Economic pressures

[Danny B]

There are plenty of people making all sorts of predictions. You can pick any desired outcome, and, somebody has made a prediction that aligns with it.
Three certainties：Trump will win, CCP’s domestic economy will collapse, there will be warfare
https://gnews.org/684633/

If there were no poor people in the world, the rich couldn't get anybody to work in the producing & service sectors. Keynes predicted that we would be so rich that we would only need to work 15 hrs a week to meet OUR needs. What about meeting the needs of the rich?
Walter Burien uses the comprehensive annual financial reports filed by every government agency, every year. He shows that the government as a whole has squirrelled away < $237 trillion> in agency treasuries.
http://cafr1.com/

Larry Summer is a Goldman Sachs guy who also "served" as secretary of the treasury.
"Larry Summers, a lead player in Democrat financial policies since the 1990s, triggered left-wing outrage by suggesting that sending Americans $2,000 stimulus checks amid the Covid-19 pandemic could cause the economy to overheat."
https://www.rt.com/usa/510708-summer...rheat-economy/

So, if they send me $2,000, we are going into hyperinflation.
45 million Americans are living in poverty. Send them a little money to make rent and buy food. THAT is going to overheat the economy?
Price inflation occurs when too much money is chasing to few goods. Helping people buy food isn't going to overheat any part of the economy.
Fully 50% of the rise in the stock market is due to FED pumping.
GOV has pumped in $<22 Trillion> into markets this year.

The new stimulus bill that Trump won't sign is all about keeping Wall street in the gravy.
NO gravy for you. YOU have to keep working.
BTW, nobody sent me even a penny. That's OK

[BroMikey]

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[Danny B]

I found an article on the "psychology of money'. It is a good article. The comment section is a tour de force. It is far beyond just educational.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/psychology-money

Armstrong,,, private blog... PRIVATE BLOG – 2020 – Into the Abyss
He later writes more on this subject.
The Markets into the Chaos
"December has been the ideal target for a high and it is a Directional Change as well. The long-term does not look promising but that seems to be because the governments are rolling out their own Digital Currencies in 2021 and there will be the risk that they seize cryptocurrencies and swap them into their own.'
"The stock markets still are positioned to be the receptor of capital as more and more begin to migrate from bonds to stocks."
I just can't see this as a possibility. The price to earnings ratio is impossibly high. 15% of companies are zombies without earnings. Stocks generally depend on consumption. The capital may flow into stocks as some sort of safe haven BUT, without earnings, price inflation erodes their value. The PTB have pumped up markets with some ungodly number of fresh $trillions. This IS bringing price inflation. 45 million Americans can't afford enough food. Further price inflation is a guarantee.

Side note, Money Supply Rockets 25% In Just Two Weeks: Got Gold?
The Great Reset is real, it’s happening now and will lead to devastation worse — “much, much worse” — than the Weimar Republic, a German economist has warned. Dr Antony Mueller, Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Sergipe
globalist elite to destroy small businesses and hasten a new world order based on “expertocracy, climate green religion, and brutal depopulation”.
It was the decline of Germany’s Weimar Republic — a period of high unemployment, deprivation, and hyperinflation — which led to the rise of Hitler. But however bad it might have been, the coming depression is going to be much worse because society is more atomised and less family-oriented and religious."
Ah yes,,, the family

Armstrtong, "We still see 2022 are a formidable target on so many levels. It has shown up as a Panic Cycle year even in politics which has not taken place since the Great Depression. There is no question that most governors/premiers are following the narrative of the World Economic Forum and their Agenda 2030."

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary Warns: 100 Million Americans Have No Retirement

Expectations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1q4DxBYjiQ

[BroMikey]

Starvation and record food bank activity. I went into Walmart to buy a few things and they were out, so I asked how is that possible> The clerk said that the food banks can not keep up.

These people have cars, what about those who can't pay insurance this month? Unemployment computers run by states controlled by Democrats are turning out to be a very painful experience. Millions are back logged for baseline $100-$200 per week benefits at 9 weeks to 17 weeks. The phone lines are plugged and people without computer savvy are rejected or can not figure this out. The corrupt govt controlled system has not properly made available basic facts on how things work from say a smart phone that many can not afford at the moment.

