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The Most Depressing Stat Of The Month: The U.S. National Debt Is About To Pass The $22 Trillion Mark

February 8, 2019

The Most Depressing Stat Of The Month: The U.S. National Debt Is About To Pass The $22 Trillion Mark

The U.S. national debt is wildly out of control, and nobody in Washington seems to care. According to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government is currently $21,933,491,166,604.77 in debt. In just a few days, that figure will cross the 22 trillion dollar mark. Over the last 10 years, we have added more than 11 trillion dollars to the national debt, and that means that it has been growing at a pace of more than a trillion dollars a year. To call this a major national crisis would be a massive understatement, and yet there is absolutely no urgency in Washington address this absolutely critical issue. We are literally destroying the financial future of this nation, but most Americans don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation that we are facing.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt and interest on that debt will both explode at an exponential rate in future years if we stay on the path that we are currently on. According to the CBO, the federal government spent 371 billion dollars on net interest during the most recent fiscal year…

In fiscal 2018, the government spent $371 billion on net interest, while the Defense Department budget was $599 billion. Social Security benefits cost $977 billion, Medicare $585 billion and Medicaid $389 billion, according to the CBO estimates.
But the CBO said interest outlays’ rate of growth in fiscal 2018 was faster than that for the three mandatory federal programs: Social Security (up $43 billion, or 5 percent); Medicaid (up $14 billion, or 4 percent); and Medicare (up $16 billion, or 3 percent). In comparison, net interest on the public debt increased by $62 billion, or 20 percent.

The 371 billion dollars that we spent on interest could have been spent on roads, schools, airports, strengthening our military or helping the homeless.

Instead, it was poured down a black hole.

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

Will Globalists Sacrifice The Dollar To Get Their ‘New World Order’?

January 19, 2019

Will Globalists Sacrifice The Dollar To Get Their ‘New World Order’?

Trade is a fundamental element of human survival. No one person can produce every single product or service necessary for a comfortable life, no matter how Spartan their attitude. Unless your goal is to desperately scratch an existence from your local terrain with no chance of progress in the future, you are going to need a network of other producers. For most of the history of human civilization, production was the basis for economy. All other elements were secondary.

At some point, as trade grows and thrives, a society is going to start looking for a store of value; something that represents the man-hours and effort and ingenuity a person put into their day. Something that is universally accepted within barter networks, something highly prized, that is tangible, that can be held in our hands and is impossible to replicate artificially. Enter precious metals.

Thus, the concept of “money” was born, and for the most part it functioned quite well for thousands of years. Unfortunately, there are people in our world that see economy as a tool for control rather than a vital process that should be left alone to develop naturally.

The idea of “fiat money”, money which has no tangibility and that can be created on a whim by a central source or authority, is rather new in the grand scheme of things. It is a bastardization of the original and much more stable money system that existed before that was anchored in hard commodities. While it claims to offer a more “liquid” store of value, the truth is that it is no store of value at all.

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

Here’s What an American Economic Collapse Could Actually Look Like (And How It May Be a Lot Different Than Folks Expect)

January 15, 2019

Here’s What an American Economic Collapse Could Actually Look Like (And How It May Be a Lot Different Than Folks Expect)

When we think of “economic collapse” our imaginations usually lead us immediately to the desperation we’ve witnessed in places like Venezuela or Greece. We think of starvation, a complete lack of medical care, and waves of suicide by people who simply can’t survive. We imagine an apocalyptic societal breakdown that is immediately visible.

Here in America, I suspect the collapse is going to look a lot different than it has in these other countries…at least, at first. And in my description, it’s entirely likely you’ll see that many of these signs have been happening all around us for years.

It will be gradual.

The thing with collapses that we see in the media is that we are seeing the end results of events that have been slowly declining for years. Venezuela was one of the wealthiest countries in the world back until the mid-1980s, due to their rich oil reserves. Then oil prices collapsed and their fall began. It was actually several decades though before it was truly evident that the country was in trouble.

Preparedness bloggers here have been sounding the warning bell since 2008 (at least) when our economy went into a recession. While the US managed to dig its way out of that to at least an illusion of renewed prosperity, it’s questionable how much of that return was real and how much of it was propaganda.

