...s-a-good-thing

John Rubino has a good vid; http://www.crushthestreet.com/videos...bino-interview

[Danny B]

More on the Panama Papers

Panama Papers (P/P) Leak Exposes Western Journalism
Panama Papers - Britain At Center Of Tax Avoidance
Panama Papers Show Massive Scale Of UK Offshore Links
Top Tory - P/P Crackdown Would 'Destroy Bankers' Livelihoods' !
You get the idea. Then, there is this!
THE PANAMA PAPERS: AN NWO SCAM

[aljhoa]

Panama Papers (P/P) Leak Exposes Western Journalism
Panama Papers - Britain At Center Of Tax Avoidance
Panama Papers Show Massive Scale Of UK Offshore Links
Top Tory - P/P Crackdown Would 'Destroy Bankers' Livelihoods' !
You get the idea. Then, there is this!
THE PANAMA PAPERS: AN NWO SCAM

Shariah Law vs. the Constitution

Article VI: The Constitution is the supreme law of the land

 Constitution: Article VI: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall
be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every
State shall be bound thereby”
 Shariah: “The source of legal rulings for all acts of those who are morally responsible is
Allah.” (a1.1, Umdat al-salik or The Reliance of the Traveller, commonly accepted work of
Shariah jurisprudence); “There is only one law which ought to be followed, and that is the
Sharia.” (Seyed Qutb); “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the
face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the
country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of
its own ideology and program.” (Seyed Abul A’ala Maududi)

Second Amendment: Right to self-defense

 Constitution: Second Amendment: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not
be infringed."
 Shariah: Under historic and modern dhimmi laws, non-Muslims cannot possess swords,
firearms or weapons of any kind.

more @ https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy....nstitution.pdf


Al

[Danny B]

No funding for the number one parasite

GOV pensions are looking to crash badly. If you aren't in GOV, you can expect; "In fact, estimates of current retirement savings show that millennials may have to work until they're 73 years old." US government $7 trillion pension shortfall - Business Insider

You can buy ransom-ware for just $ 100. Buying Bitcoin Ransomware For US$100 On The Darknet BUT just how much destabilization can the financial system take? Rotten to the Core |
Greece has lost 1/3 of their GDP; Yanis Varoufakis Issues A Major Warning To The Greek People | Zero Hedge

In a general sense, everyone who depends on a pension is going to get screwed. The upper loop of the economy squeezes more and more out of the lower (productive) loop. Production & consumption fall as financialization grow.

During the good times, people have more children and population grows faster. What do you do with all those "extra" people when the bad times come? Nightmare Is Coming True: Debt Spiral Grips Both, Pemex and Mexico. « InvestmentWatch

When man moved from the agrarian economy to the industrial economy, his purchasing power went way up. Men are now moving OUT of the industrial economy; "The present 12.3 million manufacturing jobs is the same # the US had as of July 1941 "
There are roughly, 102 million Americans of working age who are not employed.

Until recently, GOV borrowed money to support non-producers. "stealing an average of more than 100 million dollars an hour from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day"
The deficit is expected to hit $ 20 trillion before obummer leaves office, SO, that isn't working out too well.
The $ 212 trillion of unfunded liabilities are gradually demanding more and more real cash; https://www.moodys.com/research/Mood...are--PR_346878

The financial system has noticed this and is now betting AGAINST GOV. http://www.321gold.com/editorials/mc...lan040516.html
SO, not only has finance abandoned GOV, it is now betting against it. Predatory finance hollowed out the productive economy. With the death of the productive economy, it is now in the late stages of cannibalism.

[Danny B]

P/P and Iceland... The best minds in energy

The Icelandic government put bankers in jail. The Prime Minister has just got the boot and the bankers are out of jail,,, possibly a warning to GOV not to do anything to bankers; Days After Iceland's PM Resigns Over "Panama Papers", Its Bankers Are Released From Jail Years Early | Zero Hedge
The financial system has a stranglehold on oil and gas. BUT, the equation works both ways. Investments in carbon energy continue to crash. The oil industry keeps predicting a rebound in prices. This is done so that the big banks can unload their energy portfolios onto stupid muppets.

