Economic pressures

[Danny B]

rising debt,,,, pollution in China

Page 11 of this file shows that Americans are doing a very good job of reducing private debt compared to other States. Public debt is exploding but, that is another story.
http://www.goldcore.com/ie/wp-conten...nal.pdf?x64374

12/24 Japan plans record spending as debt piles up – Global Times
12/24 Japanese gov’t lacks sense of crisis on debt reliance – Mainichi
If debt is too high, just create more of it and then, ignore it.
12/24 ECB sees inflation surge, firming global recovery – RTE Insanity is defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results. Wages are stagnant and falling. As prices inflate, consumption and trade have to fall. This is temporarily papered-over with liar-loans and higher credit limits to unemployed people but, how can they rationally call it a recovery?

China has their new "Silk Road" and tons of new projects. They know that they are going to crash badly but, they figure that they will just muddle through. Given their circumstances, I don't see how they can avoid revolution. As a communist State, they ignore the individual. This is dangerous because you can ignore an individual but, what about ignoring LARGE groups of individuals?
They have 1/2 billion people poisoned by bad air. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...half-a-billion

"Authorities estimate that about 80 percent of China’s surface groundwater is not fit for drinking, and 90 percent of the groundwater in urban areas is contaminated. They rate nearly two-fifths of China’s rivers as being unsuitable for agricultural or industrial use.

More than 360 million people, or about a quarter of the country’s population, do not have access to clean water."
The Coming Water Crisis
Pollution costs money; "Human toll of air pollution could be costing China 13% of GDP" https://www.chinadialogue.net/blog/7...a-13-of-GDP/en
These problems are only going to get worse as the economy shrinks.

[Danny B]

Blocking good deflation and creating bad bad deflation

The whole point of most scientific advancement is to bring price deflation and allow us a higher standard of living (more stuff). There are other objectives, of course but, price deflation is the biggest objective for the average consumer. The more stuff that we have, the more we can insulate ourselves from living in the wilds. Watch the movie, "Quest for Fire" and then decide how much you would like to live in the food chain and just on the edge of survival.
As stuff gets cheaper, more people can afford things like shoes and jackets and food.

The whole purpose of the stock market, at this point in time, is to cause price inflation. Formerly, the stock market was a forum that vetted good productive ideas and raised capital to bring them to fruition. That day is long gone and the stock market is little more than a casino. The stock market was especially keen on promoting ideas that brought more efficiency to production. (price deflation). Lighting went from whale-oil to kerosene to electric. Transportation went from the horse to the bullet train.

The stock market is now a construct that feeds on free money and works hard to create price inflation.
Dow 20k Mission Accomplished, Stocks Bull Market Delights Could Have Violent Bear Market Ends :: The Market Oracle ::

“Animal spirits” is a term from Keynes, not Rand. In his 1936 book, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” the English economist used it to describe “a spontaneous urge to action” on the part of business people, one based on a general outlook of optimism rather than an individual cost-benefit analysis." A cost-benefit analysis shows that it is not a good idea to have children.

"Earlier this year, Larry Kudlow, the TV pundit whom Trump is reportedly about to appoint as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told Breitbart News that Trump’s tax proposals, which include cutting the corporate tax rate from thirty-five per cent to fifteen per cent and allowing firms to pay a rate of just ten per cent if they repatriate profits, would generate a “a movement, a tremendous movement, of capital and labor back to the United States" <95> million Americans of working age are not in the labor force. How is labor going to come back to the U.S.? They can repatriate the capital but, the problem is a lack of demand.

"Surveys by the Federal Reserve Board and other organizations indicate that the main factor depressing corporate investment has been weak demand. As Keynes pointed out eighty years ago, when firms don’t see the appetite for their products growing, they have little incentive to build new capacity. “The logic is quite simple,” Dominic Konstam, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote earlier this year. “The corporate sector is unlikely to increase investment in the absence of strong (global) final demand.”
Ayn Rand and Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Mend the Economy - The New Yorker
The demand is there. The purchasing power is not.

The system is blowing all to hell because the parasites have inflated the prices and deflated our wages. They sing the praises of inflation and ignore our falling purchasing power. They just offer us longer credit terms.
The credit bubble is the total (+interest) of the money we didn't earn that was necessary to keep the finance industry fat and happy. Debt is growing faster than exponentially and may become problematic

"Economically illiterate Financial Times writer Gillian Tett is singing the praises of inflation.
There’s nothing special about being an economic illiterate. It’s the norm."
"Then there is the tricky, and fascinating, matter of consumer psychology. One of the most pernicious problems in Japan is that an entire generation has grown up thinking that deflation is not just normal but desirable too."
"Japan has the highest debt to GDP ratio in the G20. It achieved that dubious result fighting deflation."
"Tett never explained why consumers are in misery by falling prices. Consumers everywhere like falling prices."
"Because of technology and rising productivity Falling prices are actually the norm. Such advances improve standards of living. In the absence of central bank manipulation prices would be stable.

