Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Scarce dollars,,, fighting deflation with MORE credit

The Western CBs pumped "money" into the upper loop. Venezuela pumped "money" into the lower loop.
Venezuela’s Currency Just Had the Biggest Monthly Collapse Ever - Bloomberg
Zero Hedge is MUCH disparaged by mainstream finance and news.
"Last week we posted the report by ADM ISI's Paul Mylchreest “Dollar Liquidity Threat is Getting Critical and the Fed is M.I.A” which summarized some of the key points in the ongoing, second phase of global dollar shortage, profiled here first in the start of 2015 and validated recently by the BIS."
"While we’ve been writing about dollar shortages since the GFC, Mylchreest traced the timeline of the current shortage back to the first RMB devaluation in February 2014."
So, as the Chinese devalue the Yuan, dollars get harder to find.

"Pozsar, like Mylchreest, highlights how a dollar funding crisis tightens monetary policy for the rest of the world and could shred the RMB as it means “tighter financial conditions for the rest of the world."
The FED MUST do another round of QE to keep the R.O.W. from crashing. BUT, at the same time, it MUST raise interest rates. How can they raise the cost of money at the same time that they are shovelling it into the markets?
Dollar Shortage Goes Mainstream: When Will The Fed Confess? | Zero Hedge

"One week after the BIS issued an unexpectedly stern, if completely ignored warning, that the surge in the USD is leading to an abrupt tightening in financial conditions around the globe, making the repayment of trillions in USD-denominated cross-border debt increasingly more difficult and suggesting that the Dollar index itself is the new "fear indicator",
OK, so everybody flees to the dollar and it becomes very scarce.
"It also cautioned about Europe's failure to address its hundreds of billions in NPLs, noting that “banking sector structural challenges stem from high stocks of non-performing loans, high operating costs and excess capacity,"
ECB Warns There Is "Significant Risk Of Abrupt Market Reversal" | Zero Hedge
The European banks are toast.

By about 1970, the R.O.W. had rebuilt it's manufacturing base and our wages went way down. With the closure of the gold window, our money became untethered at ALL levels. This promised to bring high deflation. The whole problem was papered over with increased credit. The credit was counted along side the cash when they figured the money supply. Deflation was still lurking in the shadows. When they perfected containerized shipping, this brought us a second wage shock. Deflation is gaining ground. With every increased threat of deflation, they pump in more credit to be counted as part of the money supply. When GOV prints money, they count it as part of the GDP. When they spend the same money, they count it again. Even though the dollar is a debt note, it has more moneyness than credit. They fight deflation with ever-increasing amounts of credit. A cascade of default would leave us with a money supply MINUS the credit segment.

We've had wage deflation for about 40 years. This was offset by credit inflation. They run the presses faster and faster to hold back the defaults. Our debt is reckoned at $42.5 K per person. Infographic: How Much Government Debt Rests Upon Your Shoulders?
I imagine that the debt per working person is quite a bit higher.
Our debt is increasing at $ 6.4 billion a day,, double from a year ago. What happens to the banks when NPLs just keep climbing?

11/25 ECB says it can shield euro area from global finance instability – Bloomberg
11/25 India may impose 60% tax on “unaccounted” deposits – Zero Hedge Armstrong was right. GOV will tax and confiscate without limit.
11/25 China central bank warns against outflows disguised as investment – Reuters China can keep market sector by cheapening the Yuan BUT, then, nobody wants to hold it. This increases dollar demand. (Gresham's Law)
The Chinese convert their profits into gold or dollars and then,,, there are no unlocked dollars in the system to service dollar debt.

[Danny B]

BOJ subbed for the FED,,, capital flight

"Japanese institutional investors are now able to exchange their Japanese bonds for US Treasuries and provide the much-needed demand for Treasuries, preventing a total bond-market meltdown. "
"Shinzō Abe, Japan’s prime minister, was the first foreign leader to visit President-Elect Trump. Both Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner attended the meeting without being officially members of the new White House staff. A sign that this meeting had some urgency10). On the day that Abe visited Mr Trump, the Bank of Japan unexpectedly offered to buy an unlimited number of Japanese government bonds at fixed rates11)."

"Whoever is behind the dumping of Treasuries last week, it becomes clear that the US is at the mercy of its main creditors; China and Japan. The Treasury sell-off must have created panic in the Trump Tower last week. While China is a potential adversary of the US"
Trump has pissed them off quite a bit with his protectionist talk.
Thanks to the action of the BoJ the US bond market was rescued without the help of the FED

SO, the treasury market dodges a bullet because the BOJ provided QE instead of the FED. The FED may very well baulk at increasing it's balance sheet.

