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05.24.22- What Could Go Right?
What could go off the cliff that hasn't already gone off the cliff? Rip-roaring inflation, check.Hot war in Europe, check. Global food crisis, check. Semi-permanent supply-chain snarls, check. Geopolitical blackmail, check. Semi-permanent energy scarcities / supply issues, check. Geopolitical tensions through the roof, check. Public discontent, check. Extreme political partisanship, check. Hard-landing recession already baked in, check. Shrinking corporate profits, check. Extremes of weather, check. Investor sentiment is in free-fall, check. Confidence in the political and financial systems' ability to navigate all of the above is tumbling into the abyss, check. Read More |
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05.23.22- “The Year of Breakdown”
The Dow Jones careened another 1,164 stomach-wrenched points today — the fifth collapse of at least 800 points this year — and the greatest single-day plunge since 2020. Both the S&P and Nasdaq were crowded into the identical box. Both endured the identical harrows. The S&P plummeted 165 points; the Nasdaq 566. What accounts for today’s tumults? The consensus answer is inflation. Read More |
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05.21.22- Is Biden's 'Success' Our Mess?
So is Biden malicious, incompetent, or a wannabe left-wing ideologue? Read More |
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05.20.22- The end of fantasy finance
Over the past 40 years, finance has come to dominate economies around the world, and the process of financialization has made many people rich. Every homeowner, every shareholder, and especially every cryptocurrency ‘hodler’ has benefited enormously from the fountain of fiat money which has flowed from our banking system. Read More |
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05.19.22- Nowhere to Hide
This puts the Nasdaq solidly into a bear market (down 20% or more from an interim peak) while the Dow and S&P 500 are both in correction territory (down 10% or more from an interim peak). Read More |
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05.18.22- Stocks Puke As TINA Unwind Accelerates
US equity futures are tanking after the cash markets open, taking out yesterday's lows...Read More |
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05.17.22- Everything We Know About the End of the “Everything Bubble”
Today’s title, referencing a soon-to-be-released movie that looks a superior version of a multiverse of madness than the one starring Dr Strange, nicely sums up our current global situation. Everything is happening everywhere all at once – yet key markets are failing to capture it or aren’t explaining the second or third order implications where they are. Read More |
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05.16.22- Everything We Know About the End of the “Everything Bubble”
These are all variations on a theme as old as markets, referred to as a speculative bubble. Economics Online defines this type of bubble as: Read More |
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05.14.22- That Giant Sound You Just Heard Was the Housing Market Starting to Crack
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05.13.22- The most difficult thing in economics…is to explain rising prices
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05.12.22- Americans Are Using Plastic To Make Ends Meet As Prices Continue To Rise
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05.11.22- Five Warning Signs the End of Dollar Hegemony Is Near… Here’s What Happens Next
China is the world’s largest producer and buyer of gold. Russia is number two. Most of that gold finds its way into the Russian and Chinese governments’ treasuries. Read More |
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05.10.22- Yes, Rates Are STILL Going Higher
We've spent the last nearly forty years, as you can see here, in a generally declining-rate environment. Let me explain what this means for corporate America. I borrow $1 million at 13% interest. This costs me $130,000 a year to keep "outstanding." I produce nothing for the next five years and pay the coupon with the $130,000 each year. I've now got $350,000 in cash left (the rest I paid in interest) and I'm very bankrupt since I can't pay the million back -- right? Read More |
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05.09.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: National Self-Perception
Bill Shakespeare had a talent for phrasing basic truths well, and this quote is no exception. (Even if you lie to others, don’t lie to yourself, or you’re in real trouble.) Much has been said about the American self-image, going back to its inception as an upstart nation that imagined it could succeed as a republic, as Athens had failed to do. Read More |
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05.07.22- Buckle Up For A Crashing Economy And More Inflation
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05.06.22- The Great Crash Of 2022... What Happens Next?