It’s central bank arrogance, like Tett’s, to demand inflation in a deflationary world. The results speak for themselves: asset bubble booms and busts with increasing amplitude over time."
"Of all the widely believed but patently false economic beliefs is the absurd notion that falling consumer prices are bad for the economy and something must be done about them.

I have commented on this many times and have been vindicated not only by sound economic theory but also by actual historical examples."
“Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive,” stated the BIS study. Good deflation

It’s asset bubble deflation that is damaging." Bad deflation
"When those bubble burst, and they will, it will trigger debt deflation, which is what central banks ought to fear."
"Meanwhile economically illiterate writers bemoan deflation, as do most economists and central banks. "
https://mishtalk.com/2016/12/24/posi...nancial-times/
The stock market is at war with the consumer. It must constantly deflect and absorb any price deflation that is created by higher efficiency. Think what would happen if every 3d printed house had a MEG and a 3d printer.
Technology shrinks the labor force. Technology tries to shrink cost of stuff. The finance industry cheers the lowering of labor costs but, bemoans price deflation.
After the crash, the stock market will NEVER revive if consumptive power is not somehow revived. Consumptive power is now limited to those who can live off their portfolio. After the crash, THEY will join the rest of us who are just surviving.

[Danny B]

Rising pressures in the sovereign bond market

"Bond vigilante" is a name that refers to investors who refuse to buy GOV bonds until they reach an interest rate that compensates them for the loss of purchasing power caused by price inflation. Everything is referenced off of the 10 year Treasury note. If there is inadequate "spread" between buy & sell, they won't buy. Yellen is now following the market, NOT leading it.
GOV is hard at work trying to inflate away the pain of repaying the debt. This runs counter to what the bond buyers want to see.

Historically, GOV has been able to inflate away 50% of the pain of debt repayment. Bond buyers take this number into account when they bid. Reportedly, GOV created $ 3.6 trillion of new debt in the previous year. This made everything look rosy leading up to the election of Killary. It has been proven that Killary wasted Sanders with election fraud.
Former CIA Spy Has A Christmas Message For Trump | Zero Hedge
This tactic just wasn't adequate to overcome Trump. Reportedly, the downhill slide is imminent.

Martin Armstrong projects a complete disaster in U.S. GOV bonds.
IceCap Asset Management Lays it ALL out in detail. I'll do some excerpts but, you should read the whole article.

Our research firmly reasons that the world is in the late stages of an enormous bubble in the bond market, and as it turns over it will affect all markets and strategies – regardless of where you sit in the world.

This convergence of political, social, economic, monetary and fiscal factors is developing, that while may seem chaotic to many – appears quite plain and simple to those who are able to see straight.
Or, so you’ve been told. The reason why the world’s bond market was turned upside down, inside out and tossed out with the trash was because of the following:

Long-term interest rates increased from +1.7% to +2.4%

Yes, that is not a typo. A mere 0.7% move higher was enough to wake up sleepy bond investors, create $1.7 Trillion in losses, and devastate the entire bond world.
Analysing these points obviously shows that the problems in the world today are squarely centered in the public/government sector – not the private sector. Since today’s sovereign debt crisis is in the public sector – the risks will manifest not in the stock market, but in the bond market.

This really is the most important point to understand today
Days after the dust settled on the bond market debacle, we had a meeting with one of the world’s largest bond managers. We asked them on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being complete devastation, how would they rate the recent decline in the bond market?

The answer = 8

Again, we stress to you that a 0.7% increase in long-term interest rates created untold havoc throughout the bond world. Imagine what would happen if long-term interest rates increased by 1% or 3%, or even 6%? The short answer is a surging USD and a surging stock market. The long end of the bond market is now broken and the 30 year bull market in long duration, fixed income is over, kaput, done.

There are 3 kinds of inflation:

1. inflation caused by an increase in demand for certain things
2. inflation caused by a decrease in supplies of certain things
3. inflation caused by a currency moving sharply
Instead, the surging USD will actually create deflation in the US
A strong USD is negative for global growth, which means less demand for global goods and global services. The United States will not be immune and their exports will be affected – which is deflationary. As well, a strong USD makes foreign goods/services cheaper for people who own USD – this is also deflationary.
IceCap Asset Management On Investing Through The Eyes Of An Ostrich | Zero Hedge

12/26 Bail-in coming for 40,000 junior bondholders of Monte dei Paschi – Mish This will murder confidence in banks.
12/26 Koos Jansen: China’s gold market means to internationalize its currency – GATA The Yuan is crashing and it will be difficult to "internationalize" it.
12/26 Chinese themselves prefer U.S. dollar over yuan – GATA
12/23 Chinese money moving to US commercial property – CNBC

It isn't just American sovereign debt that is in trouble. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...e-24-counties/
We are starting into a default cycle of public debt. https://armstrongeconomics-wp.s3.ama...s-Wave-86D.jpg
It is an 86 year cycle so, living investors have no personal recollection that GOV ALWAYS eventually defaults. The bond market will eat up everything eventually.
https://matasii.com/key-focus-a-brok...ounce-beckons/

[MagnaMoRo]

Employment Tax Relief

Your employer can never pay you back the valuable hours you invest in them! So, they compensate you with the value of your hours, providing you with monetary value in the form of currency.