It’s unlikely that we’ll see just one event that says clearly to everyone, “Hey, our economy has collapsed. The Great Depression 2.0 has arrived, today, January 14, 2019, due to X event.”

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

Money: How Its Past Predicts Its Future

January 11, 2019

Money: How Its Past Predicts Its Future

What is money, where does it come from and more importantly where does it go?

At first glance, it might appear inexplicable and bizarre that our governments and our rulers have managed to keep their stronghold over the monetary system for 2000 years, especially when one thinks about the countless ways in which they abused that power and used their monopoly to the detriment of their own citizens. It was a mass delusion that facilitated this, a blind belief that they, and they alone, can be trusted with this vital task while looking out for our best interests as well. However, now, as mistrust against our rulers is justifiably deepening, it is becoming increasingly clear that only we as individuals can ensure our best interests and it is only a matter of time before the entire ill-founded edifice comes crumbling down.

To answer all these questions about money, we need to first understand its history — keeping in mind that those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. Everything started when people settled down and instead of living off nature they started adding value to it; this was the beginning of private property rights. In addition, men started to realize that some people are better at performing specific duties than others and thus set into motion what we today understand as the division of labor. This increased economic output and in general terms, everyone became better off. This transition in how work was performed in an economy made trade between individuals a necessity. Thus barter, or the exchange of real goods and services against other real goods and services, became commonplace. Barter also had its disadvantages, because it required what is known as a “double coincidence of wants” in order to function.

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

Money is no Object

January 11, 2019

Money is no Object

Chances are, most of what you’ve learned about taxes and the economy is wrong. In fact, the key principles at work in our economic system are very different from what we’re taught.

If you find you’re one of those who’s been misled, it’s not your fault. A system such as ours – where eight individuals control as much wealthas half of all humanity – can only be maintained with force and deception. As the industrialist Henry Ford is said to have opined, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

It’s commonly believed that:

• Today’s money has intrinsic value. (It doesn’t.)

• Taxes fund government spending. (They don’t.)

• Automation inevitably threatens jobs. (It doesn’t have to.)

• Federal budget deficits must saddle future generations with debt. (Not so.)

In fact, to fund needed social programs – like free national healthcare, free education, jobs for all, a reduced work week with no reduction in pay, cleaning up the environment, rebuilding infrastructure, converting the economy from fossil fuels to renewables, and more – the federal government could simply print more money. Wait a minute, you say, it can’t be as simple as that! But read on. The enormity of the deception promoted by those at the top is that funding human needs really is that simple.

One of the biggest misdirections of all time is expressed in the well-known aphorism: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” While it’s true that wealth doesn’t grow on trees, money and wealth are not the same thing. Money itself is available in whatever quantity society needs.

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

Time is Money, Money is Time

January 9, 2019

TIME IS MONEY, MONEY IS TIME

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
-Macbeth

Our limited time, our brief candle as Shakespeare’s Macbeth had it earlier in the soliloquy quoted from above, may count for very little in the grand scheme of things, but is of the utmost importance to each of us personally. Unlike the other dimensions, height, breadth and depth, the fourth is almost infinite, but individuals enjoy only a small part of it, our three-score years and ten. Time moves on. What really matters is not wasting it.

We may appear to others to be wasting time. But it is not wasting it when we take a break, recharge our batteries, or stop to think. Pleasure-seeking, pursuing happiness, removing uneasiness is making good use of time. We are all different and enjoy different things, so wasting time is not time wasted so long as it our personal choice. No one can allocate time as effectively as the individual. It is intensely personal.

While using time effectively is a private pleasure, wasting it can be very frustrating. Wasting time is the denial of personal ambition, whether it is as trivial as in a game of cards or as momentous as changing one’s circumstances. Avoiding time-wasting requires positive personal action, but we live in a world where that decision is progressively being subsumed by the state. But the state has little concept of the importance of time, replacing it with indecision and deferment. Time offers change and progress, except to the state. The evolution of events that go with time undermines the state’s certainties. The state believes it has all the time in the world to get things right by consulting, reporting, debating and eventually acting, while everyone affected has to wait.

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

Let’s do follow the climate money!

January 7, 2019

Let’s do follow the climate money!

The climate crisis industry incessantly claims that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global economies, health and living standards possible.

Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

However, as France’s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world is not prepared to go down that dark path. Countries worldwide are expanding their reliable fossil fuel use, and families do not want to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we’ve experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.

More importantly, the CCI “solutions” would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.

Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats – to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would be grossly insufficient for humanity’s needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels – and some of the mining involves child labor.

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

The “Stock Market Crash Of 2018” Is Rapidly Transforming Into “The Financial Crisis Of 2019”

January 4, 2019

The “Stock Market Crash Of 2018” Is Rapidly Transforming Into “The Financial Crisis Of 2019”

Stock markets are crashing all over the world, we are seeing extremely violent “flash crashes” in the forex marketplace, economic conditions are slowing down all over the globe, and fear is causing many investors to become extremely trigger happy. The stock market crash of 2018 wiped out approximately 12 trillion dollars in global stock market wealth, but things were supposed to calm down once we got into 2019. But clearly that is not happening. After Apple announced that their sales during the first quarter are going to be much, much lower than previously anticipated, Apple’s stock price started shooting down like a rocket and by the end of the session on Wednesday the company had lost 75 billion dollars in market capitalization. Meanwhile, “flash crashes” caused some of the most violent swings that we have ever seen in the foreign exchange markets…

It took seven minutes for the yen to surge through levels that have held through almost a decade.

In those wild minutes from about 9:30 a.m. Sydney, the yen jumped almost 8 percent against the Australian dollar to its strongest since 2009, and surged 10 percent versus the Turkish lira. The Japanese currency rose at least 1 percent versus all its Group-of-10 peers, bursting through the 72 per Aussie level that has held through a trade war, a stock rout, Italy’s budget dispute and Federal Reserve rate hikes.

This is the kind of chaos that we only see during a financial crisis.

Investors are also being rattled by the fact that China just experienced its first factory activity contraction in over two years…

The People’s Bank of China said on Wednesday evening it had relaxed its conditions on targeted reserve requirement cuts to benefit more small firms.

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

2018 Was The Worst Year For The Stock Market Since The Financial Crisis Of 2008

January 1, 2019

2018 Was The Worst Year For The Stock Market Since The Financial Crisis Of 2008 Now that the year is finally over, we can officially say that 2018 was the worst year for stocks in an entire decade. Not since the last financial crisis have we had a year like this, and many believe that 2019 will be even worse. And of course the truth is that stocks are still tremendously overvalued. Stock valuation ratios always return to their long-term averages eventually, and if the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged another 8,000 points from the current level that would begin to get us into that neighborhood. Unfortunately, the system is so highly leveraged that it will not be able to handle a price decline of that magnitude. The relatively modest drops that we have seen already have caused a tremendous amount of chaos on Wall Street, and a full-blown meltdown would quickly result in a nightmare scenario potentially even worse than what we experienced in 2008.

For investors that had become accustomed to large gains year after year, 2018 was a brutal wake up call. The following comes from Fox Business…

2018 may be remembered as the year the Grinch stole your retirement or stock investment account.

December was the worst month for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 since 1931, as tracked by our partners at Dow Jones Market Data Group. The S&P 500, the broadest measure of stocks, lost 9 percent and the Dow over 8.5 percent.

For the year, stocks turned in the worst performance since 2008.

According to the bulls, this wasn’t supposed to happen. In the middle of the year, they were projecting that a “booming” U.S. economy would continue to drive stock prices higher, but instead we just witnessed the worst three month stretch for stocks since the 4th quarter of 2008, and the month of December was the most painful of all…

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

Weekly Commentary: Thoughts on Liquidity

December 29, 2018

Weekly Commentary: Thoughts on Liquidity

“Money” challenged – and often confounded – economic thinkers for centuries. It functions both as a “medium of exchange” and “unit of account.” Simple enough. Too often the focus has been how to use money to stimulate economic activity and achieve political gains. From my perspective, money’s importance rests with its fundamental roles as a “Store of Value” and as the bedrock of financial systems. Unsound money has been a root cause of a lot of turmoil throughout history – including the monetary fiasco that collapsed in 2008. Yet concerns for the soundness of contemporary “money” these days are viewed as hopelessly archaic.