Great quotes from an article on future energy;
"The reason solar-power generation will increasingly dominate: It’s a technology, not a fuel.
The best minds in energy keep underestimating what solar and wind can do. Since 2000, the International Energy Agency has raised its long-term solar forecast 14 times and its wind forecast five times. Every time global wind power doubles, there's a 19 percent drop in cost, according to BNEF, and every time solar power doubles, costs fall 24 percent."
"The world's first coal superpower, the U.K., now produces less power from coal than it has since at least 1850."
Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels - Bloomberg

The best minds in energy keep underestimating what solar and wind can do.
The best minds in banking seem to have made the same mistake.
As we slid towards a global-mean-wage, consumption fell. The oil producers pumped more to make up for falling income. They tried to make up for falling price by increasing volume. The advent of fracking coupled with increased pumping threw the supply side into chaos. Electricity consumption is falling at the same time that wind & solar are chipping away at the market share of carbon.
As R.O.I. gets shorter and shorter for wind & solar, the market for carbon will continue to shrink. First coal, the oil,,, eventually gas. It would be nice if fission reactors disappeared completely. As the true cost of de-commissioning a reactor becomes more clear, nobody will want to build them.

[Danny B]

Socialism breeds irresponsibility

Socialism appears to be a good idea but, human nature seems to be it's undoing. Chicago is a socialist paradise with VERY strong gun laws. It is also a murder capital. Venezuela is another socialist paradise with very strong gun laws. Nobody except the police are allowed to have guns. Caracas is a very dangerous murder capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOQb7Y5QVO8
It's a question of responsibility. If nobody is held responsible or accountable, everything falls apart. This is also true for the corporate level. As corporate immunity gets more pervasive, corporate corruption gets more pervasive; You are being redirected...

Politicians are another prime example of irresponsibility when it comes to spending "other people's money". European politicians voted for a very generous welfare system without creating a funding source. American politicians created a welfare system (SS) with a funding mechanism but, then raided the fund to pay for wars.
Power corrupts and the corrupted have the keys to the treasury.

They create unlimited credit to escape the limitations of "living within one's means". It works for a while but, eventually blows up. On a gold standard, we had slow steady growth. After escaping the gold standard, we have boom and bust. How Unsound Money Fuels Unsound Government Spending
Hard-working people don't have any attraction to socialism. Irresponsible layabouts think that it is a great system. No matter how great socialism sounds, human nature eventually brings it crashing down.

[Danny B]

Monetary Viagra running a printing press in hyperdrive

4/08 Helicopter money "not on the table," ECB says twice today! – Wolf Street
So, you can take this as confirmation.
4/07 JPM, ECB hint at arrival of "helicopter money" in Europe – Zero Hedge
"It's Coming Apart At The Seams" - US Equities Plunge As Deutsche-Lehman Analog Looms | Zero Hedge
4/08 Move your money "underground" before the global bank run begins – Casey Research
Mario Draghi isn't so "super" any more. Draghi Has Ruined Europe | Zero Hedge
4/07 Time to stop dancing with equities on a live volcano – Telegraph That has a real "ring" to it.
4/07 Shocking statistic: over 40% of student borrowers don't make payments – Zero Hedge I believe that the principle is $ 1.2 trillion.
4/07 Tech bubble 2.0 is bursting – Most Important News Bring out the popcorn.

The banks did irresponsible lending figuring that GOV would rescue them and dump it on the taxpayers. GOV is now broke and there is nobody to pick up the bill. The pixelated printing presses are running in hyperdrive on monetary Viagra trying to stop the financial cannibalism.
We are creating less and less wealth with more and more claims on it. What could go wrong?

[aljhoa]

This is how it works: when they print quite a lot of this stuff there is a boom.
When they print too much of it, there is inflation (actually, the printing of money is inflation).
When they stop printing it or simply hold on to it, there is a depression.

As long as the people keep slaving away and let the bankers give them pieces of paper or
blips on a computer screen in exchange for their blood, sweat and tears, everything is fine.