But they have to report that compensation in Box 1 of Form W2, as Taxable Income.

Well, compensation is NOT gain.

The income tax is a tax on gain.

What is to be done?

This video answers. >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7...9Zy8ynmSP7x35g

Enjoy!

[Danny B]

NPLs, China and Italy

Pretty quiet today. Italy is still in the news.
"Recall that as we warned, the biggest danger for both Monte Paschi, and Italy's banking system in general, is that retail depositor confidence in the Siena bank is shaken enough to lead to a bank run either in the world's oldest bank, or worse, across the entire Italian banking sector, leading to a worst case probability outcome of falling bank dominoes as bank funding needs explode, resulting in even more deposit outflows, and so on in a toxic feedback loop."

"The ECB said the lender was solvent but signaled the bank's liquidity position had rapidly deteriorated between the end of November and December 21, Monte dei Paschi said.

In other words, depositors yanked even more billions from the bank - a perfectly reasonable course of action in light of concerns about the bank's viability - which in turns has led to an even worse liquidity situation at Monte Paschi. "
The Italian Bank Run: Monte Paschi Capital Shortfall Surges 75% To ?8.8Bn Due To "Rapid Liquidity Deterioration" | Zero Hedge

China; "According to rating agency Fitch, the amount of NPLs is ten times the official figure or somewhere between 15% and 21% of outstanding credit, much higher than the official figure (1.8%).

That is in the same order of magnitude as Italy's bad loans. What would it cost to clean up? Here is CNBC:

Solving China's bad loan problem would result in a capital shortfall of 7.4 trillion-13.6 trillion yuan ($1.1-2.1 trillion), equivalent to around 11-20 percent of China's economy, Fitch said."
"China's overall debt level has risen from about 150% in 2008 to 240% of GDP today"
When Will China&#39;s Debt Problem Detonate? - iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSEARCA:FXI) | Seeking Alpha

Debt-to-GDP ratios; https://staticseekingalpha.a.ssl.fas...82139_rId9.png
" Stated another way, each new dollar of additional GDP requires twice as much debt as it once did" "Too many of the loans being made by Chinese banks, especially to SOEs (state-owned enterprises), are being used to service existing debt."
The Cancer In The China Banking System Will Metastasize Globally - SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCAIA) | Seeking Alpha
The size of nonperforming loans relative to capital is many times worse than the U.S. banking problem in 2008.

12/27 2016 the year solar panels became cheaper than fossil fuels; 2017? – Quartz
12/27 Solar power became the world’s cheapest energy – Interesting Engineering
12/27 Cheap solar power & wind power crushes coal, nuclear, gas – Clean Technica
This will be tough on oil companies and banks.

[Danny B]

Let the bankers run the show and see where it gets you

"Because of the all-encompassing, unprecedented nature of this mega-bubble, the conditions in its aftermath are purely speculative, even defiantly unpredictable due to the number of moving parts on many levels from political quandaries to legal entanglements to impact of societal blindside. Quite possibly, this will burst a multi-century, fiat-currency based “trust bubble.” But for now, tragic complacency reigns."
https://medium.com/deepconnections/a...b2b#.48gzpd45m

" Class struggle, Marx said, would either end "in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large" or "in the common ruin of the contending classes." We might want to put a little more emphasis on that second part."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.d9e4ecdc1771

Bond yield is starting to turn up. This endangers 1/2 $quadrillion of derivatives. "1 Breakout of 35-year downward yield range will blow-up interest rate derivatives ($500trn+)" Goldbugs
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/gr...egen122716.pdf

The Greek GOV is so desperate for taxes that it has set off a death spiral in Real Estate. That will get here eventually. oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: When Assets (Such as Real Estate) Become Liabilities

"Here’s why these behemoth banks pose such a threat to the safety and soundness of the U.S. banking system. The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) as of September 30, 2016 stood at $80.7 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) to insure a total of $6.8 trillion of DIF-insured deposits. That’s a slim reserve ratio of 1.18 percent in a banking system that required $16 trillion of secret Federal Reserve loans to resuscitate itself from 2007 to 2010. Citigroup, parent of Citibank, alone received $2.5 trillion in cumulative revolving loans of the $16 trillion loaned by the Fed. It has more derivatives today than it did at the peak of the crisis in 2008."
Eight Years After an Epic Banking Crash, America’s Biggest Threat Is Still Its Banks
You can thank the rapist for this sorry situation.

