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Which side will prevail in the markets going forward? Reality or rescue?

As more data pours in showing the severe and worsening contraction of the global economy due to the impact of covid-19, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the only thing propping up today’s financial markets is the $trillions in rescue stimulus promised by governments across the globe.

Bloomberg estimates that flood to be in the range of $8 trillion — and counting.

Will it be enough?

Time will tell. But, for now, it has been enough to keep the markets elevated. As reported last week, the FAANG stock complex is back at an all-time high.

Here at PeakProsperity.com, we’ve long been critical of central banks’ upward influence on the financial markets, which prior to covid-19, distorted asset prices far higher than fundamentals justified and created accelerating inequity between the rich and the rest of society.

Those issues are now exacerbated by the abovementioned new $8 trillion, though there’s an important twist this time. The problems the central planners are trying to address aren’t easily solved by simply forcing liquidity into the system.

The world is experiencing one of the worst demand shocks in history. In America, more than 26 million workers have lost their jobs over just the past 5 weeks:

Bankruptcies tend to follow layoff by three to six months, so we can expect to see a tsunami of business failures over the next two quarters.

Supporting this prediction, we can already see the massive drop in demand US businesses are experiencing the initial April Purchasing Manager Index:

The charts for Japan and the Eurozone look the same or worse.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…ir latest perspective.

Anatomy of a fiat currency collapse

April 25, 2020

Anatomy of a fiat currency collapse

This article asserts that infinite money-printing is set to destroy fiat currencies far quicker than might be generally thought. This final act of monetary destruction follows a 98% loss of purchasing power for dollars since the London gold pool failed. And now the Fed and other major central banks are committing to an accelerated, infinite monetary debasement to underwrite their entire private sectors and their governments’ spending, to prop up bond markets and therefore all financial asset prices.

It repeats the mistakes of John Law in France three hundred years ago almost to the letter, but this time on a global scale. History, economic theory and even common sense tell us governments and their central banks will rapidly destroy their currencies. So that we can see how to protect ourselves from this monetary madness, we dig into history for guidance to see who benefited from the Austrian and German hyperinflations of 1922-23, and how fortunes were made and lost.

Introduction

The way inflation is commonly presented by modern economists, as a rise in the general level of prices, is incorrect. The classical, pre-Keynesian definition is that inflation is an increase in the quantity of money which can be expected to be reflected in higher prices. For consistency and to understand the theory of money and credit we must adhere strictly to the proper definition. The effect on prices is one of a number of consequences, and is not inflation.

The effect of an increase in the quantity of money and credit in circulation on prices is dependent on the aggregate human response. In a nation of savers, an increase in the money quantity is likely to add to savers’ bank balances instead of it all being spent, in which case the route to circulation favours lending for the purpose of industrial investment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Children are the political tool of choice in the hands of shameless propagandists

February 1, 2019

Children are the political tool of choice in the hands of shameless propagandists

Policy-making has been with us since the dawn of humanity and generally its rules are timeless. Governments, heads of states, diplomats, religious leaders – whether they are part of the establishment or in opposition – have employed various instruments in a bid to tip the balance of the power play to their advantage. These included propaganda, finances, religions or ideologies and – the most powerful of all – emotions. It is, however, the twentieth century that made extensive use of… children. Not that the instrument was not known earlier: the reader will have remembered the Children’s Crusade of the Middle Ages, for instance.

With the advent of the visual mass media – photography, film footage, television, the internet – this present-day biblia pauperum, the lay and religious leaders alike have learnt to how make a highly emotional appeal to the public through children. The effectiveness of this instrument cannot be overrated. Why, we are – men and women – biologically hardwired to positively respond to a child’s facial expressions. If you want to gain support for aid directed toward a far-away country, you post pictures of children’s lovely faces, now sad, now smiling – whichever better suits the purpose at a given time and place – and the hearts and minds of the receivers of the message are sure to be won over. That’s the power of an innocent child’s face, as we are accustomed to saying.