Yesterday’s market meltdown was heralded as a “capitulation trade”, but who knows? What we do know is there an awful lot to worry about, and the conditions for the BIG ONE have been building for decades. Time to re-read The Great Crash, 1929. There is nothing like a 6.30 am swim against the tide on cold, grey morning in muddy near-freezing water to remind you of why we spend so much money on mattresses and warm snuggly duvets. Of course, a swim should have been a wonderful moment to contemplate what the papers are calling the “Capitulation Trade”. Read More |
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05.05.22- Collapse Is Happening Before Our Eyes
This process can take many years. For example, the decline of sterling as the leading global reserve currency played out over 30 years from 1914 (the beginning of World War I) to 1944 (the Bretton Woods conference). Read More |
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05.04.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: “Disinformation” is Just a Boot
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05.03.22- We're In "Uncharted Territory" - Paul Tudor Jones "Can't Think Of A Worse Environment" For Bond & Stock Investors
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05.02.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: “This is This”
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04.30.22- US Economy Crashes Headlong
Just a few days ago, Goldman Sachs was regarded as becoming the most bearish bank out there by forecasting - rather daintily now I think - we have a 35% chance of eventually seeing a recession in about a year! Deutsche Bank - the second-most bearish bank in the US right now - showed great boldness by prognosticating the US could go into recession in late 2023 - well over a year away! Read More |
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04.29.22- The Media Is Still Trying To Convince You The Economy Is Booming
The U.S. economy contracted 1.4% in the first quarter of 2021, the first time the economy has shrunk since the beginning of the pandemic. Media outlets padded their stories about the economic nosedive with reassurances about strong consumer spending and continued investment. Read More |
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Spiking mortgage rates multiply the effects of exploding home prices on mortgage payments, and it has taken layer after layer of homebuyers out of the market for the past four months. And we can see that. Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell further this week and were down 17% from a year ago, hitting the lowest level since May 2020, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly Purchase Index today. The index is down over 30% from peak-demand in late 2020 and early 2021, which was then followed by the historic price spikes last year. Read More |
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04.27.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Shocks to the System
There is something about being detached from reality that makes it hard to go about your everyday business. In the quaint asylums of yore, it was understood that a few shocks to the system could bring lunatics out of a fugue state of derangement - a cold water plunge… an insulin hot-shot to induce convulsions… some electrodes placed artfully on select regions of the brain…. It looks like America is about to be treated to some shocks. Will they break the mass formation psychosis that styles itself unironically as “progressive politics?” Read More |
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04.25.22- The economic consequences of the war in Ukraine
This morning: The Ukraine War has catalysed a tsunami of negative economic events around the global economy – and markets are remaining pretty much blind to the long-term consequences. Read More |
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04.23.22- Weekend Rant:
Welcome to the season of everything losing ground, at least for Western Civ. Sore-beset with idiots and scoundrels running things, the West stumbles backwards into neo-medieval darkness and superstition, hurling garlic bombs of objurgation against the supposedly wicked Putin along the way. Read More |
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04.22.22- Everyone Has A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Face.... And Everyone Is Being Punched In The Face
My generation we grew up being told that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’. Western culture of course changes with each generation: now free speech is considered violence by some. There’s a whole thing happening at Twitter in particular about it. Expect it to get louder now actual money might be on the table. And do we get free speech back, or another billionaire plaything that dies in darkness, like CNN+ just did after three weeks and $100m down the drain? Read More |
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04.21.22- Food riots and “inflation lockdowns” will endure
International Man: Recently, we’ve seen people riot over rising prices-especially food prices-in Sri Lanka, Peru, and other countries. What is going on here? Read More |
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04.20.22- Gold, Inflation And Famine
The war in Ukraine continues to put stress on global food and commodity supply chains. The mainstream media does not appear to be giving this issue enough attention. ZeroHedge published a report highlighting that Europe depends on Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine for energy, palladium, nickel, grains, pig iron, certain types of steel, and many other commodities. Energy, especially, is a vulnerability as Russia now is demanding payment in rubles. Europe cannot shift to other suppliers or energy in the short term. Pig iron and other iron and steel products are also being impacted heavily. The EU is also facing import issues with goods from third countries that rely on imports of raw materials from the war zone. Read More |
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04.19.22- We may be entering the ‘down phase’ of the economic cycle
The Emperor’s son and heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had just been assassinated the previous morning in Sarajevo. And there was still much they didn’t know. Some of the Emperor’s ministers suggested they demand a criminal investigation into the assassination in order to gather all the facts. Read More |
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04.18.22- Take Your Money Off The Grid
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04.16.22- The Next Big Event Will Be Asset DEFLATION!
