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June 29, 2024 Readings

June 29, 2024

Attempting a new format (that I will probably fiddle with for a week or so) for sharing articles of interest. Below you will find a number of links to those articles. Note that I may add a few before the day ends so check back. Hope this works for everyone…

First-Responder Trauma: A New Framework for Activists

The Future We Deserve

Climate Disaster Preparation Guide | by Climate Survivor | Jun, 2024 | Medium

The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are to Blame

How Does Anyone Still Care About This Bullshit?

Julian Assange Is Free. Washington Crafter ‘A Face Saving Deal’. Massive Violation of Habeas Corpus as a Favour to Washington. Paul C. Roberts

Health Prepping: Microbiome Maintenance is Key to…Everything

The Coming US Budget Disaster Will Impoverish Americans | Mises Institute

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: 10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy

Welsh Police Pay Home Visit To Man For Displaying Reform UK Political Sign

American Pravda: JFK, LBJ, and Our Great National Shame, by Ron Unz

The Spread of Artificial Intelligence. The Emergence of ‘Deep Fakes’, Masterful Distortions. ‘Who Controls the Past Controls the Future’

Fact-Checking Network Says Online Face Checks Aren’t Censorship

US Readies To Evacuate Americans From Lebanon If War Erupts, Marines En Route | ZeroHedge

The UN: “We must all work to eradicate (hate speech) completely.

UN food chief: Poorest areas have zero harvests left

Where is the Sense of Urgency? – by Matt Orsagh

A water war is looming between Mexico and the US. Neither side will win | CNN

 

Trump Administration on Track for $1 Trillion Budget Deficit This Year

November 20, 2018

Trump Administration on Track for $1 Trillion Budget Deficit This Year

The Trump administration is on track to post a 2019 fiscal year budget deficit of over $1 trillion. These are the kind of budget deficits we would expect to see during a deep recession, not an “economic boom.”

The government got off to a good start at achieving this illustrious achievement last month. According to the Treasury Department report, the deficit came in at $100.5 billion in October. That represents a 58 percent increase from the $63 billion deficit recorded in October 2017. Spending rose 18 percent year-on-year. Revenues only increased by 7 percent.The month-on-month increase was impacted by a quirk in the calendar. Total outlays were much higher this October compared to last year because Social Security payments for October 2017 went out in September due to Oct. 1 falling on the weekend. Nevertheless, we should have seen a decrease in this year’s September outlays compared to last year and that didn’t happen. The September 2018 deficit was significantly bigger (119.116) than September 2017 ($7.886 billion) even without the October Social Security payments falling in September this year. The bottom line is spending is going up year-over-year.

Spending last month continued the pace of the last fiscal year. The federal government ended 2018 with the largest budget deficit since 2012. Uncle Sam ended 2018 $779 billion in the red, adding to the ballooning national debt. The CBO forecast this year’s deficit will come in close to $1 trillion. The current Treasury Department estimate projects a total fiscal 2019 deficit over the $1 trillion mark, coming in at $1.085 trillion.

The national debt expanded by more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2018. It currently stands at over $21.7 trillion. According to data released by the Treasury Department, fiscal 2018 gave us the sixth-largest fiscal-year debt increase in the history of the United States. (If you’re wondering how the debt can grow by a larger number than the annual deficit, economist Mark Brandly explains here.)

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

World’s Largest Asset Manager Warns: The Dollar’s Days As Global Reserve Currency Are Numbered

November 7, 2018

World’s Largest Asset Manager Warns: The Dollar’s Days As Global Reserve Currency Are Numbered

Have BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Russian President Vladimir Putin been comparing notes?

In comments that sound eerily similar to a warning issued by Putin, who warned during a speech last month that the US risked undermining the dollar’s reserve currency status with its sanctions regime, the CEO of the world’s largest asset-management firm said Tuesday during a panel discussion at the New Economic Forum in Singapore that the US dollar’s status as the world’s dominant currency wouldn’t last forever.