But if a nation begins to wake up to the con and
starts pushing back it is visited by a color revolution,
cultural invasion, or simply bombed back into the Stone Age.

That’s it.
You now understand economics.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/327191-sw...an-referendum/

Al

[Danny B]

Falling retruns,,, dumping MBSs

Bonds are crashing; Chart Of The Day: Global Bond Yields Reach All-Time Low | David Stockman's Contra Corner
Yellen is trying to keep stocks from crashing even though earnings are crashed; Yelling ‘Stay’ In A Burning Theater—–Yellen Ignites Another Robo-Trader Spasm | David Stockman's Contra Corner
The FED wants to dump MBS derivatives; US Federal Reserve to Trim Assets, Dump Mortgage Backed Securities
4/07 Negative rates could trigger another housing bubble – SafeHaven
So, the FED is using negative rates to blow a RE bubble that will allow it to unload toxic paper before it blows all to hell.
The FED is going to have an emergency meeting monday; Fed To Hold Closed, Unexpected Meeting Under "Expedited Procedures" On Monday To Discuss Rates | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

Injecting trash into the system to fix it

Both socialism and crony-capitalism require endless growth. Same for Keynesian economics and our entire credit system. Population growth crashed in the developed countries. America was able to open it's southern borders and "poach" immigrants from Latin America. That is more or less exhausted because they have drastically lowered their birth rate. It appears that we are in the process of poaching immigrants from muslim countries. Considering the experience of France, it doesn't seem like a good idea. Marseille battles image as France's murder capital - BBC.com

Determined to prove their stupidity, German politicians are working to bring in lots of uneducated immigrants who will forever be a drain on the system and drastically raise the crime rate. What is their rationale?
Here comes the great fallacy, "Germany would need 470,000 immigrants, ready to join the pool of taxpayers, each year between now and then to offset the demographic decline"
These muslims will NEVER be contributing taxpayers. It takes a special kind of STUPID to believe that they ever would.

https://www.rt.com/news/244873-germa...ant-workforce/
The developed nations are facing a demographic crash and think that they need lots of new taxpayers to support the old folks. Bringing in unproductive trash isn't going to fix anything. Immigration not going to stop Germany?s demographic problem | News | DW.COM | 20.01.2016

America has Disneyland, cute girls, and lots of good beaches and we attract lots of talented people who bring a lot of money, investment and profit; H-1B Visa Cap Reached in Less Than a Week | Inc.com
BUT, This only temporarily addresses the problem of jobs. There aren't many and the number is falling all the time. There is NO solution.
Singularity University: The Harvard of Silicon Valley Is Planning for a Robot Apocalypse - The Daily Beast

GOV provides lots of wars and other make-work jobs but, it still isn't enough. The CBs print lots of money but it can't trickle down without jobs. The money concentrates at the top where it can't "turnover".

[Danny B]

A huge brown glob is getting closer to the fan

Sun Tzu, "you must appear strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong". China is looking pretty scary; BofA Notices Something Troubling: China's Debt Bubble Has Burst | Zero Hedge
America is looking pretty scary; 'Everything Is Being Sold' - Smart Money Selling Soars, Now In 10th Straight Week | Zero Hedge
Reggie Midleton; "In January of 2008, I warned (in exquisite detail) of the collapse of Bear Stearns. It was 2 months before Bear Stearns actually fell, while it was trading in the $100s and still had buy ratings and investment grade AA or better from the ratings agencies. "
"Watch as I Call the Next Bear Stearns, Again!"
So Called "Trusted Parties", Bank Collapse, the ECB and Blockchains: Watch as I Call the Next Bear Stearns, Again! | Zero Hedge

Turkey kinda has Russia bottled up by the Bosporus Strait. The obvious answer is to just dig a canal around them. https://www.rt.com/business/338901-r...caspian-canal/
Jim Willie says that April promises to be an exciting month. Shanghai, Satanists and Celebration of Fire

U.S. GOV negative net worth increases by 5$ trillion a year with close to $ 20 trillion in nominal debt and $ 230 trillion in unfunded liabilities. China has no GOV debt. That should allow them a lot of wiggle room,,, especially when combined with their stash of gold.