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Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable

Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable

Those who came of age after 1982 have never experienced a real recession, and so they’re unprepared for anything other than guarantees of rescue and permanent expansion.

The mainstream view is that recession is caused by economic-financial factors. The mainstream view is wrong, for recession is ultimately caused by Wetware1.0–human nature. Human nature–our innate attraction to windfalls and something-for-nothing, our ability to habituate to extremes and normalize counterproductive dynamics–manifest as economic-financial factors, but these are effects, not causes.

The mainstream view is that recessions are bad, so let’s make sure they never happen. In other words, let’s outlaw them by flooding the economy and financial system with Federal Reserve monetary stimulus and federal stimulus via increased deficit spending.

The history of the past 40 years “proves” these policies effectively eliminate recession: all recessions since 1981-82 have been shallow and brief, basically a spot of bother that lasts one quarter.

Our Wetware1.0 has responded to this “no recession guarantee” in ways that count as unintended consequences. Massive “emergency” stimulus that became permanent policy has created a bubble economy in which low interest rates and unlimited credit for those who are more equal than others has sparked demand for income-producing assets, which then sparked a speculative mania.

We’ve habituated to both the bubble economy and the speculative mania so that these are now considered normal. But behind the comfortable normalization, something counterproductive has taken hold: we’re now addicted to the bubble economy and its crazed twin, speculative mania. If the bubbles pop and speculators go broke, the economy and financial system will both implode.

Without ZIRP (zero-interest rate policy), capital actually has a cost, and the bubble economy cannot survive if capital has a cost. Once capital has a cost, then speculation becomes risky, and speculation cannot survive if risk actually has a cost.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Hope Dies, Gold Rises

Hope Dies, Gold Rises

The primary stages of grief include: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance.

When it comes to grieving over the slow demise of the American economy, sovereign IOU/USD and the absolute failure of our “re-election-only-focused” policy makers, these stages of grief are easy to see yet easier to ignore.

But false hope won’t help us.

Denying a Recession

With the vast majority of sectors that make up the U.S. economy evidencing three months of negative GDP growth while a laundry list of leading homebuilder indicators (housing starts and prospective buyers) drops into recessionary red, I keep wondering when the recession debate will finally end.

Walmart is worrying, Jamie Dimon is worrying, commercial real estate delinquencies are rising and IPO markets are all but dead on arrival.

But that’s just the latest hard data.

One can cite everything from the Conference Board of Leading Indicators, negative M2 growth, yield curve movements and a drying repo market to make it empirically clear that the US is not heading for recession but has already been in one for nearly a year.

In fact, if we were to define a Depression by growth rates of inflation-adjusted GDP per capita, then factually speaking, we have also been in a quantifiable depression for the last 16 years.

Such data, of course, is depressing, but are we all still hoping for kinder facts or a political and monetary Santa Claus to cure our denial?

I for one favor preparation over denial.

Then Comes the Anger

Citizens storming the Capital, or grabbing guitars and singing “I’m taxed to no end and my dollar aint $#!T” are just the first signs of  the anger stage.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Is the U.S. Banking System Safe?–15 Years Later

IS THE U.S. BANKING SYSTEM SAFE? – 15 YEARS LATER

“We’ve got strong financial institutions…Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.” – Henry Paulson – 3/16/08

The next financial crisis: Why it looks like history may repeat itself Silicon Valley Bank is shut down by regulators in biggest bank failure since global financial crisis

“I have full confidence in banking regulators to take appropriate actions in response and noted that the banking system remains resilient and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event. Let me be clear that during the financial crisis, there were investors and owners of systemic large banks that were bailed out . . . and the reforms that have been put in place means we are not going to do that again.” – Janet Yellen – 3/12/23

With the recent implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the largest bank failures since 2008, I had an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. I wrote the article Is the U.S. Banking System Safe on August 3, 2008 for the Seeking Alpha website, one month before the collapse of the global financial system. It was this article, among others, that caught the attention of documentary filmmaker Steve Bannon and convinced him he needed my perspective on the financial crisis for his film Generation Zero. Of course he was pretty unknown in 2009 (not so much anymore) , and I continue to be unknown in 2023.

