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I wouldn’t say that it is “never too late” to prepare for potential disaster because, obviously, the numerous economic and social catastrophes of the past have proven otherwise. There simply comes a point in time in which the ignorant and presumptive are indeed officially screwed. I will say that we have not quite come to that point yet here in the U.S., but the window of opportunity for preparation is growing very narrow.

As expected, U.S. stocks are now revealing the underlying instability of our economy, which has been festering for several years. Extreme volatility not seen since 2008/2009 has returned, sometimes with 1000 point fluctuations positive and negative in the span of only a couple days. Current market tremors are beginning to resemble the EKG of a patient suffering a heart attack.

Stocks are a trailing indicator, meaning that when an equities crash finally becomes visible to the mainstream public, it indicates that the economic fundamentals have been broken beyond repair for quite a while. What does this mean for those people who prefer to protect themselves and their families rather than wait to be drowned like lemmings in a deluge? It means they are lucky if they have more than a few months to put their house in order.

The process of crisis preparedness is not as simple as going on a gear-buying bonanza or making a few extra trips to Costco. That is better than nothing; but really, it’s a form of half-assed prepping that creates more of an illusion of survivabilty rather than providing ample security in the event that financial systems malfunction.

Much of what’s listed in this article will include training and infrastructure goals far beyond the usual standards of beans, bullets and Band-Aids.

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

Why The Recurring Economic Crises?

August 28, 2015

Why The Recurring Economic Crises?

Authored by Murray Rothbard via The Mises Institute,

A selection from Chapter 42 of Economic Controversies.

Why, then, does the business cycle recur? Why does the next boom-and-bust cycle always begin? To answer that, we have to understand the motivations of the banks and the government. The commercial banks live and profit by expanding credit and by creating a new money supply; so they are naturally inclined to do so, “to monetize credit,” if they can. The government also wishes to inflate, both to expand its own revenue (either by printing money or so that the banking system can finance government deficits) and to subsidize favored economic and political groups through a boom and cheap credit. So we know why the initial boom began. The government and the banks had to retreat when disaster threatened and the crisis point had arrived. But as gold flows into the country, the condition of the banks becomes sounder. And when the banks have pretty well recovered, they are then in the confident position to resume their natural tendency of inflating the supply of money and credit. And so the next boom proceeds on its way, sowing the seeds for the next inevitable bust.

Thus, the Ricardian theory also explained the continuing recurrence of the business cycle. But two things it did not explain.

First, and most important, it did not explain the massive cluster of error that businessmen are suddenly seen to have made when the crisis hits and bust follows boom. For businessmen are trained to be successful forecasters, and it is not like them to make a sudden cluster of grave error that forces them to experience widespread and severe losses.

Second, another important feature of every business cycle has been the fact that both booms and busts have been much more severe in the “capital goods industries” (the industries making machines, equipment, plant or industrial raw materials) than in consumer goods industries.And the Ricardian theory had no way of explaining this feature of the cycle.

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

Austerity and degrowth – dealing with the economic crisis and the ecological crisis together

August 16, 2015

Austerity and degrowth – dealing with the economic crisis and the ecological crisis together

This article arises from increasing frustration and irritation about the way that the debate about Greece, and in general about austerity, is framed. My frustration is not only with the policy thugs who are implementing austerity, but also, to a degree, with their critics – which includes the failure of most of the critics of growth to actually get involved in this controversy and argue their own point of view. There have been attempts, for example by Nicola Hinton of the Post Growth Institute. It seems like a tough one to argue for degrowth in the context of the Greek crisis and as an alternative to austerity – but then all the more reason to try. Otherwise a movement for degrowth will never get out of the university lecture rooms into the real world. It will never become a guide or a narrative for the future of society to be realised in practical and popular politics.

Austerity – elite terrorism against ordinary people

So let’s start by reframing the debate about austerity. When Yanis Varoufakis describes what has happened to Greece as “Fiscal Waterboarding” he is part way in the direction that I mean. His description of austerity as a form of terrorism is also right.

