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Central banks are killing our currency to protect the already-rich

In our recent article It’s Time To Position For The Endgame, Chris Martenson explained how the US Federal Reserve and its sister central banks around the world have been engaged in the largest and most egregious wealth transfer in all of history — one that has been drastically exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic.

The official response, tremendous monetary stimulus by the central banks paired with massive fiscal stimulus from national legislatures, has been pitched as “saving the system”.

Yet, in reality, it has merely served to accelerate the transfer of capital from the public into the pockets of the already-rich.

Anyone with eyes can see how the central banks have abandoned all pretense of monetary fiduciary responsibility and have simply cranked their printing presses up to “maximum”:

In concert with this surge of liquidity, national legislatures have added their own emergency measures. In the US alone, the CARES Act pushed nearly $3 trillion in fiscal stimulus into the system, and will highly likely soon be followed by another $1-3 trillion depending on which party’s bill gets passed.

Despite these staggering sums, the amount of money trickling into the average US household has been meager and is drying up.

Instead, these $trillions are mostly finding their way into the coffers and share prices of corporations. We have seen the fastest and most extreme V-shaped recovery in the history of the financial markets since the March swoon. The major indices are now back to record all-time-highs, despite the major carnage covid-19 has wreaked on the global economy.

So who benefits from that? Oh yeah, the people who own those companies. The already-rich.

Remember: 84% of all stocks are owned by the top 10% of households.

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

Is High Inflation Now A Bigger Danger Than A Deflationary Crash?

August 27, 2020

Is High Inflation Now A Bigger Danger Than A Deflationary Crash?

What’s the more likely event at this point: a deflationary crash or runaway inflation?

For a long time, Peak Prosperity co-founder Adam Taggart and I have hewed to the “Ka-POOM!” theory, which states that a major deflation will scare the central banks so badly that they overreact and pour too much liquidity into the system, thereby destroying it.

To visualize how this will play out, think of what happened in Beirut this week. Customs officials there stored thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at their seaport, for years. The pile just sat there doing absolutely nothing.

After years of inaction, the port authorities became lulled into the erroneous conclusion that nothing would ever happen.

But then one day a spark came to life, starting a fire, and then all at once — POOM! — the entire thing blew up with devastating effect.

This analogy works pretty well here as we approach the Keynesian endgame facing the global economy. The pile of $trillions in bad debts issued over the past decades has been the fertilizer. Covid-19 was the spark. And now we’re simply waiting for the entire economic and financial system to explode.

The same process began in the US and has been unfolding across the world ever since after the gold standard was abandoned in 1971. Untethered from any restraint, all that was left to staunch the flow of red ink was self-restraint and a concern for the future, both of which were in short supply.

Not only has debt been growing far faster than income (GDP) at the national level, but debts have been growing exponentially (i.e., ‘compounding’) ever since 1971:

That debt growth is a nearly perfect exponential curve upon which the entire systems of politics, banking and the economy have come to rely.

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

Market Update: Overstimulated!

August 15, 2020

Market Update: Overstimulated!

Today’s twin orgy of monetary & fiscal stimulus makes a market reckoning inevitable

The melt-up discussed last week remains in full force, with the S&P 500 hitting a new intraday all-time high on Wednesday.

Just to make sure we’re all clear on this: stocks are back to their highest prices BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic exploded. Before Q2 GDP plummeted -33% in the US. Before 50+ million Americans lost their jobs.

Thanks to the $trillions shoved into the system by both central banks and national legislatures since April, “investors” now believe the markets are a 1-way ride to forever-increasing wealth.

As the chart below from the National Association of Active Investment Managers shows, financial advisory firms that manage client capital are more fully-invested in the markets than at any other time in the past several years:

NAAIM chart

So everyone in “all-in” on the belief that the markets are both fully backstopped and rising higher from here.

How realistic is this belief?

Michael Pento, this week’s Market Update video expert guest, thinks it’s willful delusion. History is crystal clear that disconnects like we have today between (over-inflated) asset prices and the underlying (contracting) economic reality always result in crisis — either a deflationary repricing, or a destruction of the purchasing power of the currency.