The war on cash; "The same is true in commerce. When those who make the decisions in banking and government try to game the system one time too many, dysfunction sets in and the "soldiers" – the countless minor participants in the system – simply walk away.

The lesson to be learned here is that, in all countries where a War on Cash is being destructively waged, the end will not be a positive one."
"But, as difficult as it may be to accept, these are "the good old days". The direst events to come have not yet begun to surface."
This Is Where I Get Off | Jeff Thomas | Safehaven.com

The Eurozone construct was a slipshod affair. Each State had a central bank BUT, they had little freedom of economic policy,,, out of Brussels. That meant that capital could flee any State that strained it's bond market.
"Within the eurozone, such reserve losses are automatic under Target2, the real-time gross settlement system for the euro. If a country has run out of reserves, its central bank automatically borrows to maintain the intraeuro peg. For a country experiencing capital flight (as much of the eurozone periphery has at various points since 2008), this implies a progressively more negative Target2 balance. As of September (the most recent data available), Italy’s Target2 deficit is above 20% of GDP – its worst reading to date"

If a State goes broke, the EU automatically borrows more money for you and adds it to your debt.
"According to IMF estimates, real per capita income in Italy is about 12% below what it was in 2007, with only Greece faring worse. "
"The problem of bank insolvency, endemic in Greece, where nonperforming loans account for more than one-third of bank assets, is not as generalized in Italy. " Just wait til the truth comes out.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/co...inhart-2016-11

11/25 India may impose 60% tax on “unaccounted” deposits – Zero Hedge That makes sense,,, they take 60% of your money to fight corruption. I'm sure that it makes sense to armies of bureaucrats looking for the next buck.
11/23 Trump victory won’t chill utilities’ plans for wind, solar power – Seattle Times Utilities sell power. They feel no particular compunction to buy oil if they don't have to. This won't make the banks and oil companies very happy. Originally, 1905---1956,,, Seattle got it's energy from a gasifier plant. Gasworks History

[Danny B]

Disequilibrium , reserve curency , sucker's rally

Mother Nature has always provided us with some children who would not be able to compete in the free-market for labor. They became wards of the family or wards of the State. There was always a "float" of people who were consumers but, not producers. Steve Keen writes about disequilibrium economics.
Text; http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2...rium-economic/
Vid; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb7Tmk2OABo

As more and more people fail to find a niche in the labor market, this disequilibrium increases. The most qualified person gets the job. The most qualified person is increasingly, a machine. One segment of the disequilibrium is the increasing chasm between world productive capacity and world consumptive power. The lack of consumptive ability was "papered over" by increasing our access to credit. (the ability to spend tomorrow's wages,,, today). Destructive wars were used to augment consumption. BUT, they were done on credit,,, the bills come due eventually.
The lack of employment and consumptive power is only going to get worse and there is NO remedy. https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-...ut-the-problem

With the Bretton Woods agreement, the U.S. dollar became a proxy for gold. When the final link was broken in summer of 1971, the dollar went way up instead of gold going way up.
Since the U.S. dollar was the reserve currency, there was a huge demand for it as a store of value. America just didn't issue enough dollars for the demand. We were "forced" to print by the ton so that States could have a store of value. This allowed us to print funny-money to buy everything under the sun.
"We" could have stimulated worldwide prosperity with all of this capital inflow. Instead we stimulated worldwide war.

The reserve currency and the petro-dollar were used to finance wars for profit (Viet Nam). Later, the dollar was used to attack anybody who disagreed with us OR threatened to pull away from dollar influence. This worked on the smaller States but, we hit a roadblock with China and Russia.