Nowadays presidents, prime ministers, monarchs – some of them intentionally childless! – and popes like to be filmed with or photographed in the company of children. The message is clear: someone who likes children is good, intends no harm. The little ones are not only used to elevate a politician’s image but also to advance and advocate a policy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why Deal With Structural Issues When You Can Simply Engage in Wealth Grabs?

January 26, 2019

Why Deal With Structural Issues When You Can Simply Engage in Wealth Grabs?

They’re coming for your money.

The Everything Bubble has burst and the debt markets are in distress. We’ve already seen yields rise above their long-term downtrend, suggesting that higher debt costs are now a reality.

Because any real structural solution to this (cutting social programs/ defaulting on debts) means political suicide, the political elite are desperate for capital to continue funding the bloated government budget.

Already Oxfam is proposing a 1% tax wealth tax to solve the “crisis.”

If you think that’s bad, consider that the IMF has proposed a 10% wealth tax on total net worth.

And we are seeing Presidential hopefuls such as Elizabeth Warren calling for a 2% tax on wealth for those worth more than $50 million.

All of this is being sold as “making things fair” or “battling inequality” but the reality is that none of these organizations or people really care about that stuff. If they did care they would be proposing solutions that had a chance of possibly working (even a lifetime 100% wealth tax on anyone worth more than $1 million wouldn’t cover the US deficit for more than a year or two).

What they care about is finding money to continue funding Big Government.

If you think this will stop at those with net worth in the eight figures, you’re mistaken. Nebulous financial concepts such as “fairness” are ALWAYS moving goalposts in the hands of socialists.

Indeed, already legislation is in place to use savings deposits to prop up any systemically important financial institution during the next crisis.

I’m not talking about savings deposits over $1 million… I’m talking about savings deposits PERIOD.

Misesians gather as ghost of dead economist haunts the planet

November 1, 2018

Misesians gather as ghost of dead economist haunts the planet

Growing stock market volatility is increasingly reminding investors of downturns that twice crashed valuations by more than 50% since the turn of the century. Many Americans remain perplexed as to why the economy appears to teeter perennially on the brink.

A small group of radical economists, followers of the late Ludwig von Mises, think they know why.

“Conventional economists believe that free markets cause booms and busts,” said George Bragues, an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph-Humber, who will be speaking at the International Conference of Prices and Markets taking place in Toronto this weekend.

“That’s only partially true,” said Bragues . “There is a good argument that governments themselves, more specifically central-bank driven borrowing, are the biggest creators of economic euphoria and subsequent depression.”

Do governments cause depressions?

Von Mises’s free-market ideology— so radical it makes the American Republican party look communist—is almost completely ignored by governments, ivy league university economics departments and central banks.

However, that ignorance comes at a price.

Today, the ghost of Von Mises’s ideas haunts much of the planet, where governments have quietly, often secretly, fostered colossal debt bubbles that will almost be impossible to deflate without calamity.

Von Mises’s suggestion that credit bubbles are the key drivers of booms and depression, broadly known as the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, was first outlined in his 1912 book Theory of Money and Credit.

Murray Rothbard built on this theory in his own 1963 work America’s Great Depression, which provided a convincing case study on how the U.S. government fueled the 1920s stock market expansion, collapse and the ensuing spillover effects.

Mises’s out-of-the-box works are particularly important as the planet inches towards peak debt and what the IMF warns could be an impending depression, because populist socialist politicians such as Bernie Sanders will almost certainly blame the free markets.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Pricking of the Canadian Real Estate Bubble?

February 28, 2018

THE PRICKING OF THE CANADIAN REAL ESTATE BUBBLE?

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts lately. Long story, but rest assured, I am back on track and the old ‘tourist regular postings have resumed.

Next up, today I will write about Canadian real estate. I know, many of you find that about as exciting as watching Winter Olympic curling, but give me a chance – after all, we Canadians have a way to make even curling entertaining.

The Canadian real estate bubble

As most everyone knows, over the past decade, Canada has experienced a massive real estate boom.