The purpose of austerity is to create insecurity and instill fear in the general population in order to protect the finance and banking sector from popular rage against the crimes the participants of this sector have committed against ordinary people. This rage ought to have given rise a long time ago to legal actions and desperately needed fundamental reforms to take away from bankers the right to create money, a right which they have abused at tremendous cost to ordinary people.

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

Governments Worldwide Will Crash the First Week of October … According to 2 Financial Forecasters

July 20, 2015

Governments Worldwide Will Crash the First Week of October … According to 2 Financial Forecasters

Update: Please see correction at the end.

Two well-known financial forecasters claim that virtually all governments worldwide will be hit with a gigantic economic crisis in the first week of October 2015.

Martin Armstrong

Martin Armstrong is a controversial market analyst who correctly predicted the 1987 crash, the top of the Japanese market, and many other market events … more or less to the day. Many market timers think that Armstrong is one of the very best.

(On the other hand, he was jailed for 11 years on allegations of contempt, fraud and an alleged Ponzi scheme. Armstrong’s supporters say the government jailed him on trumped-up charges as a way to try to pressure him into handing over his forecasting program).

Armstrong has predicted for years that governments worldwide would melt down in a crisis of insolvency and lack of trust starting this October. Specifically, Armstrong predicts that a major cycle will turn on October 1, 2015, shifting investors’ trust from the public sector and governments to the private sector.

Unlike other bears who predict that the stock market is about to collapse, Armstrong predicts that huge sums of capital will flow from bonds and the Euro into American stocks. So he predicts a huge bull market in U.S. stocks.

Larry Edelson

Edelson is another long-time student of cycle theory. Edelson – a big fan Armstrong – has also studied decades of data from the Foundation for the Study of Cycles.

Edelson is predicting the biggest financial crisis in world history – including a collapse of government solvency – starting on October 7, 2015 – the same week as Armstrong’s prediction – when the European Union breaks up.

Edelson also thinks that huge sums of investment will flow from the Eurozone to America, driving up U.S. stocks (unlike Armstrong, Edelson thinks U.S. bonds will also benefit). He thinks that Japan will be the next domino to fall … and that Japan’s default will also drive investments into the U.S. as a safe haven.

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

Dan Ariely: Why The Next Market Downturn May Quickly Become A Full-Blown Panic

May 18, 2015

Dan Ariely: Why The Next Market Downturn May Quickly Become A Full-Blown Panic

The human factor has become extremely skittish

Behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely returns to explain the science underlying the continued mismanagement and mal-investment within our financial system, despite 7 years of opportunity to learn from and address the causal factors of the Great Recession.

Behavioral science shows we are our own worst enemies in this story. In a realm where everything is so quantifiable, measurable and trackable, one would expect exceptionally good decision-making. But it’s our human wiring, our proclivity for seeing things as we want them to be rather than as they truly are, that makes us vulnerable to influences we often aren’t even conscious of. And the bad decisions — and bad outcomes — ensue:

For me, as somebody interested in human behavior, there are two elements that worry me a lot. The first one is Conflicts of interest.

Conflicts of interest is one of those things that get to us without us realizing how powerful it is. Imagine that you invite me to dinner, and you buy me a beer and a sandwich and we talk more and we become friends. To what degree am I going to be able to see the world in an objective way without taking your perspective into account? It turns out conflicts of interest are wonderful because they allow us to create friendship really quite quickly. You can buy someone a beer and a sandwich and they become your friend to some degree. Once you marry this with a complex system like the financial system, all of a sudden some not-so-good things can happen.

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

Steps Towards a New World

May 1, 2015

Steps Towards a New World

Four Co-ops That Are Building a New Economy

Nowadays the exit from the so-called economic crisis in Europe has become the main topic of conversation. Various politicians, “experts” and technocrats speak of possible exits from the critical situation in which our societies have been trapped. But their proposals rarely go beyond unlimited economic growth and neoliberal austerity politics, which are being imposed in increasingly authoritarian ways [1], the consequences of which are increasingly difficult to hide. The other alternative which is being presented to us by the mass media is the one of the radical left parties (such as the Greek SYRIZA and the Spanish Podemos).