"As custodian of the world’s reserve currency and champion of financial innovation, the U.S. has all along been the global leader with respect to Credit excess, speculation and monetary management. The financialization of the global economy has been integral to the U.S.’s unique capacity to run persistently large trade and Current Account Deficits."
"Why not de-industrialize and instead use new financial claims in exchange for imported manufactured goods? The experiment in a services and consumption economic structure then took on a life of its own, fuelled first by Wall Street finance and then by government debt and central bank Credit."
Credit Bubble Bulletin: Weekly Commentary: Revisiting the Global Savings Glut Thesis

"I see a recession coming down the pike in 2017. The stock market is going to go down and it's going to stay down long and hard because, for the first time in 25 years, there's nothing to bail it out."
"My call stands. Sell the stocks, sell the bonds, get out of the casino," Stockman explained to CNBC in an off-camera interview. "Bonds have already cratered by nearly $2 trillion worldwide and have miles to go. This isn't a rotation into stocks, either. It's the greatest sucker's rally ever."
"On the contrary, Stockman, who initially predicted that Trump would win the election, added that Washington will be in chaos by June. "
"So when the recession hits this summer, the Fed will be out of dry powder and fiscal policy will be paralysed," concluded Stockman. "This time the market will crash and stay crashed."
David Stockman doubles down on his sell everything call

11/26 Shipbuilding in Japan, Korea, China collapses in death spiral of orders – 24hGold
So, we have "death spirals" to go along with "time bombs".
There is a slowly growing awareness that issuing money and earning money can not continue on as they did historically. The bankers certainly don't want helicopter money. They load us up with $ trillions more in bond debt, figuring that we will pay it off in the future. TPP and other trade agreements were schemes to increase the profit margins by lowering our wages. Did it never occur to them that lowering our wages would result in lower economic activity?

Labor's share of the profit pie was collapsed by Finance's claim to the money. Finance is starting to worry that all the mountains of debt instruments may not be paid back. As long as any State is able to manipulate it's currency, equilibrium will not return. The Bretton Woods agreement depended on the honesty and morality of politicians. Nixon just happened to be at the helm when the ship of State ran on to a reef. Gold has been the only antidote to crooked politicians.

[Danny B]

Implosions, time bombs and death spirals,,, oh my

The PTB are a cozy little club that has screwed us very well. In a very dynamic world, they are trying to maintain the status quo. You can see that the upper caste has done VERY well for themselves in the last few years. http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016...ality3-16a.jpg
BUT, the natives are getting very restless AND hungry. The PTB respond by militarising the police and cranking up the din of propaganda.
Of Two Minds - The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative

11/27 China’s property frenzy and surging debt raises red flag for economy – Guardian Well, it is called red China
11/27 More than half of New Yorkers are one paycheck away from homelessness – Gothamist
11/27 The top 0.1% holds the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90% – My Budget 360 Yes, their wealth is reckoned on how many debt notes they hold.
11/27 OPEC deal disintegrates – Zero Hedge That will continue to drag down the banks.
11/26 Automobile sales falling, inventories up 7.8%, interest rates rising – Mish Is this another death spiral?

11/27 Nigel Farage poised to back Marine Le Pen – Independent He's already had one assassination attempt.
The bankers have always complained that the people of India are "underbanked" . They hold their money and gold to themselves. Most loans are private affairs.
11/27 India’s rural economy hit hard as informal lending breaks down – Reuters It broke down because GOV pulled 86% of the cash out of circulation.
11/27 Sterling heading for best month in EIGHT YEARS as EURO in CRISIS – Express.co.uk The ECB is run by feces-for-brains technocrats. Even sterling looks better than the Euro.

[Danny B]

Italian bond risk

It's a new world since the net brought us a universal soapbox.
"As of this morning, the DolarToday.com website, maintained by a person the WSJ dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1 of Venezuela’s revolutionary government, Gustavo Díaz, a Home Depot Inc. employee in central Alabama"

It's not just the net. The search engines give an unbelievable leverage to the little guy. The PTB are $hitting their britches at the sheer volume of bad, but, accurate news.
Killary and Stein are raising money on Monday for a recount. By Tuesday, everybody knows that Stein is sucking up the money for herself. By Wednesday, the contributors are demanding a refund.
The Hyperinflationary Endgame: Venezuela Currency Crashes 15% In One Day | Zero Hedge

Greece is bending the Greeks over backwards to pay bond coupons. The ECB just keeps loading them up with more and more debt. But, even that isn't enough.
"The illegal economy in Greece is estimated at some 40 billion euros every year, with state coffers losing out on tax revenues of around 15 billion euros per annum."
So, the bankers extract another $15 billion from the economy. BUT, the ECB and the Euro are out of bullets.
Banks call for taxing cash withdrawals | Business | ekathimerini.com

11/28 Italian bank shares dive on fears about potential referendum defeat – MarketWatch
11/28 Italian bond risk spikes to 30-month highs – Zero Hedge
11/28 Bonds set to snap 3-decade winning streak – CNBC
11/28 Up to 8 Italian banks may fail if Renzi loses referendum – Zero Hedge

"In other words, as we warned all along, all QE does is kick the ball into the ECB's court, while giving lazy, incompetent politicians the justification to do, well, nothing - certainly nothing that may threaten their careers - and simply watch as the stock market rises, giving the false impression that "things are good."
Well, things are fine for the politicians; https://sputniknews.com/europe/20161...ion-pay-bonus/
11/28 Farage: if Le Pen wins, the EU is over – Breitbart He means,,, over sooner.