My thinking on contemporary “money” has been adapted from a much earlier focus on money’s “preciousness.” Traditionally, money was precious either because it was made of or backed by gold/precious metals. It retained preciousness only so long as its quantity remained carefully contained. Throughout history, the value of “paper money” has invariably moved inversely to the quantity issued – fits and starts, enthusiasm and revulsion and, too often, a path to worthlessness.

Today, “money” is largely electronic/digitized IOUs/Credit – but a special kind of Credit. Money is a perceived safe and liquid store of (nominal) value. This perception assures essentially insatiable demand. Unlimited demand creates a powerful propensity for over-issuance. Historically, monetary inflation ensured the Scourge of Inflationism. Monetary excess distorted flows to goods markets, setting in motion problematic inflationary dynamics in incomes, spending patterns and economic structure.

Despite money’s critical role within an economy, a consensus view on how best to define, monitor and manage the “money supply” escaped both the economics community and policymakers more generally. Too often, politics and ideology muddied already murky analytical waters. What is money these days, and how best to manage monetary matters? Does anyone even care – so long as the securities markets are strong?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This Is Exactly The Kind Of Behavior That You Would Expect During A Stock Market Implosion…

December 28, 2018

This Is Exactly The Kind Of Behavior That You Would Expect During A Stock Market Implosion…

If a doctor tells you that his patient’s condition is swinging up and down wildly, is that a good sign or a bad sign? Of course the answer to that question is quite obvious. And if a doctor tells you that his patient’s condition is “stable”, is that a good sign or a bad sign? Just like in the medical world, instability is not something that is a desirable thing on Wall Street, and right now we are witnessing extreme volatility on an almost daily basis. On Thursday, the Dow was already down several hundred points when I went out to do some grocery shopping with my wife, and at the low point of the day it had fallen 611 points. But then a “miracle happened” and the Dow ended the day with an increase of 260 points. As I detailed yesterday, this is precisely the sort of behavior that you would expect during a chaotic bear market.

As Fox Business has noted, bear market rallies are typically “sharp, quick and usually short”. I figured that the momentum from Wednesday would carry over into the early portion of Thursday, so I was surprised when the Dow was down by so much as we neared the middle of the day. But then around 2 PM we witnessed an extraordinary market surge…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a 865-point swing in less than two hours. The blue-chip index had been down in mid-afternoon more than 500 points to cut the previous session’s gains in half, before bargain hunters and short covering turned a big decline into a modest gain.

An 865 point swing in less than two hours is not “normal”.

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

U.S. Stocks Just Had Their Best Day Ever – And Here Is Why That Is A REALLY Bad Sign…

December 27, 2018

U.S. Stocks Just Had Their Best Day Ever – And Here Is Why That Is A REALLY Bad Sign…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average just posted its biggest single day point gain ever. On Wednesday, the Dow shot up 1,086 points, which shattered the old record by a staggering 150 points. It truly was a remarkable day, and this is the sort of “Santa Claus rally” that investors had been hoping for. Many are convinced that this rally is an indication that the crisis of the last three months is over, but as you will see below, this sort of extreme volatility is actually a really bad sign. But for the moment, the mainstream media is pushing the narrative that everything is once again peachy keen in the financial world. Just consider the following quote from CNN…

“Investors went bargain shopping the day after Christmas, where stocks just got too cheap relative to earnings, future earnings, any reasonable assessment of earnings,” said Chris Rupkey, managing director of MUFG. “The coast is clear, back up the truck, investors are saying enough already, the world is not ending.”

The coast is clear?

Really?

Do you think that they were saying the same thing on October 13th, 2008? On that day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 936 points, and at the time it was the biggest daily point increase that Wall Street had ever seen by a very wide margin.

Of course that was right in the middle of the last financial crisis, and stocks just kept on tumbling after that massive rally.

But then on October 28th, 2008 the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 889 points. Up until Wednesday, that was the second biggest daily point increase in U.S. history.

Was the crisis over then?

No way. Subsequently, the Dow kept on falling until it eventually bottomed out in early 2009.