But in the midst of the heated debates and worsening living standards, on the horizon has emerged a third alternative – one coming from the grassroots. Seeing high unemployment [2], activists from various social movements have decided that since the contemporary system cannot provide them with jobs, they’ll create them outside of it. Workers from the occupied factory Vio.Me. in Thessaloniki raised the slogan: “The bosses can’t? We can!” The populations of the impoverished European societies have gotten tired of waiting for the support of their governments and have decided to take things into their own hands. Seeing that the state is not planning on helping them, that it collaborates with the corporate sector who was partly responsible for the crisis [3] – and not its alternative – the people realized that they can count only on their own powers and the solidarity in their communities.

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

Why Is JP Morgan Accumulating The Biggest Stockpile Of Physical Silver In History?

April 25, 2015

Why Is JP Morgan Accumulating The Biggest Stockpile Of Physical Silver In History?

Why in the world has JP Morgan accumulated more than 55 millionounces of physical silver? Since early 2012, JP Morgan’s stockpile has grown from less than 5 million ounces of physical silver to more than 55 million ounces of physical silver. Clearly, someone over at JP Morgan is convinced that physical silver is a great investment. But in recent times, the price of silver has actually fallen quite a bit. As I write this, it is sitting at the ridiculously low price of $15.66 an ounce. So up to this point, JP Morgan’s investment in silver has definitely not paid off. But it will pay off in a big way if we will soon be entering a time of great financial turmoil.

During a time of crisis, investors tend to flood into physical gold and silver. And as I mentioned just recently, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon recently stated that “there will be another crisis” in a letter to shareholders…

Some things never change — there will be another crisis, and its impact will be felt by the financial market.

The trigger to the next crisis will not be the same as the trigger to the last one – but there will be another crisis. Triggering events could be geopolitical (the 1973 Middle East crisis), a recession where the Fed rapidly increases interest rates (the 1980-1982 recession), a commodities price collapse (oil in the late 1980s), the commercial real estate crisis (in the early 1990s), the Asian crisis (in 1997), so-called “bubbles” (the 2000 Internet bubble and the 2008 mortgage/housing bubble), etc. While the past crises had different roots (you could spend a lot of time arguing the degree to which geopolitical, economic or purely financial factors caused each crisis), they generally had a strong effect across the financial markets

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

11 Signs That We Are Entering The Next Phase Of The Global Economic Crisis

April 24, 2015

11 Signs That We Are Entering The Next Phase Of The Global Economic Crisis

Well, the Nasdaq finally did it. It has climbed all the way back to where it was at the peak of the dotcom bubble. Back in March 2000, the Nasdaq set an all-time record high of 5,048.62. On Thursday, after all these years, that all-time record was finally eclipsed. The Nasdaq closed at 5056.06, and Wall Street greatly rejoiced. So if you invested in the Nasdaq at the peak of the dotcom bubble, you are just finally breaking even 15 years later. Unfortunately, the truth is that stocks have not been soaring because the U.S. economy is fundamentally strong. Just like the last two times, what we are witnessing is an irrational financial bubble. Sometimes these irrational bubbles can last for a surprisingly long time, but in the end they always burst. And even now there are signs of economic trouble bubbling to the surface all around us. The following are 11 signs that we are entering the next phase of the global economic crisis…

#1 It is being projected that half of all fracking companies in the United States will be “dead or sold” by the end of this year.

#2 The rig count just continues to fall as the U.S. oil industry implodes. Incredibly, the number of rigs in operation in the United States has fallen for 19 weeks in a row.

#3 McDonald’s has announced that it will be closing 700 “poor performing” restaurants in 2015. Why would McDonald’s be doing this if the economy was actually getting better?

#4 As I wrote about the other day, we could be right on the verge of a Greek debt default. In fact, we learned on Thursday that the Greek government has been “running on empty” for months…

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

The Fed Has Not Learnt From The Crisis

March 29, 2015

The Fed Has Not Learnt From The Crisis

The Financial Crisis of 2007 was the nearest thing to a “Near Death Experience” that the Federal Reserve could have had. One ordinarily expects someone who has such an experience—exuberance behind the wheel that causes an almost fatal crash, a binge drinking escapade that ends up in the intensive care ward—to learn from it, and change their behaviour in some profound way that makes a repeat event impossible.