11/28 Bond traders raise inflation alarm – Live Mint
11/28 Bonds set to snap 3-decade winning streak – CNBC 3 decades of inflated bond prices and now ! they sound the alarm.

[Danny B]

Jim Willie

"The banker cabal believed that the interconnectivity within their bank structures would make them all immune to failure risk. The reality is that the failure of any one major bank guarantees the systemic breakdown of all of them."
"When the collapse occurs, the solution will finally be discussed, the solution avoided for eight full years. THE GOLD STANDARD WILL BE INSTALLED. It will first arrive in the trade payment system."

We import 1/2 $ trillion more a year than we export. We pay for it with confetti and the R.O.W is bringing this to an end. Japan is the last major holder of U.S. Treasury bonds. A gold standard trade settlement means that we have to pay for things with the gold in Ft. Knox.

Deutsche bank, "The giant German bank has a net worth of around minus $1000 billion, or minus EUR 1000 billion"
"The other shoe from those American feet is the end of the USDollar as global currency reserve. When the rejection is more broadly understood and openly discussed, the Western banks go poof and the USDollar dies."
"The Gold Trade Notes for trade payment might be coming into view, initially with commodity transfers, later swap contracts, and finally gold-backed short-term notes which supplant the USTBill. "
"In time, expect an eventual refusal by Eastern producing nations to accept USTreasury Bills in payment for trade. "
Criss-Crossed Fuses And Lit Bonfire
In a general sense, this means that our imports will stop.

An interesting prophecy Amazing Prophecy From 1981 Says U.S. Economy Will Collapse After Death Of Fidel Castro | The Daily Sheeple

[Danny B]

Italian bank woes

Italy is the third largest bond market but, only the tenth largest economy. The banks buy up lots of bonds. Now, the banks are in trouble.
"After 13 years of a flatlining economy, Italians are battered, bruised and looking for somebody to blame. Unemployment is running at 11%, but is close to 40% among the young, who made up the bulk of the 107,000 who left the country last year to seek work abroad. The aftermath of the financial crash is estimated to have wiped out about a quarter of Italian industry."
Not only is industry collapsing, young Italians are leaving the country. Same thing in Spain.

“I think that the elites have lived too long among themselves. We are in a world where globalization, which is an ideology, has forgotten, and put aside the people, the people’s interests, aspirations, and dreams,”
"Italy is the third biggest country in the EU, and France is the second. Let either pull out and the result might be dissolution and the end of the euro. Trillions of dollars of euro-denominated bonds would suddenly be converted to lira or francs, forcing the holders of those bonds to take big losses "
Welcome To The Currency War, Part 23: Europe Will Devalue Or Dissolve - DollarCollapse.com

OZ is starting up a new campaign; https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...h-withdrawals/

[Danny B]

Some of the elites are worried,,, About time!

The Economist and The Financial Times are mouthpieces of the self-appointed elites. The Economist has come out with a new article.
"The Bourbons were hard to beat as the quintessential out-of-touch establishment. The gatekeepers of the global liberal order — keep on doubling down. "
"Macroeconomists thought no one would dare challenge their authority."
"Our liberal capitalist order, with its competing institutions, is constitutionally incapable of doing that. Doubling down is what it is programmed to do."
"The gatekeepers of western capitalism, like the Bourbons before them, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.'
The FT Asks "Is This The Elites' "Marie Antoinette" Moment?" | Zero Hedge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekqolVk4K4&t=167s

11/30 How Italy’s referendum could spark a ‘systemic crisis’ in the eurozone – MarketWatch
11/30 China’s (not so) Great Wall of Debt: $28trln and counting – National Interest Why pick on China? Our debt is $ 20 trillion with $ 212 trillion of unfunded liabilities.
11/30 CalPERS: reasonable return targets vs. maintaining Ponzi Scheme – Zero Hedge All their actuarial tables are based on 7-8% return. Their actual return before inflation is about .5%
11/30 Oil prices may plunge to $20 if OPEC fails to clinch deal – Oil Price Maybe we shouldn't have threatened the big oil producers, Iran and Russia.