Fink

And instead of citing external factors like China’s expanding economic clout and influence, or an insurgent Russia, Fink pointed to the widening US budget deficit as the biggest risk to the dollar’s status as the global hegemon. And while it might not happen tomorrow, or next year, over time, as US interest rates rise and the federal government strains under its tremendous debt burden, the creditors who were once eager to buy up Treasury bonds will gradually disappear.

“We’re going to move there over time” Fink said.

Instead of working with its creditors like China, the US is fighting them by engaging in an acrimonious trade war. Fink said that, in his experience, it’s never wise to fight with your lenders.

“The problem is we are living with a deficit that is very large. We are fighting with our creditors right now worldwide,” Fink said.

“Generally, when you fight with your banker, it’s not a good outcome,” he said.

“I wouldn’t recommend you fight with your lenders, and we’re fighting with our lenders. Forty percent of the U.S. deficit is funded by external factors. No other country has that.”

And as interest rates rise and the government struggles with its newfound debt premium, collateral damage in the equity market will be almost inevitable.

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

 

Think That Governments Won’t Default? Think Again

September 11, 2018

Think That Governments Won’t Default? Think Again

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just reported that the U.S. budget deficit is widening in a ‘big way’.

And what’s even worse – last month the net interest on public debt jumped 25% compared to last August. . .

I wrote last January about the soaring cost of interest that the U.S. Treasury’s paying on its outstanding debts (you can skim that here). And it looks like things keep getting out of control – especially as the Federal Reserve continues raising rates (which further increases borrowing costs).

Besides this very expensive ‘interest’ problem – the CBO reported that the U.S. budget deficit widened to its fifth highest ever.

And as Trump’s tax cuts continue taking away from Federal revenue, while government spending – including interest payments – keeps growing, we need to ask ourselves some important questions. . .

The next time the U.S. slides into a recession – will they be able to continue borrowing such enormous amounts while maintaining their interest payments? Will they follow the same route that the Emerging Markets are headed today?

We see many talking heads on CNBC and other mainstream financial media tell us that there’s virtually no risk of the U.S. defaulting. Same thing with any other major country.

Even worse, there’s a growing point of view preaching to the masses that aslong as country has a central bank, they can issue all the debt they need without risk of default.

Why would anybody think that?

Because – for instance – if the U.S. didn’t have enough cash flow (tax revenue) to pay creditors (buyers of U.S. bonds). And if they weren’t able to borrow anymore to roll over debt – the Fed would simply print U.S. dollars instead.

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

When Budget Deficits Will Really Go Vertical

February 17, 2018

When Budget Deficits Will Really Go Vertical

Mnuchin Gets It

United States Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has a sweet gig.  He writes rubber checks to pay the nation’s bills.  Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce.  Instead, like magic, they clear. How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, we don’t quite understand.  But Mnuchin gets it.  He knows exactly how full faith and credit works – and he knows plenty more.

Master of the Mint and economy wizard Steven Mnuchin and his wife at the annual ritual greenback burning festival. [PT]

In fact, Mnuchin’s wife, Louise Linton, says she admires him because “he understands the economy.”  And Mnuchin, no doubt, admires Linton, a Scottish actress 18 years younger, because “she loves SoulCycle Snapchat filters that make people look like puppies and piglets.”  Naturally, Mnuchin gets the importance of puppy and piglet filters and how this bizarre fad fits into the big picture of the economy.

Unlike Mnuchin, we find the economy, and its infinite and dynamic relationships, to be beyond comprehension.  But that doesn’t deter us from attempting to make some sense of it each week.  When it comes to Snapchat filters we know nothing – and we could care less.  Still, who are we to question Snap Inc.’s $24 billion market capitalization?

What we do understand is simple arithmetic.  So, too, we care a great deal about the increasingly precarious predicament the 115th U.S. Congress is putting the American people in.  As far as we can tell, the approaching disaster is much closer than Mnuchin will publicly recognize.

US public debtberg-to-GDP ratio – cruising for a bruising. The growth in public debt in recent years is unprecedented in peace time (arguably, the term “peace time” is not an accurate description of the current era). Lettuce not forget, this is just the debt they actually admit to, so to speak.

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

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