Then there are those who do everything right around 50% of the total number in the Que are unable to get a response in any form. All these democrat states say the same thing, Fraud has broken our systems" as they scold and intimidate those in need hoping they will give up. The corrupt governors are cleaning up.

Sign Holly Jolly

[BroMikey]

Food banks in every town, city, state, look at the rich people begging with fine cars. It is an illusion, most of these cars will expire before the payments are made in full. Corruption at the highest level of govt. and corporate America who live offshore. See the deplorable's here.

[BroMikey]

7500 served in a few hours. 50% of the people are hungry, others say their friend will get the food because they have no cars. One tiny location in a large city of which their are 1000's state wide.10 semi's off loading non stop.

[BroMikey]

[BroMikey]

[BroMikey]

Cars came at 3:30am to line up open at 8am to 12 noon not everyone one will get food in time.

[Danny B]

Charles Hugh Smith has a lot to say but, like most people, he just doesn't factor in AUTOMATION.
"From the point of view of evolution, the most hopeful scenario for 2021 is the sudden and complete collapse of everything that is obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic. When obsolete systems and entities pass away quickly, the cost and pain are processed and absorbed quickly as well: enterprises go bankrupt and their assets are liquidated, failed ventures close, and schemes that didn't yield the desired benefits are scrapped.
This is the evolutionary process. Whatever has lost its selective advantages will succumb to selective pressures and fade away."

Oil is sold at a loss and energy is the master resource.
The State is a bastion of inefficiency and, employs many millions. Armstrong said very clearly that Sovereign debt would collapse. The Club of Rome calls for the American population to be reduced by 100 million. Co-incidently, there are 100 million Americans who have no funds for retirement.

"The problem arises when self-serving insiders siphon resources to keep their obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic gravy-train protected from selective pressures."
"Economically obsolete / terminal entities, on the other hand, always choose extraordinary monetary interventions to keep their gravy-train alive, even if they bleed the rest of the economy dry in the process."

YES, but 51% of Americans receive a check from GOV. Reportedly, welfare for the rich costs $15 trillion. 10 times what welfare for the poor costs.

The problem here is that it's effortless and initially costless to conjure trillions of dollars out of thin air and use it to keep obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic industries, sectors, agencies and schemes on life support. The eventual costs, consequences and risks are transferred to the entire economy, all to keep politically protected insiders and schemes well-funded even as their fundamental value proposition has collapsed.
This politically expedient "solution"--printing / borrowing trillions to stave off Natural Selection--is inevitably the first choice of corrupt, failed governments and central banks, and just as inevitably, this expedient "fix" eventually brings the entire economy to its knees."

Natural selection is much less messy when it prevents conception and, increases infant mortality.
In business & government, it is a different story. These 2 enterprises are started with a good idea. They eventually grow out of all control.
The corporatocracy and the State are attacking the people to satisfy their unrelenting claims on wealth.

"Recall that risk cannot be made to vanish, it can only be transferred to others. By printing / borrowing trillions of dollars to prop up doomed zombies, the state and central bank (the Federal Reserve) have transferred the soaring risks of their mismanagement to the entire economy and society.
This politically expedient "solution"--saving the most inefficient and costly sectors because of the political power of insiders-- is always the first choice of weak and/or corrupt leadership, for whom this is isn't just the first choice, it's the only choice."

North Korea just reported that it's economy is crashing badly. Last time that this happened, hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation.

"The unfortunate many simply decay and collapse. Thus the most hopeful scenario for 2021 is that the obsolete, inefficient, ineffective and sclerotic sectors and agencies, no matter how sacrosanct, collapse or downsize quickly. This drastically reduces the cost and pain to levels that the economy as a whole can absorb.
The worst-case scenario is our weak and/or corrupt government and central bank keep all the doomed zombies on life support, a process that bleeds the economy of adaptability, flexibility, innovation and resilience."