The quotes above by the lying deceitful Wall Street controlled Treasury Secretaries are exactly 15 years apart, but are exactly the same. Their sole job is to keep the confidence game going and to protect their real constituents – the Wall Street bankers. And just as they did fifteen years ago, the powers that be once again used taxpayer funds to bailout reckless bankers. Two hours before the only solution the Feds know – print money and shovel it to the bankers – Michael Burry explained exactly what was about to happen.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Why Recession Is Imminent, In Three Charts

Why Recession Is Imminent, In Three Charts

Any one of these would be enough to make the case

The idea that the world’s central banks can inflate the biggest financial bubble in human history — appropriately called the everything bubble — and then deflate it gently into a soft landing is mathematically and philosophically impossible. So the question is not if but when we get a bust that’s commensurate with the boom.

Based on the following three indicators, that bust is imminent.

Massively inverted yield curve
When short-term interest rates rise above long-term rates, a slowdown usually follows. That’s because traditional banks (though not necessarily the monstrous hedge funds that the biggest banks have evolved into) make most of their money by borrowing short and lending long. In normal times, long-term rates are higher than short-term, reflecting the higher risk of lending into the distant future, so the spread between a bank’s borrowing and lending rates produces a nice spread, which translates into a decent profit.

Invert the yield curve by pushing short-term rates above long-term rates, and this business model breaks down. Banks stop making suddenly-unprofitable loans, their customers have less money to spend and invest, and the economy shrinks.

Note two things on the following chart, which depicts the spread between 10-year and 2-year Treasury bond yields. First, when this spread went slightly negative (i.e., 2-year rates higher than 10-year) in 2000 and 2007, recession followed within a year or so. Second, today’s yield curve is a lot more than slightly negative. It is, in fact, one for the record books, implying that the credit markets expect a dramatic slowdown.

Shrinking money supply
A Ponzi scheme needs ever-greater amounts of money flowing in to avoid collapse. Today’s global economy is a classic example of a Ponzi scheme. Therefore, it needs an increasing money supply to function.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

World Bank Warns Global Economy “Perilously Close To Falling Into Recession”

World Bank Warns Global Economy “Perilously Close To Falling Into Recession”

Six months ago, The World Bank slashed its global growth outlook for 2022 and 2023 to +2.9% and +3.0% respectively blaming “the war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply-chain disruptions, and the risk of stagflation” for hammering growth.

Today, in its latest report on global economic prospects, The World Bank has slashed its growth forecast for 2023 by almost a half to just +1.7%, led by weaker growth in all the world’s top economies — the United States, Europe and China.

“Global growth has slowed to the extent that the global economy is perilously close to falling into recession,” the World Bank said.

That would mark the third-weakest pace of global growth in nearly three decades, overshadowed only by the 2009 and 2020 downturns.

The World Bank called on global central banks to remain alert to the risk that aggressively tightening monetary policy to fight inflation could spill across borders. The new report called for discussions between central bankers to “help mitigate risks associated with financial stability and avoid an excessive global economic slowdown in the pursuit of inflation objectives.”

“Weakness in growth and business investment will compound the already devastating reversals in education, health, poverty, and infrastructure and the increasing demands from climate change,” said David Malpass, president of the World Bank.

For now, those central bankers are facing their nemesis… Stagflation…

Though the United States might avoid a recession this year – the World Bank predicts the U.S. economy will eke out growth of 0.5% – global weakness will likely pose another headwind for America’s businesses and consumers, on top of high prices and more expensive borrowing rates.

The United States also remains vulnerable to further supply chain disruptions if COVID keeps surging or the war in Ukraine worsens.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

BlackRock says we’re all doomed. It’s being optimistic

BlackRock says we’re all doomed. It’s being optimistic

The world’s largest asset manager has forecast systemic economic chaos. The reality is even worse

BlackRock predicts a lasting fall in living standards for the many, alongside huge profits for the few

| Maureen McLean/Alamy Live News

The working assumption, for governments and central banks across the world, is that at some point soon everything will get back to ‘normal’ – our economies will return to either pre-pandemic or, sometimes, even pre-2008 crash levels.

These beliefs are reinforced by media economics commentary and across political parties.

But what if they’re wrong? The world’s largest asset manager, overseeing $10trn in assets across the globe, thinks we are, instead, entering a period of increased risk and uncertainty, defined by unavoidable recession and much higher inflation.