And for the past half dozen years, we have had to endure all the proclamations from hedge fund managers about the coming great Canadian housing market crash. Although there has also been some Canadian skeptics, the majority of these doomsdayers have been American managers who, after experiencing their own real estate crisis, can only imagine the next “big short” occurring in Canada.

These managers often simply took the US playbook and applied it to Canada, never considering that the US situation might be different. Nor did they factor in the possibility that Central Bank reaction functions might have changed since the Great Financial Crisis.

Don’t mistake me for some sort of unapologetic delusional Canadian housing bull. I think prices are nuts. But what I think is even more insane is the amount of balance sheet expansion from global Central Banks. We must always remember – the Canadian real estate bears are fighting against the authority that has the power to dictate the quantity of the asset in which we price all these other assets in.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Exponent Problem

February 26, 2018

The Exponent Problem

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192…

Most people find managing their own affairs sufficiently challenging. Earning a living, establishing a family, rearing children, saving for college and retirement, and dealing with illness and aging fill the days and leave little time, attention, or energy to manage someone else’s affairs.

A hypothesis: the effort required to run other people’s lives is an exponential function. If X is the sum total of everything required to run your life; running two lives is X squared; three lives is X cubed, and so on. Call it the exponent problem. For partial verification, try running someone else’s life for a day or two. See it how it works out for you and the other person.

Why do governments fail? Government is someone imposing rules on someone else, and backing them up with repression, fraud, and violence when necessary. The governed always outnumber those governing, which means the latter face the exponent problem. In the US, there are around 22 million employed by the government, and let’s add in another million who actively influence it. The US population is around 323 million, so there are 23 million rulers to 300 million ruled, or about 13 ruled per ruler. How fitting, like the 13 original colonies!

Whatever amount X of time, energy, money, attention, and other resources the rulers expend on their own lives, they must expend that X to the thirteenth power to “govern” the ruled. If X could actually be quantified and it was only 2, it would still take 8192 times the effort to rule the US as it does for the rulers to govern their own lives. Those are just illustrative numbers, but you get the picture.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

When Whistleblowers Tell the Truth They’re Traitors. When Government Lies It’s Policitcs.

March 9, 2017

When Whistleblowers Tell the Truth They’re Traitors. When Government Lies It’s Policitcs.

(ANTIMEDIA) Immediately after Wikileaks released thousands of documents revealing the extent of CIA surveillance and hacking practices, the government was calling for an investigation — not into why the CIA has amassed so much power, but rather, into who exposed their invasive policies.

We’re revolutionizing the news industry, but we need your help! Click here to get started.

“A federal criminal investigation is being opened into WikiLeaks’ publication of documentsdetailing alleged CIA hacking operations, several US officials,” reportedly told CNN.

According to USA Today:

“The inquiry, the official said, will seek to determine whether the disclosure represented a breach from the outside or a leak from inside the organization. A separate review will attempt to assess the damage caused by such a disclosure, the official said.”

Even Democratic representative Ted Lieu, who has been urging whistleblowers to come forward to expose wrongdoing within the Trump administration, has turned his focus away from what the documents exposed and toward determining how it could have possibly happened.

“I am deeply disturbed by the allegation that the CIA lost its arsenal of hacking tools,” he said while calling for an investigation. “The ramifications could be devastating. I am calling for an immediate congressional investigation. We need to know if the CIA lost control of its hacking tools, who may have those tools, and how do we now protect the privacy of Americans.”

According to Lieu’s statements, the problem isn’t necessarily that the CIA is spying on Americans and invading innocent people’s technology without consent. It’s that the CIA mishandled their spying tools, and in doing so, endangered Americans’ privacy by exposing the tools to presumably ‘bad actors.’ The problem isn’t the corrupt agency violating basic privacy rights, but that they weren’t skillful enough to keep their corruption under wraps.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The New World Order—A Faustian Bargain

June 9, 2015

The New World Order—A Faustian Bargain

Faustian bargain: An agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles in order to obtain wealth or other benefits. A deal with the devil.