We have been on the record for many years, that we would experience inflation AND deflation at the same time. Two years ago, anyone talking about an inflationary spiral was laughed at and considered out of touch. Fast forward to today, and it is extremely hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe inflation is now embedded in the system. Read More |
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04.15.22- You Can’t Blame the Fed
For example, money includes cash and checking deposits. But then there’s “near money,” which includes such things as savings deposits and money market mutual funds. They can be converted into cash or checking deposits, so they’re considered near money. Read More |
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04.14.22- "Are We Living In A Dream World?"
It was also a punishing quarter for many investors. Stocks swooned and rebounded but still ended down for the quarter. Bonds were brutalized with one of the worst quarters ever. As such, it was also one of the few occasions for which balanced fund investors were not cushioned from the blows. The big question now is, was this just a blip or was it the beginning of a new and more hostile investment landscape? Read More |
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You should read the entire report and understand how cruelly and intentionally you were deceived and to comprehend that the deaths from the Covid “vaccine” are likely far from over. Read More |
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04.12.22- Doug Casey's Latest Frontier Investment
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04.11.22- Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Is Creating a Financial World War
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04.09.22- Sit Back & Watch Europe
The stunning spectacle of the EU committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages... Like a cheap Kurosawa remake the movie is actually about the Empire of Lies-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with subsequent rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of the Europeans. Read More |
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04.08.22- Is this the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency?
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04.07.22- Democrats' Approach To Rising Gas Prices Reveals Their Economic Illiteracy
Rather than acknowledging that reckless fiscal and monetary policy are toblame, Democrats have turned to their favorite boogeyman to explain the sharp increase in prices: corporate greed. From “big poultry” to “big oil,” Democrats are eager to scapegoat their harmful economic policies. Read More |
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04.06.22- The Coming Global Financial Revolution: Russia Is Following the American Playbook
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Musk has been an outspoken proponent of free speech - which he says that failing to adhere to "fundamentally undermines democracy." Read More |
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04.04.22-Why Q1 Was So Strange
First, here are price returns from the end of 2021 to the early-mid March 2022 lows for select global and US equity market indices: Read More |
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04.02.22- Death of the dollar begins TODAY; the final chapter of a debt-based empire
This means that Russia isn’t merely demanding rubles for gas and oil exports; it’s also going to demand rubles for commodities. Read More |
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04.01.22- Why Is the Ruble Soaring?
Business Standard, March 29:
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03.31.22- Global Chaos, Soaring Commodity Prices, and What Happens Next
Doug Casey: Commodities, historically, are the worst investment in the world. The price trend of commodities for the last 5,000 years has been down. In neolithic times, a caveman who found a piece of iron meteorite was the equivalent of a billionaire. Read More |
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03.30.22- "Put On Your Seatbelts": BlackRock CEO Warns Over 'Scarcity Inflation'
On Tuesday, BlackRock Inc. President Rob Kapito told an audience in Austin, Texas, hosted by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, that an entire younger generation is quickly finding out what it means to suffer from shortages, according to Bloomberg. Read More |
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03.29.22- Another Stunning OCC Report
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03.28.22- Unbeknown To Most, A Financial Revolution Is Coming That Threatens To Change Everything (And Not For The Better)
Around 90 central banks are either in the process of experimenting with or are already piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In a world of just over 190 countries that is a large contingent, but given they include the European Central Bank (ECB) which alone represents 19 Euro Area economies, the actual number of economies involved is well over 100. They include all G20 economies and together represent more than 90% of global GDP.Read More |
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03.26.22- Designing a new currency is impractical
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03.25.22- Ruble Surges After Putin Ditches Dollars and Euros for Russian Oil and Gas
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03.24.22- What A Mess!