Negative interest rates and who got screwed, https://mishtalk.com/2016/11/29/deca...who-benefited/

[Danny B]

Auto loans,, an extra $trillion for killary,,stress tests

Nothing of much import to report at the moment. This is from 2014; Car Repos Soar 70% As Auto Subprime Bubble Pops; "It's Contained" Promises Fed | Zero Hedge
2016, "Total household debt rose $63 billion in the quarter to $12.35 trillion, driven by a $32 billion increase in auto loans, which also hit a record high of $1.14 trillion. 3.6% of auto loans were 90 or more days delinquent."
" The chart below disaggregates the $1.135 trillion of outstanding auto loans by credit score and lender type, and we see that 75 percent of the outstanding subprime loans were originated by finance companies."

"The data suggest some notable deterioration in the performance of subprime auto loans. This translates into a large number of households, with roughly six million individuals at least ninety days late on their auto loan payments."
Household Debt Hits $12.4 Trillion As Subprime Loan Delinquencies Hit Highest In 6 Years: NY Fed | Zero Hedge
I keep hearing that number,,, six million?
11/30 Negative equity rolled into new car purchases at record high – Zero Hedge

"US federal debt, which after growing by only $330 billion in 2015 soared by $1.38 trillion this year" The Kenyan chump was paving the way for his heir apparent. The extra $ trillion dollars has kept us in high clover.
These Were Supposed To Be Hillary’s Numbers! - DollarCollapse.com

11/30 OPEC agrees to cut production to end glut – Bloomberg Contrary to reports, non-OPEC countries are not on board.
11/30 China liquidity crisis deepens, spreads across Asia – Zero Hedge The marvels of globalism; no crisis is local.
11/30 RBS fail Bank of England stress test – GoldCore It's not like they are alone.
Santander, Deutsche Bank: U.S. stress test repeat offenders | Reuters

Here is an article about the new gold-backed U.S. currency with pics of the new bills. ALL BS , of course; New Currency for The United States Republic – Backed by Gold – Ready for Distribution » The Event Chronicle
More reading;
Mathematicians Prove Society is Way Too Complex to Have A President
by Alice Salles
http://www.shtfplan.com/conspiracy-f...ident_11182016

[vidbid]

November 30, 2016 was a Terrible Day

[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eImQOQR4ejw[/VIDEO]

You're Not Going To Believe What's Happening Worldwide! Disturbing Events Will Shock You! - YouTube

and December 1st seemed like a rough day, also.

[Danny B]

Italy and India and other big problems

The Italian referendum; "A “No” vote is a chance for the average Italian to give the finger to EU bureaucrats in Brussels. "Which finger would that be?
"Given the intense anger Italians feel right now, it’s very likely they’ll do just that." Start practising with those fingers.
"The Financial Times recently put it this way:
An Italian exit from the single currency would trigger the total collapse of the eurozone within a very short period.
It would probably lead to the most violent economic shock in history, dwarfing the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008 and the 1929 Wall Street crash."
How December 4th Could Trigger The "Most Violent Economic Shock In History" | Zero Hedge
Voters picked Trump to toss a hand grenade into the political system. Italian voters seem posed to do the same thing.

This whole scenario is going to get a LOT more violent; Trump and The Fourth Turning | Jay Weidner

GOV is broke . The obvious solution is to borrow money with the stipulation that it is never paid back.This is already true from a de facto point of view. GOV just wants to make it the official rule. Steven Mnuchin Roils Bond Markets With Suggestion Of 100 Year Treasury Bond | Zero Hedge
Will GOV borrow it or will GOV print it? QE infinity eyed in Europe if Renzi loses crucial Italian referendum
This is actually a red herring. Currently GOV prints the money,,,, gives it to the banks,,,then, borrows it from the banks.

Don't worry, the Goldman Sachs boys are on the job; http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/bu...src=busln&_r=2

12/02 Italian banks flirt with disaster again as Renzi teeters – Bloomberg They are going to go from flirting to embracing.
12/02 Americans not in the labor force soar to record 95.1 million – Zero Hedge Wait a minute,,, we're going to need those 95 million people hard at work to pay off our bond debt.
12/02 Is the student loan bubble getting ready to pop? – Financial Sense They meant to write "poop" rather than pop.
12/02 World’s growing inequality is ‘ticking time bomb’: Nobel laureate Yunus – CNBC Yep, just wait and see.
12/02 Money pouring out of bond funds – Reuters yeah, all those people who read the net and don't want to be sheared.

