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-content/uploads/sites/19/2016/12/China_Gold_Precious_Metals_November_2016-Final.pdf?x64374

If debt is too high, just create more of it and then, ignore it.
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-billionThe 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 ::A cost-benefit analysis shows that it is not a good idea to have children.<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.Ayn Rand and Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Mend the Economy - The New YorkerGood deflationBad 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/positive-ripple-asininity-courtesy-of-financial-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.




IceCap Asset Management On Investing Through The Eyes Of An Ostrich | Zero Hedge

This will murder confidence in banks.
The Yuan is crashing and it will be difficult to "internationalize" it.


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-broken-bond-bounce-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.


This will be tough on oil companies and banks.

[Danny B]

https://medium.com/deepconnections/a-synthesis-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-systemic-risks-for-the-week-ending-october-14-2016-192b329f5b2b#.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/wonk/wp/2016/12/22/the-united-states-might-be-the-next-argentina/?utm_term=.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/groenewegen/groenewegen122716.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 LiabilitiesEight 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****-nation/exit-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/0B1qNdV4oPi2qdGxEejNfZXJocU0/view?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/2014/09/24/business/dealbook/aig-documents.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/feds/2014/201448/201448pap.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/publications/archive1/LehmanBrothers_Decision_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-neel-kashkari-rolls-out-blueprint-for-ending-too-big-to-fail-banks-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

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...t-repo-hits-33

[Danny B]

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2016/12/china-hits-a-fork-in-the-road/

https://dailyreckoning.com/jim-rickards-the-empire-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]

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]

Watson"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewater-associates-ai-artificial-intelligence-management

[Danny B]

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. wage war to loot enough resources outside its taxing domainIt'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 – InvestmentWatch91 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/world-news/taxes/the-new-2017-banking-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 .https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...cast-part-one/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?

[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;

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.



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/markets-by-sector/stock-indicies/sp-500/sp-stops-1-point-from-our-projection-made-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/armstrongeconomics101/basic-concepts/everything-is-connected-connecting-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?