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03.22.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Takeover of America's
On the last day of the retreat, Boies gave a talk in the hotel ballroom to 100 or so attorneys, according to a lawyer who was present at the event. Read More |
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03.22.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Takeover of America's
On the last day of the retreat, Boies gave a talk in the hotel ballroom to 100 or so attorneys, according to a lawyer who was present at the event. Read More |
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03.21.22- Why Oil Might Spike
Commodity trading houses have had to manage liquidity at current price by re-entering the market and upsizing their facilities. They are obviously under pressure and the bond market is repricing. Here you have the CDS [credit default swap, a form of insurance against bond default] of Louis Dreyfus, a trading house active in the agri space. Friends tell me Blackstone already walked out on [global commodities trader Trafigura Group]. Read More |
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03.19.22- With All Eyes on Russia, Don’t Forget the United States’ Most Powerful Weapon – SWAP Lines
Warren Buffett once famously stated that derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction. Read More |
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03.18.22- Epocalypse Revisited: The Recurring Nightmare of Economic Collapse
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03.17.22- Rabo: Markets Are Ignoring Everything Actually Happening To Focus On What They Think Will Happen
Another wild, exhausting day of headlines and trading, but one simple summary: markets are ignoring everything actually happening to focus on what they think is going to happen, which involves keeping their fingers crossed when others may be doing the same in a different way. Read More |
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03.16.22- The Last Straw
Since this war is in Ukraine, let’s look at another war that took place in present Ukraine from 1854–56, during the Crimean War. Read More |
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03.15.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: A Miracle in Ukraine
That is because we have witnessed a miracle of God. That is correct. Your editor has witnessed a miracle of God. We now know, despite all contrary evidence, that the living God is with us - even in this godless age. For what we have observed is no dime-store or magician’s miracle - but an authentic miracle - true as gold, true as the stars. Read More |
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03.14.22- The Great Depression II
The Great Depression of the 1930’s is seen by most people to be the be-all and end-all of economic catastrophes and there’s good reason for that. Although the economic cycle has always existed, the period leading up to October 1929 was unusual, as those in the financial sector had become unusually creative. Read More |
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03.12.22- The End of Fiat Hoving Into View…
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03.11.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Last Americans To Believe in the Voluntary Union of the States
“No state . . can lawfully get out of the union . . . acts against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary . . .”
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03.10.22- What If It Breaks?
Very few people ask: what if it breaks? It's a question we can ask of a great many things: touchscreens, motherboards, tools, vehicles, supply chains and entire systems: what if it breaks? Read More |
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03.09.22- The Chaos Trade
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03.08.22- Commodity Catastrophe! The Ukraine War Has Thrown Global Markets Into A State Of Complete And Utter Chaos
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03.07.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Will There Be
“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” ― George Orwell Read More |
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03.05.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Is Putin poised to expose the globalist’s Covid genocide scheme?!