FED GOV spends 24% (old number) of the GDP. 44 million (old number) receive direct assistance. 22 million work for the State."Decay & collapse" would mean many millions dying in the street.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20...eful12-20.html

Armstrong writes about revolution once 40% of people turn against the State.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/qa/is-there-hope/

[Danny B]

In 1985, Armstrong's program predicted a huge change in the confidence model..... 30 years into the future. He predicted the date 2015.75
Well, it happened just as the program predicted. He also predicted a collapse of sovereign debt.
These predictions did not go unnoticed.
FED GOV worked on their own predictions.

"In 2009, within a top-secret weapons laboratory outside of Washington D.C., the Pentagon conducted its first ever “financial war game” pitting the U.S. against its major economic competitors. Along with Pentagon officials, this economic simulation of using financial instruments in a global game of chess also involved members of the intelligence community, Treasury department, Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and various think tanks."

"One of its planners and participants, Jim Rickards, author of the must-read book Currency Wars, tells listeners in an interview with Financial Sense Newhour that the hypothetical simulation is actually playing out in real life…and not in a way that’s good for the U.S. or the international monetary system."

'If Russia and China decide to issue a new gold-backed currency, what does this mean for the fate of the dollar?
On this point, the future isn’t so clear, but Rickards thinks it’ll actually be the collapse of the international monetary system in general, with the U.S. dollar leading the charge, whereby a new global currency is eventually created."

Yep, the gold bugs are obsessed with gold. That train left a long time ago. NO currency can be gold backed when competing currencies are allowed to do competitive devaluations. The Bretton Woods agreement prevented Western nations from doing competitive devaluations.
America was the linchpin of the Bretton Woods agreement. The warfare-welfare State did NOT like the limitations imposed on them. THEY needed an elastic currency to initiate wars and welfare. The first to get rich,,, the second to buy votes. Their inflationist policies guaranteed the destruction of Bretton Woods. The super elastic dollar was used to initiate regulatory capture also.
Robbing the middle class has run it's course. Printing is the only glue that is holding things together.
21% of all U.S. dollars were printed in 2020

Rickards'
"“Remember,” he explains, “all the central banks are printing enormous amounts of money so the dollar won’t collapse in isolation. If the dollar goes, it’ll take all the paper currencies and the whole international monetary system with it. So, I do expect some sort of collapse of the international monetary system; and when I say that, it’s not meant to be a provocative statement. The international monetary system actually has collapsed three times in the past 100 years: 1914, 1939, and 1971. So these things do happen from time to time and when they happen, it’s not the end of the world—it doesn’t mean we’re all living in caves eating can goods. What it means is that all the major economic powers get together and rewrite the rules of the game—they come up with a new system.”

The Bretton Woods agreement was between Western States. It wasn't worldwide. Most of the East will NOT sign up for a Western incepted world currency. America will not sign up for a digital Yuan. China will not sign up for the SDR. WE are encircling Russia with bases and weapons. THEY have all the oil. Do you expect them to cooperate with a Western currency regime?

Rickards;
"It appears the endgame Rickards envisions may just be an inevitable consequence of every nation reacting to one another in a predictable manner. Again, the financial war game conducted years back wasn’t part of a conspiracy—it was a simulation where each nation simply ‘gamed’ the financial landscape to their advantage until the system broke down and, as Rickards says, had to “rewrite the rules of the game” all over."
https://www.financialsense.com/contr...ncial-war-game

YEP, a new system. To prepare for this, everybody is building hypersonic weapons and, orbiting weapons platforms.
Atomic torpedoes that can cause a huge tsunami on any coastal city. Directed energy weapons and weather weapons.

[BroMikey]

Big money industry in real time. Covered up by police, judges, governors, Mayors................

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[Danny B]

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."


The philosopher Plato discusses five types of regimes (Republic, Book VIII; Greek: πέντε πολιτεῖαι). They are Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny.
These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with Aristocracy at the top and Tyranny at the bottom.
How the Plutocrats Turned Our Republic into an Oligarchy

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.