Michael shares the 20 financial and economic metrics on the dashboard of indicators he tracks to determine where we are in this story, and which outcome is looking most likely to happen when. This week’s interview is worth listening to for that list alone.

Not one to mince words, Pento believes this is the most treacherous time ever for investors — which means those blindly long the current melt-up will get slaughtered if indeed the risks he predicts play out. As always, we recommend working in partnership with an independent financial advisor who appreciates these risks, prioritizes preservation of your investment capital, and can help you chart the turbulent waters ahead when the reckoning arrives:

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

It’s Time To Position For The Endgame

August 9, 2020

It’s Time To Position For The Endgame

Are you, like us, sensing that things are poised to fall apart?

Do you sense an approaching endgame?

Like there’s another heavy shoe to drop? Perhaps an entire closet’s worth?

Certainly there’s entirely too much confusion surrounding SARS-CoV-2 and how to deal with it.

Should people wear masks? Will schools re-open? Should they? Why isn’t Covid-19 being treated consistently across medical centers? Are there things we could and should be doing to minimize the impacts before people catch it?

I believe there are good common-sense answers, even if complicated, to these and many other related questions But common sense is in short supply these days, especially amongst our “leaders” in the US (who actually act like bad managers).

Our clueless politicians busy themselves either pandering to or hiding from the media cameras when it comes to Covid-19 response. Meanwhile, Big Pharma is doing everything it can to direct the action in ways that funnel any profits into its pockets — public health be damned.

It’s a certified shit show. No question about it.

But It Gets Worse

Beyond the pandemic, the central banks are busy ignoring Plutarch as they embark on the grandest social experiment in all of human history by floating billionaires’ yachts ever higher as more and more average folks drown beneath the rising waterline.

Displaying either a level of tone-deafness exceeding that of Marie Antionette, or a level of psychopathy matching that of Ted Bundy, the US Federal Reserve is — RIGHT NOW — engaged in the largest transfer of wealth in all of US history.

Between March-April 2020, the Fed added a staggering $282 billion to the bottom-line wealth of US billionaires:

But that wasn’t enough.

So the Fed kept printing. And buying, buying, and buying more and more financial assets held – of course – mainly by the already-wealthy.

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

Gold’s (And Silver’s!) Time Has Arrived

July 31, 2020

Gold’s (And Silver’s!) Time Has Arrived

Are you well-positioned for it?

Peak Prosperity publishes ALERTs very rarely, and only when my co-founder Chris Martenson and I are concerned enough to take personal action.

On May 8, I released an ALERT informing our premium subscribers that, concerned by the ramifications of the global central banks’ response to the coronavirus, I was moving a material percentage of my portfolio’s cash reserves into precious metals, notably into silver as the gold/silver ratio then of 110:1 remained near a record high.

Since the issuance of that ALERT, gold has broken above it’s previous all-time high price, moving up 14%, from $1,717/oz to $1,950/oz.

And silver has performed strikingly better: rising over 55% from $15.75/oz to $24.50/oz. As anticipated, the gold/silver ratio has fallen nearly 30% to 80:1.

However, much more important than this near-term pop in the precious metals is their outlook going forward.

We’ve been writing for years here at PeakProsperity.com about gold and silver’s extreme undervaluation given the risks we’re facing in our monetary and financial systems. And yet, for years, the metals languished as capital flowed eagerly into “paper wealth”, fueled by central bank liquidity, record low interest rates, and a rampant increase in debt and deficits.

Back in 2017, Grant Williams famously and correctly nailed the neglected state of the precious metals in his prescient work, Nobody Cares.

A year ago, as gold managed to break above it’s longtime ceiling of $1,350/oz, we began loudly alerting our readers that the years of neglect were finally over. That, indeed, investors were beginning to “care” again.

Fast forward to where we are today, a pandemic and +$5 trillion in global central bank liquidity later, and now it’s seeming that suddenly Everybody Cares about the precious metals.

Gold’s — and silver’s — time has arrived. Precious metals are finally back in a secular bull market.

Key questions to address at this moment are:

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

We Are On Our Own In The Post-Covid World

July 25, 2020

We Are On Our Own In The Post-Covid World

It’s time to be our own heroes, because those in charge sure won’t be

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, things weren’t all that great for the bottom 90% of households.