12/02 India: No limit on holding gold if it matches income declaration – GATA This clearly shows the stupidity of politicians. Gold holdings are not traceable. You can say that you got your gold from your great, great, great grandmother and they can't prove otherwise.
Mobs Lock Up Bankers During India's Cash Chaos
Bloomberg - 2 days ago

12/02 Indian ‘gold ban’ a portent of major events? – Sprott
12/01 China curbs gold imports to slow capital flight – Zero Hedge
Yep, all those stupid people who want gold instead of GOV paper.
12/02 Why a strengthening dollar is bad for the world economy – Economist The PTB would very much like for everyone to equate the dollar with dollar-denominated Treasury bonds. The world is willing to hold dollars,,, they just don't want T-bonds.

12/02 It’s time to face facts: Pandora’s Box is open and Europe is finished – City AM I say, open Pandora's box and shove the politician and bureaucrats inside.
12/01 “Shell-shocked” Democrat donors concerned at rudderless DNC – Zero Hedge Rudder?my culo. Brains, ethics and morals is more like it.
GOV reported that the unemployment rate was improved. The algos immediately responded because a computer doesn't know the difference between truth and lies; http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/u...84&widgetid=39

The elections/referendums in Italy, France and Austria show the sentiment of the PEOPLE, not the bankers and technocrats. The EU rejected Turkey for inclusion. Erdogan has the boats of refugees already loaded up. The Europeans don't want to commit suicide. Every day that goes by and every piece of trash that shows up on the shore makes them reject their "leaders" that much more. We'll see even more of this with Merkel's party.

[Danny B]

Shutdown coming, The Italian Job,, Venezuala,,,, gold-yes,, war-no

Jim Rickards has a podcast. The written excerpts don't mention the SDR even once.
“It’s the future of money… Here is why . First of all it is non-digital. Everyone thinks they have money; what they have are electrons in banks…”
“In 1998, Wall Street bailed out the hedge funds. In 2008, the central banks bailed out Wall Street. In 2018 – if not sooner – who’s going to bail out the central banks?”
“So depositors’ money is at risk, bondholders can take haircuts, stockholders can see their stock go to zero. That’s the new template.”

And this new template means that when the next crisis comes, the whole financial system will be shut down while the rescue is organised. People won’t be able to get their money from banks, they won’t be able to sell their shares."
“In a financial panic, everyone wants their money back… People say, oh I’ve money in stocks, money in bonds. No you don’t, you have stocks and bonds, but that’s not money. You have to sell them to get your money.”
Gold and Silver Will Protect From Coming Financial Crash - Rickards - GoldCore Gold Bullion Dealer
$4.1 billion pulled from U.S.-based taxable mutual bond funds during week: Lipper (Reuters.com) Looks like people are getting ready.

JPMorgan Tells Investors: Ignore Mainstream Media | Zero Hedge The VIX was always considered the "fear index". The B.I.S. says to ignore the VIX because the dollar is the new fear index. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...eless-bis-says
JPM also says to ignore MSM. Panic now and avoid the rush !

The Italians will vote by a big margin to give the finger to Brussels. THAT will cause capital flight, most likely to the dollar. TRUMPISTI! Italian Populists Expected to Defeat Referendum; EU Crisis Looms | Zero Hedge panic NOW.
Venezuela; "“I’ve had to go to six different ATMs just to get 6,000 bolivars,” said [Domingris] Montano… She needed to buy groceries. A package of rice would cost 3,500 bolivars, more than half the daily withdrawal limit,"
"[…] It takes almost six minutes for it to spit out, 3,500 bolivars at a shot, and the victor walks away with a 3-inch stack worth $5.32."
"Economy Shattered, Currency Collapsing": Venezuelans Wait in 6 ATM Lines For Enough to Buy Rice

The FED; According to Narayana Kocherlakota, there’s no law on the books that protects the Fed’s independence; the broad freedom assumed by the Fed over the past several decades relies solely on the president’s discretion.

"It’s no secret that Trump has a bone to pick with the Fed, so he could be the first president in years to strip away its independence.