There were a couple other legislative changes that screwed us pretty well.
http://kunstler.com/cluster****-nati...t-hope-change/

[Danny B]

TARP was unnecessary and a scam

There are LOTS of people who know much more about economics than I do. They don't seem to be posting here so, you're stuck with me. There are some people who dive into the minutiae of financial history. I found a group of comments that show a lot of investigation. It is assumed that Goldman Sachs was responsible for the murder of Lehman Brothers. A commenter at Zero Hedge laid it all out in detail. I'm going to post his comments. Like 9/11, the 2008 crash was planned in advance. The 9/11 job was referred to as "the largest bank hiest in history"

"I don't think we will have a repeat of 2008. The 2008 REPO freeze was orchestrated by Hank Paulson, using his little weasel Neel Kashkari, that $hit was carefully planned.

If you recall the defining event behind the 2008 financial crisis was the breaking of the buck by Reserve Primary Fund. This enabled Wall Street bankers strong arm Congress into giving them not only $780 billion, but also gave the Feral Reserve extraordinary powers to:

1) Force Lehman into bankruptcy by using Reserve Primary Fund (RPF) to buy worthless Lehman paper, which eventually forced RPF to break the buck and crash the entire economy. Here is how they did it, it was carefully planned, and it was not by chance, they planned and executed the whole crisis.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1q...ew?usp=sharing
This link makes obvious Hank Paulson achieved this feat by using the Reserve Primary Fund, the biggest Money Market Fund, to buy $780 million in ****ty Lehman paper, they knew was worthless, from late 2006 (right when Neel was hired by Paulson) until the moment before Primary Reserve broke the buck, which totally froze the REPO market.

2) Fire the CEO of AIG and appoint a Feral Reserve official to guarantee that CDS would be paid out at full face value to Goldman-Sachs so GS could pay out a record $20 billion in bonuses for that year.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ents.html?_r=0
They knew exactly what they were doing and the Feral Reserve doled out $16 trillion in loans to member banks, by September 20, 2011.
Forbes Welcome...

And according to their own white paper, available on the FRB website, enabled, emboldened, our Khazar overlords to:

Through September 2011, the end of the sample period in our study, the Federal Reserve (Fed) purchased $1.19 trillion of Treasury debt. These purchases are equivalent to about 28% of the total outstanding stock of these securities at the beginning of the QE program of Treasury securities in March 2009, and about 15% of the total outstanding stock of these securities in September 2011
https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/.../201448pap.pdf

The Feral Reserve will do this again, using one specific class of commercial paper which they will let go out of control, and this will crush the savers once again.

I just find the RPF fiasco, way, to predictable to be a chance event. Those guys knew that paper was crap, they knew it when they started, were order, to buy it in late 2006, and continued to roll over the debt even as the news was reporting the Lehman paper was worthless. This was no coincidence.

The bought that weasel Neel Kashkari in to orchestrate the whole program. He ought to be waterboarded to get him to spill the beans on Hank Paulson, and the rest of his Goldmanite crew.

Yes we should have let them fail!

It is my conjecture that the 2008 financial crisis was planned so Goldman-Sachs could get the pay off of the naked CDS protection they had purchased from AIG.

To make all the CDO, which were the basis of the CDS, worthless they had to create massive amounts of the Lehman commercial paper to create enough notional value to buy protection against.

I believe they, the Feral Reserve/Goldmanites used the Bents, who ran Primary Reserve Fund, to buy massive amounts of this Lehman paper between March 2006 and mid 2008 (see Nature Of Action, paragraph 3 and 4). By September 15, 2008 Lehman paper had gone to 1.2% of holdings from 0% of holdings in March 2006.

It was common knowledge by early 2006 that Lehman paper was crap:
http://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera...on_SEC1571.pdf

I think the Goldmanites, through operatives in the Feral Reserve set this whole thing up knowing it was going to blow up, and then carefully timing these events to coincide with W leaving office, and the installation of the unknown Barry Soetoro in the WH.

So how will they pull off the next one?

Neel Kashkari is now President of the Minneapolis Feral Reserve, he has been balking for more than a year, warning us that the banks he helped save should now be broken up. He had the chance to break the banks up in September 2008, but didn't, now he wants to break them up?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/feds-nee...nks-1479300301

Neel Kashkari was instrumental in getting the $780 billion out of Congress, then instrumental in not using the money as intended to retire the CDS, instead the Feral Reserve/Treasury took over AIG and forced them to pay Goldman-Sachs on CDS guaranteeing payment with taxpayer money. etc. ad nauseum.

What device will they use next, and will we fall for it again?
Reading the Third Ave v. Bent complaint really put it all together for me. All the pieces, suddenly fell into place.
To me this was the smoking gun, this is how they made the whole thing go down. I could reverse engineer everything based on the information in this lawsuit.