The median household was barely scraping by with ultra-low financial reserves, meager retirement savings and high levels of debt. All while being relentlessly crushed by cost of living inflation running far higher than the blatantly fraudulent government statistics offered up by the BLS.

Even more infuriating, the economic pie was preferentially handed to the top 10% — well, more specifically, to the top 1%. And even more dramatically to the top 0.1%. Don’t even get me started on the 0.001%…

(Source)

While often presented in the media as a puzzling thing without any root cause, both the income and wealth gaps are the direct result of Federal Reserve policies and actions Helped, of course, by lobbyists for the elites influencing Congressional tax legislation.

So it’s no accident that over time, tax rates on the rich have been substantially cut:

This chart says that the very highest income earners have a lower effective tax rate than anybody else in the nation. Billionaire Warren Buffett famously pays a lower rate than his secretary. Goldman Sachs bankers are taxed more favorably than their Uber drivers. Again, this isn’t happening by accident.

And it reveals that, despite the fiction of fairness and freedom, America’s true values and priorities are aimed at funneling more and more of its wealth to in the pockets of an elite few.

Said another way: The final looting operation has begun.

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

A Serious Message From Chris Martenson

July 11, 2020

A Serious Message From Chris Martenson

Time is running short to brace for impact

Like a windstorm toppling a hollowed-out tree, SARS-CoV-2 didn’t cause the current recession so much as it exposed how rotten things already were.

Even before SARS-CoV-2, households were struggling. Far too many were limping along without any savings at all, one crisis away from financial ruin.

Debts at every level were at record highs before SARS-CoV-2 came along, and the Federal Reserve was already busy bailing out the US financial system before the virus hit.

The shale oil industry had failed to generate any profits for over a decade before anyone ever heard of Covid19.

The worldwide wealth gap was already record levels before we were forced into lockdown.

What the coronavirus pandemic has done, though, is give the ruling authorities aircover to accelerate all of these trends to warp speed.

Billionaires have been, by far, the largest winners in this story so far. Ditto for mega corporations. Main Street and small and medium-sized businesses have been utterly crushed.

Where the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 could have been — and should have been — a wake-up call to operate the system more equitably and sustainably, it was used instead as an excuse to make things even worse.

No bank executives were charged or even went to jail for any crimes they played in bringing the financial system to the brink of disaster. Accounting deceit, wire fraud, and forgery — anybody remember ‘robosigning’? That was forgery, a felony, and not one charge was ever leveled. Instead, the Too Big To Fail banks were bailed out and got bigger at the expense of smaller, more responsible firms.

My point here is that SARS-CoV-2 has laid bare our true value systems. Some countries have done an admirable job of showing they care about their citizens, making public safety and health their top priority. Other countries, such as mine (the US), have demonstrated the opposite.

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

Market Update: A Titanic Disaster Ahead?

July 10, 2020

Market Update: A Titanic Disaster Ahead?

Tech stocks now in a classic blow-off top

At this point, as go the leading Tech stocks, so go the markets.

So much capital has crammed into the tech sector this year that it boggles the mind. Tech stocks now make up 40% of the market cap of the S&P 500.

And despite their huge size, they continue to race higher. Nearly. Every. Single. Day.

Here’s a chart of six of the biggest tech companies. Over just the past 7 trading days, they have increased a combined total of half a trillion dollars in market cap. That’s $500 billion, folks — in just a week!

Big tech stocks gain $500 billion in past 7 trading days

(Source)

Looking at Amazon’s (AMZN) stock price, up nearly 20%(!) since the start of July, we see a trajectory that we’re familiar with — a near-vertical blow-off top:

(Source)

This is the classic manic ending to an asset price bubble — as seen when Bitcoin hit 19,000 in late 2017 and when silver hit $49/oz in 2011. For further affirmation, watch this short video chapter from Crash Course on Bubbles.

In a way, this is comforting to see because it gives us confidence this insane, mindless, unjustified market euphoria will end soon. We just need to be prepared for the predictable violent aftermath when it does.

As we do each week, we’ve once again asked the lead partners at New Harbor Financial, Peak Prosperity’s endorsed financial advisor, to share their latest insights on the end of Great Tech Bubble and what comes next.