BlackRock – a well-connected, influential and hugely profitable pillar of global capitalism – made the predictions in its ‘2023 Global Investment Outlook’ report.

It states: “The Great Moderation, the four-decade period of largely stable activity and inflation, is behind us.”

Instead, BlackRock forecasts a new regime with a “brutal trade-off” – falling living standards for the many becoming profits for the few.

This reality, of a world undergoing fundamental transformations and disrupting our settled modes of existence, has so far barely entered the economic mainstream.

For BlackRock to break with this consensus might, potentially, be one of the first signs of a broader shift in how major institutions in the Western economies view the world.

Systemic chaos

Annual food inflation in the UK rose to 13.3% – an all-time high – last month, according to trade body the British Retail Consortium, ahead of the official government figures out later this month.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Inflation, recession, and declining US hegemony

Inflation, recession, and declining US hegemony

In the distant future, we might look back on 2022 and 2023 as pivotal years. So far, we have seen the conflict between America and the two Asian hegemons emerge into the open, leading to a self-inflicted energy crisis on the western alliance. The forty-year trend of declining interest rates has ended, replaced by a new rising trend the full consequences and duration of which are as yet unknown.

The western alliance enters the New Year with increasing fears of recession. Monetary policy makers face an acute dilemma: do they prioritise inflation of prices by raising interest rates, or do they lean towards yet more monetary stimulation to ensure that financial markets stabilise, their economies do not suffer recession, and government finances are not driven into crisis?

This is the conundrum that will play out in 2023 for the US, UK, EU, Japan, and others in the alliance camp. But economic conditions are starkly different in continental Asia. China is showing the early stages of making an economic comeback. Russia’s economy has not been badly damaged by sanctions, as the western media would have us believe. All members of Asian trade organisations are enjoying the benefits of cheap oil and gas while the western alliance turns its back on fossil fuels.

The message sent to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and even to OPEC+ is that their future markets are with the Asian hegemons. Predictably, they are all gravitating into this camp. They are abandoning the American-led sphere of influence.

2023 will see the consequences of Saudi Arabia ending the petrodollar. Energy exporters are feeling their way towards new commercial arrangements in a bid to replace yesterday’s dollar. There’s talk of a new Asian trade settlement currency…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

BlackRock: Prepare For Recession “Unlike Any Other”… And What Worked Before “Won’t Work Now”

BlackRock: Prepare For Recession “Unlike Any Other”… And What Worked Before “Won’t Work Now”

The world’s largest investment manager has gone all in – and says a global recession is right around the corner. What’s more, the financial tricks deployed by Central Banks in the past ‘won’t work this time.’

According to BlackRock, the global economy has entered a phase of elevated volatility, and that a recession is imminent due to central banks aggressively boosting borrowing costs to tame inflation. Their actions, according to a team of BlackRock strategists, will ignite more market turbulence than ever before.

Recession is foretold as central banks race to try to tame inflation. It’s the opposite of past recessions,” the team wrote In their 2023 Global Outlook (embedded below), which says that the global economy has already exited a four-decade period of stable growth and inflation, and has now entered a period of heightened instability.

And when things get bad, “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. Equity valuations don’t yet reflect the damage ahead.”

What worked in the past won’t work now,” said the strategists. “The old playbook of simply ‘buying the dip’ doesn’t apply in this regime of sharper trade-offs and greater macro volatility. We don’t see a return to conditions that will sustain a joint bull market in stocks and bonds of the kind we experienced in the prior decade.”

So what can actually tame inflation? A deep recession, according to the report.

To navigate the coming storm, BlackRock recommends more frequent portfolio changes and taking a more “granular view on sectors, regions and sub-asset classes.”

Compounding the issue is aging workforces around the world – which is one key reason that the supply of US labor is struggling to keep up with demand.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Jeremy Grantham: What’s Coming is Worse Than a Recession

Jeremy Grantham: What’s Coming is Worse Than a Recession

 

#243. The Great Inflexion

#243. The Great Inflexion

A SYSTEM UNRAVELS

INTRODUCTION

As everyone surely knows by now, the global economy has entered a recession which is likely to be both severe and protracted. For the most part, governments and central bankers are concentrating on the task of trying to tame inflation.

Their critics tend to argue for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, contending that stimulus could soften or shorten the recession. They claim, in defiance both of experience and of logic, that expansionary monetary policies needn’t contradict the effort to bring inflation under control.