The hiring of Neel Kaskhari in 2006 to facilitate this scam, getting the Bents to buy massive amounts of Lehman paper while Goldman built there CDS position with AIG, then the take over of AIG by Treasury forcing out the CEO, replacing him w/ a Feral Reserve official then diluting the Board of Directors of AIG giving the Treasury most of the Boards voting rights to make payouts to Goldman-Sachs.

This was the crime of century, and it was only through this one court filing that I was able to put these pieces together.

Barry gets in the WH and totally ignores the larceny facilitated with taxpayer funds that bought shares of AIG, he even appoints the one of the architects from the FRBNY, Tim Geithner, as the new Secretary of the Treasury to follow through with the scheme. All the AIG CDS payouts were handled by Geithner. They didn't unwind the CDS positions, they paid face value and then stuck them on the Feral Reserve balance sheet, in Maiden Lane I, II, and III.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/maidenlane.html

August 23, 2012: Maiden Lane III LLC sold all remaining securities. Subsequent to the repayment of ML III LLC’s liabilities to the New York Fed and AIG, net proceeds from sales of the securities, as well as cash flow the securities generated while held by ML III LLC, provided a net gain of approximately $6.6 billion for the benefit of the U.S. public.

June 14, 2012: Maiden Lane LLC and Maiden Lane III LLC repaid the loans made by the New York Fed, with interest. The successful repayment of the loans marks the retirement of the last remaining debts owed to the New York Fed from the crisis-era interventions with Bear Stearns and AIG.

February 28, 2012: Maiden Lane II LLC sold all remaining securities*. Net proceeds from sales of all the securities, as well as cash flow the securities generated while held by ML II LLC, enabled the full repayment of ML II LLC's liabilities to the New York Fed and AIG while also providing a net gain of approximately $2.8 billion for the benefit of the U.S. public.
So those "toxic" assets produced a net gain of almost $9 billion AFTER everything was liquidated. So why did Congress have to give the Treasury $780 billion and why did the Feral Reserve have to lend over $18 trillion to banks if these assets were profitable to begin with? So the Lehman debt wasn't toxic after all, it was just a huge scam!"

This guy did a lot of work to put together all the source material. The original link is http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...t-repo-hits-33

[Danny B]

Strong Yuan or weak Yuan,,, screwed either way

With globalism comes global financial contagion. What happens in China is important around the world. Trump said that he would declare China a currency manipulator on day one. That would demand an investigation and litigation by the Treasury dept. "Trump has vowed to formally declare China a “currency manipulator” on the first day of his presidency, which would oblige the US Treasury to open negotiations with Beijing on allowing the renminbi to rise."

" China charges an average 15.6% tariff on US agricultural imports and 9% on other goods, according to the WTO.

Chinese farm products pay 4.4% and other goods 3.6% when coming into the United States."
The renminbi is falling and capital is leaving the country. China is printing with wild abandon and has pulled back from every attempt that it initiated to curtail money creation in the private sector. Like everybody else, they are creating new debt to pay off old debt.
How can the Yuan rise when capital is flowing out at almost a $trillion a year? How can they service dollar-denominated debt when the dollars are leaving?
They have 2 choices, both bad, and both would lead to social unrest.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/20...k-in-the-road/

Rickards, “Yellen is bent on raising rates. Probably at the worst possible time and may sink the U.S economy which could cause a recession."
Every additional day of ZIRP that goes by becomes a "worser" worst possible time.
https://dailyreckoning.com/jim-ricka...-strikes-back/

America has the petro-dollar but, America has reached cheap peak oil. Other States have cheap oil. They are trying to get out from under American control. Here is a longish article with great graphs showing the connection between gold and oil.
Things That Make You Go Hmm... Like The Death Of The Petrodollar, And What Comes After | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

Fedcoin

It's obvious that all the newly created "money" is stuck in the upper loop of the economy. "They" want to loan it to us but, we're unemployed and broke. GOV wants to inflate away the pain of repaying the debt by inflating away the value of the dollar. It isn't working fast enough. The simpletons in GOV wanted to force "inflation" in the lower loop. It just can't be done without a wage-price spiral. The dollar is getting stronger and hurting our export business. It is also making it harder for foreigners to service dollar-denominated debt.

Everything that the FED has done has back-fired. The bond markets are starting to collapse. There are a couple of dodgy options still left. Debt jubilee, Basic income and helicopter money.
Jim Willie has written for quite a while that we will get a new currency.

Doug Casey has predicted all the major movements in the political and financial world for a few decades. He has a "new" prediction that combines the idea of a new currency with helicopter money. I’ll do several excerpts but, you should read the whole article to be prepared just in case.