We spend a fair amount of time in this week’s video asking New Harbor for actionable options to protect recent gains from a potential pull-back, as well as how to position for a larger market melt-down if indeed Tech soon reverses and we experience a crash greater in magnitude than what we suffered in February:

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

D614G: A New, More Serious Covid-19 Mutation To Worry AboutW

June 24, 2020

D614G: A New, More Serious Covid-19 Mutation To Worry About

We’re not done with the honey badger virus by a long shot.

Continuing its Keystone Cops manner of dealing with covid-19, the US appears to be caught flat-footed by the resurgence of infections happening across many southern and western states right now.

Yes, people are tired of being cooped indoors and wearing masks. Summer is here and they want to get outside, spend time with loved ones, and get back some normalcy of life.

But the Honey Badger virus ‘don’t care’. Covid-19 sees our loosening restrictions as a welcome invitation and is burrowing in with enthusiasm.

Making matters worse for us human hosts, a new strain of the virus — the D614G mutation — has been identified. It appears to be more contagious and serious than most previous strains.

So, for those who do not want to catch covid-19, now is not the time to start letting down your guard. We are not through the woods by a long shot yet:

Making Sense Of An Increasingly Insensible World

June 13, 2020

Making Sense Of An Increasingly Insensible World

Creating purpose and fulfillment within a failing system

What the heck is going on?

I hear this a lot these days. Developments are happening too quickly to process for many folks, creating a persisting cloud of confusion.

Even focusing down on any particular single event often gets nowhere because so much of what’s going on simply makes so sense

Take for example, the W.H.O. which as recently as two weeks ago recommended that only sick people should wear masks. What? We’ve known for months that people can spread Covid-19 when they are asymptomatic. How can a ‘sick person’ wear a mask if they are sick but even they don’t know that? It just makes no sense. What is even going on?

Or take Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, who defiantly declared that the Federal Reserve “absolutely does not” contribute to the wealth inequality gap:

(Source)

Say what?

The Fed is busy buying distressed financial assets for far more than they are worth from the largest and wealthiest of stock and bondholders. That absolutely contributes to inequality.

So does juicing the stock market, or ““market”” as I like to term it (because it’s so distorted it needs two sets of quote marks).

So does appointing Blackrock – the world’s largest private asset manager – to select which private assets should be bought with the freshly-invented currency emanating from the Fed’s electronic printing presses. Should we really be shocked to learn that Blackrock chose their own distressed assets, like the junk bond fund JNK, for the Fed to buy first?

It’s a bald-faced lie for Jay Powell to claim anything other than the Fed is the #1 contributor to inequality. And that’s by a country mile.

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

Sergey Young: Will Technology Save Us?

May 14, 2020

Sergey Young: Will Technology Save Us?

Are the pessimists wrong to bet against human ingenuity?

“Technology will save us!”

That’s the most common pushback we receive to Peak Prosperity’s concerns about the dangers of exponential resource depletion, overpopulation, and overindebtedness/overconsumption.

And it’s understandable: technological advancement has achieved wonders for mankind’s standard of living at an accelerating pace over the past several centuries. Billions have been lifted out of poverty. Human health and longevity (covid-19 aside) have been greatly boosted. We have conquered the earth, seas, air and space.

Are the pessimists wrong to bet against human ingenuity?

To explore that question head-on, Chris sits down this week with Sergey Young, founder of the Longevity Vision Fund and “right hand man” to Peter Diamandis of Singularity and XPRIZE fame.

A self-described technology optimist, Sergey has created a $100 million fund to counteract the damaging consequences of aging. He’s set for himself the goal to live to be 200 years old (in the body of a 25 year old) and to find an affordable way for everyone else to do the same.

Interestingly, while Sergey is much more sanguine about society’s future prospects than we are here at Peak Prosperity, he acknowledges that the pragmatic realists are a necessary ‘yin’ to the tech passionistas’ ‘yang’.

For an optimistic futurist, Sergey is surprisingly respectful of and in agreement with our focus on sustainability and on practical models for living within our means. He admits that technology isn’t a cure-all, and goes as far to say that if the future were simply left to the starry-eyed dreamers, we’d take a lot of leaps of faith that wouldn’t end well.