Where almost everybody is in agreement is that, however long it takes, the recession will end. But there’s a striking absence of explanations for how or why growth is supposed to resume. The fall-back position is no more than an assumption – a recovery will arrive for no better reason than that all previous economic downturns have been followed by rebounds.

The underlying presumption here is cyclicality, a process accepted as routine, not just by policy-makers and central bankers, but by investors, business leaders and the general public alike. It is well understood that the Big Numbers – like economic output, and the aggregate value of the markets – oscillate in sine-wave patterns around central trends.

It’s further assumed that these secular trends are always positive – each recovery exceeds the preceding recession, and each market rebound more than cancels out the latest dip.

This latter assumption has reached the point of invalidation. What economies and markets are now experiencing is trend-inflexion. Cyclicality may indeed continue but, from here on, it will do so around downwards-inflected trends. This process of reversal can only be managed if it is recognized.

The consequences of trend inflexion are readily summarised. On an ex-inflation basis, economic output will deteriorate, whilst the real costs of necessities will carry on rising, even if there are some retreats from the severe spikes experienced in recent times.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Europe May See Forced De-Industrialization As Result Of Energy Crisis

Europe May See Forced De-Industrialization As Result Of Energy Crisis

  • European industries including ferroalloys, fertilizer plants and specialty chemicals are shutting down as a result of the ongoing energy crisis.
  • Certain industries may not come back, even if the energy crisis eases.
  • An increasingly tight regulatory environment is another reason for de-industrialization in Europe.

The European Union has been quietly celebrating a consistent decline in gas and electricity consumption this year amid record-breaking prices, a cutoff of much of the Russian gas supply, and a liquidity crisis in the energy market.

Yet the cause for celebration is dubious: businesses are not just curbing their energy use and continuing on a business-as-usual basis. They are shutting down factories, downsizing, or relocating. Europe may well be on the way to deindustrialization.

That the European Union is heading for a recession is now quite clear to anyone watching the indicators. The latest there—eurozone manufacturing activity—fell to the lowest since May 2020.

The October reading for S&P Global’s PMI also signaled a looming recession, falling on the month and being the fourth monthly reading below 50—an indication of an economic contraction.

In perhaps worse news, however, German conglomerate BASF said last month it would permanently downside in its home country and expand in China. The announcement served as a blow to a government trying to juggle energy shortages with climate goals without extending the lives of nuclear power plants.

“The European chemical market has been growing only weakly for about a decade [and] the significant increase in natural gas and power prices over the course of this year is putting pressure on chemical value chains,” said BASF’s chief executive, Martin Brudermueller, as quoted by the FT, in late October.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

NOPEC Bill Won’t Bring Oil Prices Down

NOPEC Bill Won’t Bring Oil Prices Down

  • Washington responded angrily to OPEC+’s decision to cut output.
  • U.S. legislators have suggested the introduction of a bill called NOPEC in order to reduce OPEC’s power.
  • NOPEC could send oil prices higher and end the dominance of the petrodollar.

“Nobody f*cks with a Biden,” said the U.S. president, and the oil ministers of the member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) replied, “Hold my beer.”  OPEC+ then proceeded to approve production cuts of 2 million barrels per day, despite a full court press by the administration in the weeks leading up to the decision, and raised the price of oil for the U.S., lowered it for Europe, and left it unchanged for Asia. According to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, “the President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas” and “the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC+’s control over energy prices,” neglecting to mention that Biden administration decisions to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and to stop issuing new oil and gas leases on public lands gave OPEC+ the upper hand.

Apparently, a fist bump only gets you so far.

There followed a lot of “how dare they!” by the great and good, but OPEC+ was having none of it. The day before the announcement, the Saudi energy minister dressed down a Reuters reporter for shoddy work by his colleague who claimed that Russia and Saudi Arabia (the Kingdom) conspired to price oil at $100 per barrel, and later explained OPEC+ was being proactive as the West is attacking inflation with higher interest rates which, in turn, may cause a recession and drive down oil demand (and price)…

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

A historic global bond-market crash threatens liquidation of the world’s most crowded trades, says BofA

A historic global bond-market crash threatens liquidation of the world’s most crowded trades, says BofA

‘If the bond market does not function, then no other market functions, really,’ say Ben Emons of Medley Global Advisors 

A newspaper headline is shown after the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. Global bonds are in one of their worst bear markets since the treaty went into effect in 1920, establishing the terms for peace at the end of World War I.

SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

Global government-bond markets are stuck in what BofA Securities analysts are calling one of the greatest bear markets ever and this is in turn threatening the ease with which investors will be able to exit from the world’s most-crowded trades, if needed.

Those trades include positions in the dollar, U.S. technology companies and private equity, said BofA strategists Michael Hartnett, Elyas Galou, and Myung-Jee Jung. Bonds are generally regarded as one of the most liquid asset classes available to investors. If liquidity dries up in that market, it’s bad news for just about every other form of investment, other analysts said.

Financial markets have yet to price in the worst-case outcomes for inflation, interest rates, and the economy around the world, despite tumbling global equities along with a selloff of bonds in the U.S. and the U.K. On Friday, the Dow industrials DJIA, -1.62% sank almost 500 points and flirted with a fall into bear-market territory, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -1.72% stopped short of ending the New York session below its June closing low.

U.S. bond yields are at or near multiyear highs. Meanwhile, government-bond yields in the U.K., Germany, and France have risen at the fastest clip since the 1990s, according to BofA Securities.

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

 

OPEC agrees to produce slightly more oil as recession fears loom

OPEC agrees to produce slightly more oil as recession fears loom

London (CNN Business)The world’s oil-exporting countries have agreed to a tiny increase in output next month amid fears that a global recession will crimp demand.

The Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries and its allies — which includes Russia — also known as OPEC+, said on Wednesday that it would produce an additional 100,000 barrels a day in September.
This was the first OPEC meeting since US President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia last month. Biden urged the country — which is the group’s biggest oil producer — to start pumping more.
For months, prices have climbed as Western embargoes on Russian oil have limited global supply. Those prices have helped the world’s biggest oil companies reap record profits, even as millions face surging fuel bills.
A gallon of regular gasoline in the United States surpassed $5 for the first time in June, though prices have fallen back significantly since then.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, also hit a high of $139 a barrel in March in the days after Russia invaded Ukraine, but Brent is now trading at around $100 as traders fear a global recession will hurt demand.
Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate crude — the North American benchmark — both rose initially on Wednesday after OPEC’s announcement, as oil investors expected a bigger increase in production. But prices fell about 2% by midday.
“As a production rise it is a very small percentage of overall production, and much smaller than previous months increases, and thus makes little difference to the overall supply picture,” Hazel Seftor, senior research analyst for global oil supply at Wood Mackenzie, told CNN Business.

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

‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape’: Facebook fact-checks top economist for stating America IS in a recession after Biden refused to admit it

‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape’: Facebook fact-checks top economist for stating America IS in a recession after Biden refused to admit it

  • Phillip Magness, the research and education director at the American Institute for Economic Research, believes the U.S. is in a recession
  • Economists usually say it is a recession when two successive quarters have seen negative growth: data on Thursday showed the definition had been met
  • The White House is instead relying on an ‘official declaration’ from the the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which can be very slow
  • Magness’s post on Facebook about the U.S. being in a recession was fact-checked by Facebook and a warning posted online
  • ‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape,’ he tweeted. ‘Facebook is now ‘fact checking’ anyone who questions the White House’s word-games’ 

Facebook placed a ‘fact-checking’ label on a post written by a top economist stating that the United States is now in a recession – a move he termed ‘Orwellian’.

Two consecutive quarters of negative growth is the standard definition of a recession, and Phillip Magness, the research and education director at the American Institute for Economic Research, posted on Facebook a commentary about the country now being in a recession.

The post – which is no longer visible – was marked by Facebook’s fact checkers as being misleading.

‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape,’ he tweeted.

‘Facebook is now ‘fact checking’ anyone who questions the White House’s word-games about the definition of a recession.’

Biden on Thursday (pictured) insisted that the country was not in a recession, despite new data showing a second consecutive quarter with negative growth

Biden on Thursday (pictured) insisted that the country was not in a recession, despite new data showing a second consecutive quarter with negative growth

Phillip Magness, an economic historian, believes the U.S. is in recession - but the White House disagrees

Phillip Magness, an economic historian, believes the U.S. is in recession – but the White House disagrees

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

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