In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.



When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.



https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746


The founding fathers knew well the pitfalls of the various types of government. They chose a democratic republic to try to balance out the pressures, both from above and below.
They created a tripartite government to get this balance.
They made the supreme court the final arbiter. They were quite worried that it would always "find" for more centralized power.
To cut down on the possibility of imperial over reach of the federal government, they forbade any direct taxes.


Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913. The 16th Amendment changed a portion of Article I, Section 9
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.



On January 10, 2008, the Federal District Court in Chicago issued a permanent injunction against Bill Benson on the grounds that by offering information demonstrating that the 16th Amendment was not legally ratified, he was promoting an abusive tax shelter. The Court then refused to look at the government-certified documentary evidence, deciding instead that the facts necessary to prove his statements true were "irrelevant."

After an extensive year-long nationwide research project, William J. Benson discovered that the 16th Amendment was not ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states and that nevertheless Secretary of State Philander Knox had fraudulently declared ratification.

After traveling to the capitols of the New England states and reviewing the journals of the state legislative bodies, he saw that many states had not ratified. He continued his research at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; it was here that Bill found his Golden Key. This damning piece of evidence is a sixteen-page memorandum from the Solicitor of the Department of State, among whose duties is the provision of legal opinions for the Secretary of State. In this memorandum, the Solicitor lists the many errors he found in the ratification process.
These four states are among the thirty-eight from which Philander Knox claimed ratification:

• California: The legislature never recorded any vote on any proposal to adopt the amendment proposed by Congress.
• Kentucky: The Senate voted on the resolution, but rejected it by a vote of nine in favor and twenty-two opposed.
• Minnesota: The State sent nothing to the Secretary of State in Washington.
• Oklahoma: The Senate amended the language of the 16th Amendment to have a precisely opposite meaning.

"When his project was finished at the end of 1984, Bill had visited the capitol of every state from 1913 and knew that not a single one had actually and legally ratified the proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-three states engaged in the unauthorized activity of altering the language of an amendment proposed by Congress, a power that the states do not possess.Since thirty-six states were needed for ratification, the failure of thirteen to ratify was fatal to the Amendment."



So, here we are. FED GOV has grown into a monstrosity. The productive people can no longer support it. 51% of Americans receive a check from the State so, THEY support ever-more centralization of government. Wall Street gets $trillions from the State also. They are in favor of continued liquidity injections.


The only way that these millions of non-producers can be financed is by printing money for them. Previously, they had been partially supported by bond sale and tax collections. The FED is buying almost all the bond issuance and, tax revenue is way down.
Over time, the continuous creation of new money dilutes the value of the existing stock of money.
A $20 gold coin is now worth $1894. We pay the "inflation tax"
22% of the entire U.S. money supply was created in the last year.

The demands of Wall Street and, the legions of non-producers grow ever-greater.



There has been about $22 trillion of new liquidity created in 2020. Obviously, this money isn't

going to you & me. It is going to Wall Street, and others. The latest funding bill gives $500 million to israel.


Currently, there is a big push to make America communist. Previously, America was the biggest success story in the world. All communist regimes fail.

Over the centuries, there have been many "thinkers" who proclaim that communism is the best system.
Everybody works for the State. Everybody is supported by the State.
Frederich Hegel was one of these people.
"Georg William Friedrich Hegel was a German theologian and philosopher who formed a theory of history to help dispute the American principles for individual freedom based in natural law."
This article is an excellent read.
https://rense.com/general77/sele.htm


Americans work 105 days a year to pay all their taxes. The French work 206 days.
Once again, the State is taxing people to death and, asking for a revolution. ALL fiat currencies eventually die. We have been working harder and harder to pay both the visible taxes AND, the inflation tax. FED GOV has been creating about $1.2 trillion a month to keep everything going.
It remains to be seen just how long this can go on.
The STATE wants digital currency so that it can bump up confiscation and the inflation tax into high gear.