For one of the most balanced conversations on this topic we’ve yet experienced, click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Sven Henrich (44m:45s)

Coronavirus: Something’s Not Right Here…

May 1, 2020

Coronavirus: Something’s Not Right Here…

It’s hard not to start asking the question: Are we being played?

Following yesterday’s pimping of Gilead Science’s antiviral drug remdesivir on scant and suspect results, it’s hard not to start asking the question: Are we being played?

We’ve argued in several past videos that there is ample enough evidence that hydroxychloroquine shows enough promise in reducing/treating covid-19 that further research is merited. Instead, the drug is being demonized in the media.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to us. But, hey, maybe there’s a good reason that a cheap widely-available treatment that has been administered hundreds of millions of times over the past 70 years, making it one of the most medically-delivered drugs in history, is suddenly being labelled “unsafe”?

But much more maddening is that remdesivir has suddenly been promoted to “standard of care” status despite its spotty and unproven track record.

Could that have anything to do with the fact that 9 of the 50 doctors on the NIH panel setting its covid-19 treatment guidelines work for Gilead Sciences?

The conflicts of interest and profit motives rampant among our policymakers are extremely concerning. Something is not right here…

Don’t forget to get your free download of Peak Prosperity’s book Prosper!. .

Why Is Coronavirus News Still So Inaccurate?

April 28, 2020

Why Is Coronavirus News Still So Inaccurate?

The media should have seasoned vetting processes in place by this time

“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth is putting on its shoes”

The list of sensational headlines based on shoddy research just continues to grow. Whether by commission, omission or plain old ignorance, our media is failing us — it’s not probing as critically and deeply as it should to ensure the information it brings us is valid.

Among several examples in today’s video, Chris scorches recent reports that covid-19 could not have been developed in a lab — reports that rely heavily on an authority who just happens to have years of experience collaborating with Wuhan scientists working with coronaviruses (including bats), BUT THIS WASN’T DISCLOSED.

Our big frustration here is that the reports we’re having to devote time to debunking in our daily videos shouldn’t be getting the air time they are this far into the coronavirus crisis.

Why are there still so many inaccuracies in today’s news? Collectively, the media should have sharpened its game in its pandemic reporting by now. It should have seasoned vetting processes in place by this time.

Especially when the stakes of being wrong are remain so high.

Just another reason to say: It didn’t have to be this way.

Oh well, we’ll continue these daily critical thinking-based updates for as long as their needed. Looks likes that’s going to be for a while…

Don’t forget to get your free download of Peak Prosperity’s book Prosper!. Given its relevance to preparing for any kind of crisis, pandemic or otherwise, Chris and Adam are now making it available to the world for free:
https://www.peakprosperity.com/freebook

Market Update: The Battle For Control

April 26, 2020

Market Update: The Battle For Control

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.

Why Gardening Starts With Growing Good Soil

April 25, 2020

Why Gardening Starts With Growing Good Soil

For two months now, we’ve been advising readers to “grow a garden” in response to the covid-19 pandemic.

We’re recommending that for a number of reasons.

Food security is the primary one. Domestically, several of the small number of concentrated players in our Big Ag food supply chain have been forced to shutter production facilities due to infected employees. Internationally, we’re seeing emerging evidence that countries are preparing for “national food hoarding”, as Chris wrote about last week.

Gardening is good for your physical health, offering exercise and getting you out into the sun and fresh air — all of which are correlated with lower risk of contracting the coronavirus. It’s also beneficial for your mental health, engaging you in a productive pursuit while offering time for reflection and for communion with nature.

Great, many of those inexperienced with gardening may be thinking, But how do I get started?

We’ve got some great resources here on the site. You can start by reading our DIY instructions for creating a raised bed garden, or by reading our Agriculture & Permaculture forum thread and asking questions of the many knowledgeable gardeners there.

But whether you’re new to gardening or not, your success is rooted (pardon the pun) in appreciating that to grow healthy plants you first need to grow healthy soil.

Perhaps the top soil experts in the world are Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser, owners and operators of Singing Frogs Farm — world famous for their nature-based yet innovative approach to farming, in which no tilling of any kind is done to the soil. No pesticide/herbicide/fungicide sprays (organic or otherwise) are used. And the only fertilizer used is natural compost.

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

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