"My thought is this; that understanding that the dollar is unstable as it is, at this point the Fed might try to create an alternative. And an alternative that's more under their control than the dollar and actually out of the traditional banking system. What would happen if the Federal Reserve created a look-alike dollar? Let's call it the Fedcoin. Perhaps based on the same technology that Bitcoin is based on. This is the blockchain technology where every transaction can be tracked from the creation of the Bitcoin itself."

"My guess is they're going to come up with a – with a completely digital currency called the Fedcoin which will actually act as a parallel, alternative to the dollar. It will have a lot of advantages from the government's point of view "
" Oh, it's a huge advantage for them because in the 2008 crisis, they like to blame a lot of the problems on a lack of transparency, but with blockchain and the Fedcoin technology, they can see everything, everywhere.

So it's complete transparency where they can see everything, everywhere that everybody is doing…

It's a parallel system relative to the one we have right now where if anything goes wrong with the U.S. banking system, the U.S. insurance system, you've got the Fedcoin as a backup…. Fedcoin gives them an extremely powerful button to control society and control its individual members.
But this is another reason why the government is going to look to put blockchain in there, because it will be impossible to escape the tax dragnet with no cash to trade. It will be barter or use Fedcoin.

So how is the Fedcoin different than the digital money we already own in bank accounts?

Well, right now those dollars are a liability of the bank… The Fedcoin is different because it’s not a liability of a commercial bank; it’s a direct liability of the Federal Reserve… number one.

Number two; it’s going to use blockchain technology which makes it totally trackable unlike dollars today. So those are two huge differences. It’s going to be sold as a safety thing because blockchain is much harder to hack than conventional digital technology. This is a real personal freedom problem and it's going to be sold to the American people under the guise of convenience and safety and fighting drugs and fighting theft and fighting crime and fighting terrorism and all the usual nonsense.

His idea was, we ought to deposit $1,000 in everybody's bank account to stimulate the economy. Well, it was a laughingstock thing back then. But now, a lot of well-known, legitimate economists, are saying we ought to have a guaranteed income for everybody in the country.

And something like a new currency, a Fedcoin, issued directly by the Fed where you don't have to trust the bank which may be bankrupt…Something that could supplement Social Security…Where these obligations can be made good directly with accounts with the Federal Reserve—the issuer of the currency—ruling out bankrupt insurance companies, bankrupt commercial banks, for that matter, a bankrupt Social Security system…. What are they going to do?

Since it's already been legitimized, the idea of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, I think the next step is that you're going to find the Federal Reserve itself offering Fedcoin, which is very convenient for them because with that, they can designate exactly how those Fedcoins can be spent.

They know exactly who gets them, what they're used for, and so forth.
In Canada, they have something called Project Jasper, which is their own version of this. The Chinese have announced that they're planning on a blockchain type currency, the same thing… They have said that they wanna see this happen “as soon as possible.” The British have made the announcement along these lines.

So the Fed has run out of policy tools. They've printed trillions of dollars. Interest rates are basically at zero and soon they may have to go negative in an effort to stimulate the economy, but they won't be able to do so without banning cash. Then they're going to come up with a new currency; a Fedcoin that traps people savings. Essentially, this could be the ultimate confiscation and control tool. Do I have that right?

Bob, you are absolutely right.
https://www.caseyresearch.com/cm/project-fedcoin

The Fedcoin is definitely appealing to GOV from a control standpoint. The private banks create debt-money and the Central bank creates debt-free money if it so chooses. If the FED created debt-free money for everybody, that would cut out the private banks. Various States are pushing the blockchain technology in an effort to collect more taxes and feed more bureaucrats.
Doug Casey tells us all about the Fedcoin and Jim Rickards tells us all about the SDR. I doubt that either one can be implements in a timely and effective manner.
EDIT, another good article on control through digital control of finance; https://wealth.goldmoney.com/researc...efcode=dollarc

[wayne.ct]

Lies and Deception (of the self kind)

I don't think I am the only one to notice it but most people can't put it into words. This will be one attempt, my attempt to do so. (very short) The PTB deceived many into thinking Hillary would win, etc. They are drinking their own Kool Aid. The new deception is that their FedCoin, fake BitCoin, will be accepted by the general public. They think this will fool people? I think it will fail. They are lying to themselves and deceiving themselves. It's just my opinion but I don't think I am alone.

[Danny B]

Get the humans out of the financial system

Greenspan argued before congress that the banks should not be regulated. He claimed that they would regulate themselves most efficiently to make the most profit. A dubious proposal, at best.... the parasite taking the biggest piece of the pie. His ivory tower must have been way up in the clouds. It never occurred to him that the brokers and traders would act in a manner to make the most profit for themselves, NOT for the bank. They bet against the bank, their own clients, and the markets.
They also brought GIANT egos to the job. The "London Whale" is thought to have caused total losses of ~$100 billion to J.P. Morgan

"How could one trader bring down the banking empire that had funded the Napoleonic Wars?" "Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and the world's second oldest "
It was brought down by just one trader.