The argument over the existence of an Elite, who plan to control the entire world under a New World Order like some great yo-yo, has been around for a long time. Not surprisingly, events created by world leaders of all stripes in recent years give rise to an increasing belief in the likelihood of the existence of such an effort.

There are two great dangers in attempting to describe this perceived secret endeavour, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum: a) being so naive as to assume that no collusion exists amongst various groups of leaders to further their respective ends, and b) over-simplifying such alliances to suggest that there is an Elite Master Plan that all members implicitly agree upon and follow in every respect.

Assumption A

In any country, the citizenry are accustomed to such acts of collusion as all the petrol suppliers raising the price by the same amount, overnight. Few individuals would doubt that the two companies get together well in advance to agree on the price hike.

The same sort of collusion can be expected between banks and governments, etc. However, most people in any given country seem to believe that the political parties that rule them do not collude in their own collective interest and against the best interests of their respective constituents.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Beauty of Deflation

February 5, 2015

The Beauty of Deflation

Deflation Paranoia

The euro zone’s consumer price inflation rate declined below 1% in early 2014, getting closer to zero during 2014, nowhere near the ambitious 2% benchmark set by central banks. A further small downward adjustment in the inflation rate has put it into negative territory, so harmonized euro area consumer prices are now declining. Western monetary authorities and economists appear genuinely fearful of deflation. Headlines in leading papers reflect this fear very strongly, describing deflation as “the world’s biggest economic problem”, or a “nightmare that stalks Europe” that could lead to its “demise and collapse”.

The real question is though, why do our governments fear deflation? Why do they perceive it as a chronic disease that could infect the economy and why do they go to such great lengths to avoid this “taboo” event? The mainstream argument is that we should avoid deflation because it causes a drop in overall demand and hence lowers economic growth (Germany and other European countries have experienced a slowdown recently which has resulted in a downgrade of 2014 and 2015 growth expectations). Also, deflation implies lower corporate earnings and asset prices, particularly real estate prices.

The euro area’s harmonized index of consumer prices has recently dipped slightly into negative territory, which is excellent news for European consumers – click to enlarge.

But the greatest concern to governments is not deflation itself; the real concern is the impact of deflation on the already over-indebted governments of Europe. Seven euro zone countries are projected to have public debt to GDP ratios of over 100% next year! The worry is quite legitimate from the perspective of indebted governments. With deflation, the burden of debt increases, making defaults more likely. So what are policymakers doing to tackle this problem?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Child Poverty Jumps by 2.6 Million in Developed World Since 2008, While Number of Global Billionaires Doubles | Liberty Blitzkrieg

November 1, 2014

Child Poverty Jumps by 2.6 Million in Developed World Since 2008, While Number of Global Billionaires Doubles | Liberty Blitzkrieg.

Two headlines came across my screen today, which taken together pretty much sum up the effects of policy decisions made by Central Bankers and politicians since the financial crisis. The financial oligarchs got bailed out, and the rich got richer due to decisions made by “leaders” around the globe. As such, the entire planet has now been transformed into a neo-feudal tinderbox. Myself and countless others warned all the way back to 2008 that this is what would happen, and here you have it.

Let’s first examine the results from Oxfam’s report on the billionaire growth spurt. I hope all 1,645 of you have sent thank you notes to the patron saint of oligarchy: Ben Bernanke. From NBC:

The super-rich club has become less exclusive, with the amount of billionaires doubling since the financial crisis, according to a report from global charity Oxfam. There were 1,645 billionaires globally as of March 2014, according to Forbes data cited in the Oxfam report, up from 793 in March 2009.

The report ‘Even it Up: Time to End Extreme Inequality’ noted that the world’s richest 85 people saw their wealth jump by a further $668 million per day collectively between 2013 and 2014, which equates to half a million dollars a minute.

Unsurprisingly, this reverse Robin Hood policy of Central Banks and governments the world over has also resulted in increased poverty. Rob from the middle class and give to the oligarchs. Here’s what you get…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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