[Danny B]

The three players
"REPLY: The central banks are not the INSTIGATOR of the digital currency. The benefactor is the government through taxation. The central bankers do not gain from that. Then you have the investment bankers who have been wildly trading and when they blow up they run to the government for bailouts. There are three groups here."
"By moving to a digital currency it is the politicians who benefit for they see this as eliminating the underground economy. They are also in bed with BigTech which they are allowing to compete with the main banks. Part of Agenda 2030 is “You will Own nothing, and You’ll Be Happy!” is not for your benefit. They want to eliminate all your debts, mortgages student loans etc., which then wipes out the bankers. But it also allows them to default on government debt. Once that takes place, they no longer need the investment bankers to sell their debt. Hence, they are throwing the investment bankers to the wolves.
It is vital to step back and look at all three players in the game for all their interests are not the same."
ARMSTRONG
It seem that, when I leave a link to him, everything disappears.
Day by day, it becomes more obvious that the State is digging deeper and deeper into the private sector to steal support.

Marxist RINO McConnell Crushes Hopes For $2,000 Covid Relief And Stimulus Checks
SO, why did he do that?
Armstrong writes that big tech is trying to absolutely destroy small business,,, the main competitor of big tech.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...iness-in-2021/
Keep in mind that 2020 was bad. 2021 is expected to demand FAR more liquidity creation. Here is what 2020 looks like.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/20...tunning-charts

The top 10%’s bubble is about to burst – Charles Hugh Smith
If Smith is correct, it wouldn't be surprising. $1.2 trillion a month liquidity injections a month can't go on much longer. When the 10% go bust, you will see a cessation of the trickle-down effect that they claim does not exist.
2020: the year the tree of liberty was torched – John Whitehead, Rutherford Institute
ALL done to finance the bloated State.
12/31 “The real danger comes from massive state dependence” – part II – CG
Frederich Hegel would be proud to see 1/2 the nation dependent on government money. He wouldn't be too happy to see that the State had squeezed out productive enterprise to the point where the State was bankrupt. That wasn't part of his plan.
China is rushing to a digital yuan because they are equally bankrupt.
Many States are counting on digital money to further fleece the last few productive people.
BUT, for every additional $1 in taxes, the economy is reduced by $3.

SOMEBODY, somewhere has to pay. The State may go to digital money to avoid insolvency. Since productivity is diminishing,,,, and, the money supply is increasing, we can expect price inflation to pay us a visit.

[Danny B]

I found a good article with great graphs. I'll do a few excerpts.
"The US government transferred $2 trillion directly to the household sector in 2020 (Exhibit 7)
In less than one month $30tn had been wiped off the value of global stock markets (Exhibit 3)
US unemployment rate soared to 15% as 70mn people filed for unemployment benefits in 2020 (Exhibit 4)

• Central banks spent over $1tn a month on financial assets via QE, crushing yields, volatility, and spreads, successfully inciting asset price inflation on Wall St to short-circuit recession on Main St.

Yep, they've gotten more practised at kicking the can down the road.

$14tn of fiscal stimulus was announced; the quantity of global debt now stands at a record $277tn,
rebound in US consumer spending (retail sales are currently $32bn higher than in Jan’20).
You give us free money,,,we spend it.
The rally off the Mar’20 lows (Exhibit 9) has surpassed all of the 4 greatest rallies off the lows of the past century (1929,1938, 1974, and 2009).
UHHH, what about gravity?

• The bottom line: the Fed, which set off to "fight" inequality has failed tremendously because as even BofA admits, "the pandemic worsened inequality in 2020" - value of financial assets (Wall St) relative to economy (Main St) hit all-time high of 6.3x (Exhibit 12).
• This won't improve without a revolution, as the coming years will be marked by bigger government, dollar debasement, policy flip from monetary & QE to fiscal & MMT, all in an attempt to increase price of labor relative to capital yet which will achieve just the opposite;

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/20...tunning-charts


More numbers here;
http://themostimportantnews.com/20-n...zy-to-believe/
"approximately 12 million U.S. renters are now “at least $5,850 behind in rent and utilities payments”. Landlords all over the nation are in financial distress because of unpaid rent,"