Plus, it speaks volumes that just days before the election, Fed chair Janet Yellen started to publicly argue the importance of an independent Fed."
" Trump himself has even toyed with the idea of putting America back on the gold standard." The banks are VERY much against that but, we may be forced to do it. You can bet every cent that you have that the war-mongers are against it. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ederal-reserve

[Danny B]

Buy some popcorn and watch italy

The investors (vultures) are starting to take up big short positions against Italian Banks. If This Happens, Italy’s Banking System Becomes “Insolvent” | Casey Research
"In the Italian system, the banks say (assets) are worth 45-50 cents in the dollar. But the bid price is 20 cents."

China; "A lender called Guiyang Rural Commercial Bank Co. in the southwestern province of Guizhou sparked concern that risks among smaller lenders are spreading after its rating outlook was cut last month following a jump in overdue loans to 30 percent of the total."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...oo-big-to-fail

ZIRP, the gift that keeps on giving. What happens to pension funds without interest-income?
"California's public pension underfunding levels. After averaging $77,700 per household in 2014, the amount of public pension underfunding for the state of California jumped to a staggering $92,748 per household in 2015. I think that the 2015 date is a mistake.
California isn't alone; http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20Chart_0.jpg
California needs a LOT of federal money and should call up Trump right away
Stanford Study Reveals California Pensions Underfunded By $1 Trillion Or $93k Per Household | Zero Hedge
This is nothing new. It is a battle between current workers and retired workers.

[Danny B]

Populism vs corporatism, resolution, unconstrained capital flows

The investor class is increasingly pulling apart from the working class. They have made all the gains at OUR expense and can't understand why we don't want to happily pull the plow for them.
“silent majority” of Italians who campaigners think will vote for political stability." "but a further indication that Europe is at risk of being engulfed in a populist downward spiral."
“It will make the EU defensive and inward-looking, and more incapable of addressing the problems that are giving rise to the populists in the first place.”
"reforms, which he says are vital to reinvigorating a nation mired in debt and ravaged by a 36 per cent youth unemployment rate and a decade of stagnant middle-class incomes."
Europe holds its breath as Italy heads to the polls for critical referendum
The Euro-centric powers are trying to convince the Europeans that continuing with proven policies of failure are necessary for the economic revival of Europe. Populism is bad and centralized power is good.

"Trump boasted about his deal to keep about 1,100 Carrier jobs in Indiana, and also took aim at other companies who may be thinking about moving jobs out of the country."
President-elect Donald Trump's speech about his deal to keep Carrier jobs in the United States was "absolutely the worst speech," economic policy analyst Jimmy Pethokoukis told CNBC on Thursday.

"Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen. It's not going to happen, I'll tell you right now," Trump said on Thursday.

"The idea that American corporations are going to have to make business decisions, not based on the fact that we've created an ideal environment for economic growth in the United States, but out of fear of punitive actions based on who knows what criteria exactly from a presidential administration. I think that's absolutely chilling,"
So, tell me about this " ideal environment for economic growth"
"However, Carrier still plans to move roughly 1,300 other jobs to Mexico and close another facility in Indiana. "
" Robert Shapiro, former undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton, said the problem in this country is not about getting people to work.
"Unemployment is below 5 percent today. "
Trump's Carrier speech 'absolutely chilling,' economic analyst says

Huff Post said that Killary lost because "she wrote off the working man." Her voters were concentrated in dense metropolitan areas that shuffled around a LOT of money AND areas where there was a concentration of people on GOV money. The people that were accustomed to actually working for money wanted nothing to do with her.
Momentum and history say that we will go into a cascade of default that brings down the credit bubble. There will be a period of resolution where the people in finance try to figure out just who owes what to whom.
Jim Rickards was the lead attorney in the resolution of LTCM when it went bust. He says that the banks will be closed during the resolution. There will be no interregnum. Cash will still be king.
Every paper asset will be at some place on Exeter's Pyramid. The farther it is from gold, the less likely that you can sell it for cash. THAT is when true "price discovery" begins. Anything that you try to liquidate for cash will enter the marketplace with few buyers.

Most paper assets have a value that is directly related to some facet of production & consumption. Either profits or taxes. With 95 million of working age not in the work force and very low wages for the rest of us, there will be severely diminished production & consumption.
Jim Willie said that we will get a new dollar. Somebody? else said that internal dollars would be reduced in value by 50% and external dollars would remain the same value. Dunno about that.