The S&L crash was brought to fruition by deregulating S&Ls. This allowed crooked bankers to make lots of goodfella loans to their cronies. 1,000 bankers went to jail.

Then, there are the "algos", "Algorithmic trading (automated trading, black-box trading, or simply algo-trading) is the process of using computers programmed to follow a defined set of instructions for placing a trade in order to generate profits at a speed and frequency that is impossible for a human trader."
Keep in mind that the algos don't generate anything productive. They just trade against each other to shave off a few cents.

Sberbank in Russia and Europe now uses AI to approve loans. No more goodfella loans. Also, the AI can process FAR more detail than a human.

"The world’s largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making."
“The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn’t working,” wrote the Journal, which spoke to five former and current employees.
Ray Dalio, president and founder of Bridgewater Associates.

The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s development of Watson"
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...nce-management

Martin Armstrong used his program, "Socrates" to manage investments for Armstrong Economics LLP. He had $3 trillion under management. He was beating the NY banks at every turn. They claimed that he was manipulating the market and eventually, had him thrown in prison for 7 years, JUST on contempt charges.

Ray Dalio, et al show that banks would prefer to get rid of employees if it will help profitability and cut down on losses. The traders already proved that they were willing to take down the whole system to ensure their bonuses got paid.
"The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions"
Yep, get the human out of the loop.

[Danny B]

It is amazing how much of the financial news is pure garbage. There is nothing important to report today so, I will report lies.
' At 3.5%, Q3 GDP was the strongest in two years. GDP has shown strong momentum, rising from Q1’s 0.8% and Q2’s 1.4%. At 4.6%, November’s unemployment rate was the lowest going back to boom-time August 2007. On the back of surging stock prices, consumer confidence jumped to the highest level since August 2001. Auto sales were on track to reach an annual record 17.5 million units. Home prices have returned to record levels,"
GDP is a measure of how much money there is in the economy. 100% boosted by FED printing. 4.6 unemployment is true if you throw out everybody who has given up on finding a job. Surging investor confidence, NOT consumer. Auto sales are mostly liar loans that are defaulting at a very high rate. Home prices have risen and sales are falling. You can't have a price spiral without a wage spiral.

"Submitted by Paul Brodsky via Macro-Allocation.com," "We expect weak equity markets and a strong treasury market beginning in 2017." It has started crashing and Armstrong says that it will crash completely.
"The financial model used by advanced economies since 1971 The closing of the gold window) is quickly losing its ability to support economic growth and rising asset prices.1 Western economic policy, which had previously relied heavily on credit creation from 1971 to 2008, was replaced in 2009 by monetary policy that relied heavily on base money creation through asset purchases." The FED and other CBs buy stocks. The money is pretty much locked into the upper loop and doesn't so any good for the consumer.

" A strong dollar would tend to attract global wealth to the US, wealth that theoretically could find its way into US risk assets including US equities." It won't do anything for wages.
"however, we are increasingly confident that US and global economies have begun to experience necessary structural changes that directly impact: 1) incentives to produce and consume" Nope, consumption is dead.
"Stock and bond markets in advanced, financially-oriented economies, have devolved more into political imperatives necessary to maintain social services and the perception of wealth, rather than serving as the traditional means to build and price wealth and capital. They no longer serve societies or global trade."
"To sustain market prices, debt and equity require nominal output growth. To sustain market values, they require real output growth. The only way to increase nominal output growth and raise nominal equity prices in a highly leveraged economy with leveraged currency is to raise the quantity of credit,"
That ran out of road years ago when we became debt saturated.

"On one hand, commercial competition is naturally driving prices lower, making goods and services more economical for producers and consumers, and equity markets are inflating the asset values of businesses that deflate prices. On the other hand, the Fed is trying to drive goods, services and asset prices higher, which would drive the purchasing power value of savings lower."

"In today’s global monetary system, currencies are tranched liabilities of: 1) commercial banks that create deposits through the lending process; 2) central banks on the hook to collateralize member commercial banks that create deposits and credit without commensurate reserves or circulated currency (base money), and; 3) treasury ministries that ask constituent factors of production to have faith that its taxing authority and, as has been demonstrated throughout history, its ability to wage war to loot enough resources outside its taxing domain to protect its currency’s purchasing power value."
It's The Dollar, Stupid! | Zero Hedge

[Danny B]

Trump and the FED

I speculated that Trump might get rid of the FED. There are some indications that it might happen; Trump Moves To ABOLISH The Federal Reserve And Institute Gold Standard – InvestmentWatch
"The government stole the life savings of a 91 year-old woman who wanted to splurge before she died. Welcome to the reality of socialism" "91 Year Old Woman Court Sides With Bank – Her Cash Saving Illegal"
91 Year Old Woman Court Sides With Bank – Her Cash Saving Illegal – InvestmentWatch

"The entire reason the Founding Fathers of the United States prohibited direct taxation was to protect our liberty. Today, governments need to know absolutely everything, and once they eliminate physical cash they will have their dream"
"By changing the banking system to instantaneous transfer, they can eliminate physical money and track everything we do all the time. There will be the surrender of all liberty and the termination of our civil liberties. This is how empires collapse."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...system-coming/

[Danny B]

How long will the Trump rally last?