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

This Was The Worst Week For The Stock Market Since The Financial Crisis Of 2008

December 22, 2018

This Was The Worst Week For The Stock Market Since The Financial Crisis Of 2008

Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, they did. During normal times, a Friday before Christmas is an extremely boring trading session, but these are not normal times. On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down another 414 points, and that brought the total drop for the week to 1,655 points. The marketplace has been completely gripped by panic, and CNN’s Fear & Greed index has just registered the highest “fear rating” that we have ever seen. I keep saying that we have not witnessed anything like this since the last financial crisis, and the numbers clearly back that assessment up. In fact, this was the largest weekly percentage drop for the Dow since October 2008…

The Dow just suffered its deepest weekly plunge since 2008and the Nasdaq is officially in a bear market.

The miserable performance reflects deepening fears on Wall Street of an economic slowdown and overly-aggressive Federal Reserve.

Apprehension about a looming government shutdown and anxiety over higher interest rates were two of the major factors that pushed stocks down on Friday.

Normally trading volume is very, very light in the days leading up to Christmas, so what we just witnessed was extremely unusual. Trading volume on Friday was “really heavy” with “more than 12 billion shares” changing hands…

In a bad sign on Friday, volume was really heavy. More than 12 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges on Friday, the biggest volume in at least two years.

When I have warned about a “rush for the exits” in the past, this is the kind of thing that I am talking about.

Many investors were panic-selling on Friday because they wanted to be out of the market before things closed down for the holidays, and stock prices just kept getting hammered lower and lower.

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

Worst Market Crash In A Decade: The Dow Has Fallen More Than 4000 Points As Stocks Rapidly Approach “The Capitulation Phase”

December 21, 2018

Worst Market Crash In A Decade: The Dow Has Fallen More Than 4000 Points As Stocks Rapidly Approach “The Capitulation Phase”

We have not seen anything like this since the financial crisis of 2008. On Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 464 points, and over the last five trading sessions it has lost a total of more than 1,700 points. CNN’s Fear & Greed index has swung all the way over to “extreme fear”, and there has only been one December in all of U.S. history that was worse for the stock market than this one. But back at the very beginning of October, most of the experts never would have imagined that the year would end this way. According to CNBC, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time record high of 26,951.81 in early October, and investors were feeling really good about things at that point. But on Thursday the index closed at just 22,859.60, and that means that the Dow has lost more than 4,000 points in less than three months.

All of the major trend lines have been shattered and all of the key support levels have been breached. When analysts look at stock charts these days, all they are seeing is sell signal after sell signal. One investment strategist told CNN that stocks are “quickly approaching the capitulation phase”…

“Equity markets are quickly approaching the capitulation phase after having broken below critical support,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, told CNN Business.

According to Google, “capitulation” means “the action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand.” In this case, the bulls are on the verge of surrendering to the bears, and if that happens we could see a tremendous amount of chaos break loose on Wall Street.

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

The Fed Relies Indirectly on the Banks & Cannot Stimulate the Economy Directly

December 21, 2018

The Fed Relies Indirectly on the Banks & Cannot Stimulate the Economy Directly

QUESTION: Hello,
Since the Fed ‘created’ ‘money’ after 2008 that was then deposited back at the Fed by the recipient banks ( say,75% of it), it is not easy to see why the Fed is to blame for the credit explosion since 2008- nor for the very slow ( like a paralytic centipede) hike in Fed Funds that seems already as I write to be seen as a problem.
Surely it is the banks who truly created the money ( out of nothing as usual) by financing the purchase of EXISTING assets at ever-rising prices (and also consumer spending) rather than new business expansion?
In other words, the fault is at the bottom to be laid at the door of the banks. They created the wrong kind of credit bubble ( not that any such is ever a good idea).
What say you, Sir?
Many thanks
B.

ANSWER: There is a deeper problem that nobody addresses. The entire Keynesian philosophy of increasing the money supply was based upon the practice whereby private money was being created during each crash since 1857. It worked perfectly. Here is a Depression Scrip for $1 to supplement the money supply during a crisis. There was nothing wrong with this concept.

The original design of the Federal Reserve in 1913 was PERFECT!!!!!! It “stimulated” by purchasing corporate short-term paper which created an elastic money supply. The paper naturally matured and thus the money supply contracted. When Congress usurped the Fed in World War I and ordered it to buy only government bonds to fund the war, they NEVER returned the Fed to its original design.

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

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