We have two concurrent miracles; global currency flows, compounding interest.
The giga-joules of electronic money skitter from one market to another looking to avoid the anti-matter of ZIRP. Debt creation has gone higher than exponential growth. The U.S. dollar is the new "fear gauge" because of capital flight from China and Emerging markets. Every additional day of ZIRP brings the funds closer to illiquidity.
An escape from ZIRP brings fire and brimstone.

The war on cash is as bogus as the war on climate change; https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/...on-cash-20526/

Edit; Well, Renzi lost as expected. When Brexit lost, the politicians just said not to worry, they would block it.
,,,,,is a sign that Italy could try to pull out of the single market, some analysts have downplayed that possibility. An exit from the euro would be exceedingly complicated and – while Euroscepticism is clearly on the rise – there is no clear political consensus to leave the single currency. Maybe a bullet through the brain would be a more clear sign of dis-satisfaction.

"Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at Teneo Intelligence in London, said the most likely outcome would be for Renzi to resign and a new caretaker government to take over. The new government would then be expected to focus entirely on the passage of a new electoral law, which in turn would hamper the ability of either the M5S or the Northern League from winning a strong majority in the next elections. "
So, the PTB plan to use this opportunity to pass laws that would block any future efforts for "unapproved" parties to gain power.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...-election-live

There is no "political consensus" to leave but, there is definitely a popular consensus. The politicians are desperate to do damage control and keep investors from pulling out of Italian banks and bonds.

"They" are saying that there is no hurry to call elections. BUT, the referendum went down in flames with 60% against. Beppe Grillo calls for immediate elections.

[Danny B]

Bad models and their results

The economists barely take into account human nature. BUT, "Advances in behavioural psychology have demolished the idea of efficient markets. "
"The tempo of recent crises in 1994, 1998, and 2008 says a crisis is likely soon. A new global financial panic will be one legacy of the Trump administration. It won’t be Trump’s fault, merely his misfortune."

"The equilibrium and value-at-risk models used by banks will not foresee the new panic. Those models are junk science relying as they do on notions of efficient markets, normally distributed risk, continuous liquidity, and a future that resembles the past. None of those hypotheses match reality."

"Data shows the degree distribution of risk is a power curve not a normal bell curve. Liquidity evaporates when most needed. Prices gap down; they do not move continuously. Each of the 1994, 1998, and 2008 crises was worse than the one before, and required more drastic intervention. The future does not resemble the past; it keeps getting worse. The standard models are in ruins."

"Recent model improvements that take into account so-called tail risk still fail to come to grips with systemic scale. The most catastrophic event possible in a complex system is an exponential function of scale. In plain language, if you double system size, you do not double risk; you increase it by a factor of five or more."
"If existing models don’t work, what does? A blend of complexity theory, Bayesian statistics, and behavioural psychology can produce models with robust predictive power. Such models are being developed in a few centres of excellence such as the Santa Fe Institute, the LSE, and ETH Zurich. Yet, they are far from mainstream thinking and will not be adopted in time to mitigate the next crisis."
President-elect Donald Trump’s unhappy fate is to oversee a financial crisis far worse than the last, triggered either by Deutsche Bank or by the failure of a bullion bank to deliver gold | City A.M.

Jeff Thomas; " In 1999, the Federal Reserve, under Alan Greenspan, convinced the US Congress to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which had been passed in 1932 to eliminate banks’ abilities to offer loans far beyond the actual level of their deposits.

When I learned of this development in 1999, I anticipated that it was put through to allow banks to once again recklessly loan money and that the outcome would be essentially the same as what occurred in 1929 - a depression of major proportions."

It is also interesting to note that Dr. Ron Paul made the decision to go into politics when Nixon abrogated the gold-convertibility of the U.S. dollar. Both of these actions had far-reaching consequences.

"Secondly, the Debt Super Cycle is coming to an end. It is the fuse that will ignite this combustible mixture. The explosive mixture is about the Fiat paper reserves underpinning the global economic system which are presently built on failing wealth creation which is required to maintain the collateral values supporting the pyramided debt leverage levels through financial "gimmicks" such as rehypothecation. The approximate $600T derivative SWAPs market is the explosive within this mixture."
https://matasii.com/cycles-the-end-o...super-cycle-2/

Goldman Sachs is telling all it's muppets to get in the stock market. They will be sheared if they are lucky and BBQ if they are not lucky. Goldman's Bear Case In 7 Steps: "We Are In The 98th Percentile Of Historical Valuations" | Zero Hedge