Well, it is January first and everybody has various predictions. I checked my bio page and, This page has had 6,432 visits . I have no idea how many of these are bots.
Moving on, there is no shortage of BS predictions.
"To put their research into terms the common person can understand, human decision making is extremely flawed due to our biases, feelings, irrational thought processes and beliefs in falsehoods. It’s over-confidence in our decision making ability that causes us the most problems."
"When high level government officials, bankers or corporate executives make flawed decisions due to their biases, it can mean war, financial disasters, depressions, or disastrous legislation like Obamacare."

"These very same “experts” and “deep thinkers” now act as if Trump’s election was foreseeable, predictable and the likely outcome. They bloviate about how and why he won as if they knew it was going to happen. When 99% of all establishment “experts” were sure Trump was going to be crushed in a Clinton landslide, why should anyone listen to a word they say?

The same people who didn’t see even the faintest possibility of a Trump victory now expect the ignorant masses to believe their analysis of what will happen next."
"No amount of normalcy bias, cognitive bias, optimism bias, over-confidence, or desire for the status quo, will take precedence over the uncontrollable mechanisms propelling this Fourth Turning."

"We are in the midst of a once in a lifetime crisis and there is only one thing more frightening than not knowing what is coming next, and that is living in a world run by “experts” who think they know exactly what is going to happen next. These are the same “experts” who didn’t see the 2005 housing bubble, the 2008 financial collapse, the EU implosion, Brexit, or the Trump presidency."

"Global debt stood at $142 trillion at the end of 2007, just prior to a worldwide financial meltdown, caused by too much bad debt in the financial system.

To “fix” this problem, central bankers around the globe ramped up their electronic printing presses to hyper-drive and created another $57 trillion of debt by mid-2014. They haven’t taken their foot off the gas since. Today, global debt most certainly exceeds $225 trillion and has surpassed 300% of global GDP. Rogoff and Reinhart made a pretty strong case that when debt to GDP exceeds 90%, disaster will follow."
The writer gives a LOT of info and detail, https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...cast-part-one/

"Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu for a full disclaimer: “Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.”
The article has quite a few predictions,,,, too many as far as I'm concerned.
Global Recession and Other Visions for 2017 |
We're currently in the "Trump" rally. Economic conditions haven't changed, just market sentiment. How long will that last?
Is the “Trump trade” already unwinding? – Wolf Street
12/31 Jim Willie warns global economic collapse doesn’t care about Trump – Silver Doctors

[Danny B]

Socrates, Armstrong and the future of society

In 1985 Armstrong and Socrates predicted that there would be a HUGE change in the confidence level as related to the world powers. On that very day, Russia bombed rebels in Syria. That may not seem particularly important but, consider this;
U.S. Coalition Intelligence “Operations Room” Inside Syria, Destroyed by Russian Missile Attack: Thirty Israeli, American, British, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari Intelligence Officials Killed, Report
The israelis and their lackeys immediately protested to the Russians. The Russians responded by returning 30 minutes later and bombing them again.
The war in Syria is a proxy war between israel and Russia. The tribe is hard at work to make it a direct war between Russia and America. McCain is apoplectic that Americans don't want a war. The tribe is hard at work trying to work up hysteria to start a war. Trump has said that the American caused regime changes are going to end. Hence, the MSM and the tribe are screaming to the rooftops that he isn't the legitimate president.

War Freak McCain Visits Ukraine Frontline
Troops In Asinine Gesture Against Russia
Vile NYT Denigrates Russia's Peacemaking in Syria
Soros Calls For Armageddon To Stop Trump
Lunatic Bolton - US Must ‘Make The Russians Feel Pain’

On January 28th, 2016, Armstrong predicted that the market would hit at 2239.8038. One year later, it hit 2238.83.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...-january-2016/
This makes it difficult to argue with his projections.

"The HUGE turning point appears to be 2018 and that is most likely when things will start to come unglued."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...ting-the-dots/
" I wrote the code for our system. It took me decades. To accomplish something that can accurately forecast BREXIT, Trump, Italy, and Hollande stepping down in France, would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to code or reverse engineer. " https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...e-predictable/

All this makes it seem that the movements of the body of society are predetermined by ingrained cycles. Strauss and Howe wrote about generational turnings. Then, there are Elliot Long Waves.
What we do as individuals is still mostly under our control. I can confidently say that Armstrong has a pretty accurate picture of the big picture. I wonder if Socrates knows about Niburu?