Not so the Federal Reserve. Though the event itself gets some mention in Yellen’s speech yesterday (“Normalizing Monetary Policy: Prospects and Perspectives”, San Francisco March 27, 2015), the analysis in that speech shows that the Fed has learnt nothing of substance from the crisis. If anything, the thinking has gone backwards. The Fed is the speed driver who will floor the accelerator before the next bend, just as he did before the crash; it is the binge drinker who will empty the bottle of whiskey at next year’s New Year’s Eve, just as she did before she woke up in intensive care on New Year’s Day.

So why hasn’t The Fed learnt? Largely because of a lack of intellectual courage. As it prepares to manage the post-crisis economy, The Fed has made no acknowledgement of the fact that it didn’t see the crisis itself coming. Of course, the cause of a financial crisis is far less obvious than the cause of a crash or a hangover: there are no skidmarks, no empty bottle to link effect to cause. But the fact that The Fed was caught completely unawares by the crisis should have led to some recognition that maybe, just maybe, its model of the economy was at fault.

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

10 Charts Which Show We Are Much Worse Off Than Just Before The Last Economic Crisis

March 22, 2015

10 Charts Which Show We Are Much Worse Off Than Just Before The Last Economic Crisis

If you believe that ignorance is bliss, you might not want to read this article. I am going to dispel the notion that there has been any sort of “economic recovery”, and I am going to show that we are much worse off than we were just prior to the last economic crisis. If you go back to 2007, people were feeling really good about things. Houses were being flipped like crazy, the stock market was booming and unemployment was relatively low. But then the financial crisis of 2008 struck, and for a while it felt like the world was coming to an end. Of course it didn’t come to an end – it was just the first wave of our problems. The waves that come next are going to be the ones that really wipe us out. Unfortunately, because we have experienced a few years of relative stability, many Americans have become convinced that Barack Obama, Janet Yellen and the rest of the folks in Washington D.C. have fixed whatever problems caused the last crisis. Even though all of the numbers are screaming otherwise, there are millions upon millions of people out there that truly believe that everything is going to be okay somehow. We never seem to learn from the past, and when this next economic downturn strikes it is going to do an astonishing amount of damage because we are already in a significantly weakened state from the last one.

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

14 Signs That Most Americans Are Flat Broke And Totally Unprepared For The Coming Economic Crisis

February 24, 2015

14 Signs That Most Americans Are Flat Broke And Totally Unprepared For The Coming Economic Crisis

When the coming economic crisis strikes, more than half the country is going to be financially wiped out within weeks. At this point, more than 60 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and a whopping 24 percent of the country has more credit card debt than emergency savings. One of the primary principles that any of these “financial experts” that you see on television will teach you is to have a cushion to fall back on. At the very least, you never know when unexpected expenses like major car repairs or medical bills will come along. And in the event of a major economic collapse, if you do not have any financial cushion at all you will be a sitting duck. Yes, I know that there are millions upon millions of families out there that are just trying to scrape by from month to month at this point. I hear from people that are deeply struggling in this economy all the time. So I don’t blame them for not being able to save lots of money. But if you are in a position to build up an emergency fund, you need to do so. We have been experiencing an extended period of relative economic stability, but it will not last. In fact, the time for getting prepared for the next great economic downturn is rapidly running out, and most Americans are not ready for it at all. The following are 14 signs that most Americans are flat broke and totally unprepared for the coming economic crisis…

#1 According to a survey that was just released, 24 percent of all Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings.

#2 That same survey discovered that an additional 13 percent of all Americans do not have any credit card debt, but they do not have a single penny of emergency savings either.

#3 At this point, approximately 62 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

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

Two More Harbingers Of Financial Doom That Mirror The Crisis Of 2008

February 15, 2015

Two More Harbingers Of Financial Doom That Mirror The Crisis Of 2008

The stock market continues to flirt with new record highs, but the signs that we could be on the precipice of the next major financial crisis continue to mount.

A couple of days ago, I discussed the fact that the U.S. dollar is experiencing a tremendous surge in value just like it did in the months prior to the financial crisis of 2008. And previously, I have detailed how the price of oil has collapsed, prices for industrial commodities are tanking and market behavior is becoming extremely choppy.

All of these are things that we witnessed just before the last market crash as well. It is also important to note that orders for durable goods are declining and the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level on record. So does all of this mean that the stock market is guaranteed to crash in 2015? No, of course not. But what we are looking for are probabilities. We are looking for patterns. There are multiple warning signs that have popped up repeatedly just prior to previous financial crashes, and many of those same warning signs are now appearing once again.

One of these warning signs that I have not discussed previously is the wholesale inventories to sales ratio. When economic activity starts to slow down, inventory tends to get backed up. And that is precisely what is happening right now. In fact, as Wolf Richter recently wrote about, the wholesale inventories to sales ratio has now hit a level that we have not seen since the last recession…

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

Thousands march against Venezuelan president

January 25, 2015

Thousands march against Venezuelan president

Protesters rally against sky-high inflation and shortages of food in Caracas, demanding President Nicolas Maduro resign.

Thousands of protesters have marched in the Venezuelan capital banging pots and pans over shortages of food and demanding an end to President Nicolas Maduro’s term in office.

Demonstrators poured on to the streets of Caracas on Saturday rallying against sky-high inflation and shortages of food and consumer goods.

Opponents say Venezuela’s economic crisis is a consequence of 15 years of socialist policies, begun by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, who ruled from 1999 to 2013 before his death from cancer.

“Maduro must step aside for Venezuela to be able to unite in a national reconstruction process,” opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a deposed politician who was jailed after deadly riots last year said.

“The government needs to be changed urgently,” Machado argued, at what opposition activists called the “March of Empty Pots.”

“I am protesting because in my country there is nothing, no food, no nourishment, no medicine,” protester, Maria Carolina Nolia told the Associated Press news agency.

Maduro is facing a dismal 22-percent approval rating, and three quarters of the population oppose his government, recent polls show.

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

Venezuela Default Probability Has Never Been Higher; Maduro “Working To Raise Oil Prices” | Zero Hedge

December 10, 2014

Venezuela Default Probability Has Never Been Higher; Maduro “Working To Raise Oil Prices” | Zero Hedge.

With OPEC slashing demand expectations to 12 year lows, oil prices have re-cratered today putting further pressure on socialist-utopia Venezuala which needs $121/bbl to break-even. Credit risk for the South American nation has exploded today to record highs – implying a 93% probability of default and President Maduro has taken to the airwaves to calm a benefit-needy nation… tensions are mounting…

Default risk has gone vertical…

As bond prices and black market FX crash further.

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

In Defense of Peter Schiff – Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada

November 8, 2014

In Defense of Peter Schiff – Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada.

The financial television channel CNBC has hit hard times. Nielsen ratings show the network’s viewership is at a 21 year low. This is a far cry from two decades ago. The dot-com bubble of the late 90s and early aughts gave the channel its highest ratings in history. The Federal Reserve’s easy money flooded the market, hitting blue chip stocks like a tidal wave. All of a sudden laypeople fancied themselves market gurus, playing the market and investing for a big pay day some time in the future. Trader and commentator Barry Ritholz described the environment as one where “CNBC was everywhere.” “Gyms, bars, restaurants, any public place you went into that had a TV — even sports bars! — had the ticker strewn channel running in the background.”

One bubble burst and a financial crisis later, the home of hothead Jim Cramer has cooled off significantly. There are a few reasons for this. As Lehman Brothers cratered into bankruptcy, the middle class saw its 401(k)s lose a significant portion of value. Such a loss begged for an explanation. Yet economists and financial experts were caught off-guard by the crisis. No popular orator of the dismal science could explain why the banking system devolved into chaos. CNBC’s most popular hosts and guests could only offer guesses.

One person was the exception: Peter Schiff. The internet video “Peter Schiff was right” collaged all of Euro Pacific Capital founder’s dire warnings about the housing bubble. At the time, he was ridiculed on air. Schiff was a cassandra, spouting crank theories long disproven by economic orthodoxy. But by September of 2008, he had the last laugh. The financial world was in turmoil, and Schiff’s explanation – based on the Austrian school’s theory of boom and bust cycles – was at last seen as legitimate.

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

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