Dear President Putin: In view of the completely justifiable denazification of Ukraine in order to resolve Russia’s exceedingly serious security concerns, the US-UK-EU-NATO warmongers are now hellbent on attacking Moscow and subjugating the entire Russian Federation as you well know. Read More |
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03.04.22- Canada Reveals
When money was scarce, people bartered. For instance, at the end of World War II, cash was scarce in occupied Germany. Ordinary Germans adapted by exchanging cigarettes for food and other necessities. Read More |
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03.03.22- This Is Economic War - Central Banks Are The West's Paladins
Trying to strip out noise from facts has never been so complex! It’s time to resort to the rarest of all commodities; Common Sense – to work out how this will likely play out. There will be clear winners – and one massive loser – and significant economic pain before we get there. Read More |
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03.02.22- Swiss Safety in a World of Market Bubbles, Distorted Currencies
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03.01.22- Don’t Look Now
Did “Joe Biden’s” handlers actually want to start World War Three? They are the same posse who contrived the Russian Collusion hysteria of 2016-19, then launched Covid-19 - and the even more deadly mass “vaccination” response to it - and have now successfully goaded Russia into cleaning up the international hub of grift and mischief known as Ukraine. Read More |
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Matched genetic sequence patented by Moderna for cancer research purposes Researchers say one in 3trillion chance Covid developed the code naturally Read More |
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-Titus Livius (59 BC–17 AD) Children instinctively resort to blame-shifting tactics to offset culpability for bad behavior onto an external entity: “I had to pelt rocks at traffic! Everyone was doing it! I had no choice! The other kids would’ve made fun of me if I didn’t!”: Read More |
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02.24.22- The Dollar: A Victim of Its Own Success
The U.S. uses the dollar strategically to reward friends and punish enemies. The use of the dollar as a weapon is not limited to trade wars and currency wars, although the dollar is used tactically in those disputes. The dollar is much more powerful than that. Read More |
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02.23.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: “Head-Exploding” CDC/NYT Data Fraud
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02.22.22- A Tribute to the Mogambo Guru
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02.21.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Some Musing On The Durham Investigation
Everyone should realize that Durham has had to do a painstakingly thorough investigation, especially in tackling someone as prominent as Hillary Clinton. And the Watergate matter was child’s play next to this. Watergate was a burglary to get information about the Democratic Party’s plans for the election and little more. Read More |
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02.19.22- How Markets Tank & Gold Rises
It is fascinating to watch market pundits, policy makers, commercial bankers and other media-supported experts talk tough on the need to fight inflation via rate hikes and central bank balance sheet cuts. In fact, such chest-puffing would be comical if not otherwise so tragic. Read More |
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02.18.22- The Cost Of Living In The United States Is Rising To Absolutely Absurd Levels
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02.17.22- The World Is Revisiting One Of The Darkest Periods In Human History
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. -Ayn Rand Read More |
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02.16.22- A Rapidly Developing Super-Crisis - You’re In One
Does this make sense to you? In short, it’s a freakshow. Today here in the United States 20% of the population is unable to pay their energy bills-and this issue is much greater in parts of Europe. Read More |
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02.15.22- 2022 Biggest Stock Market Crash In History Likely
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02.14.22- Winter Storm Warning
We must assume economies, stock markets - perhaps civilization itself - offer no exceptions. They too must roll in rhythm with the cycling seasons. A season may run for months. Or Years. Decades. Centuries. Read More |
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02.12.22- Inflation Reaches 40-Year High at 7.5%
The price of living in America is completely unsustainable. Inflation soared in January by 7.5%, marking the fastest pace of price gains since February 1982 when the index reached 7.6%. Secretary Psaki attempted to do damage control the day before the report was released by stating that the White House would not be surprised if inflation came in over 7%, despite having no ideas or proposed solutions for controlling rapidly rising prices. Core prices jumped 6% last month YoY, outpacing December’s 5.5% reading when it reached the sharpest increase since August 1982. Read More |
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02.11.22- The Investors Who Ignore This Are In For a NASTY Surprise
For weeks now, I’ve noted time and again that the only thing holding up the stock market was abject manipulation. Financial institutions do NOT attempt to move markets. In fact, the traders charged with executing these institutions’ trades are graded based on their ability to buy and sell large chunks of stocks without moving the tape. Read More |
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02.10.22- Three Revolutionary Cycles
In our business, we try to think of the relationship we create with you, the actual person who opened this email. Mostly because we’re looking for solutions to complex questions just like you are. Read More |
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02.09.22- Is Deflation Around The Corner?
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02.08.22- Dominant superpowers don’t accumulate $30 trillion in debt
By August of that year, Maximinus was dead, and five other men had briefly held the title of Emperor. Only one (Gordian III) was still alive by the end of 238 AD. Read More |
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02.07.22- Facebook Is Learning That You Reap What You Sow
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02.05.22- Global Tightening amid Raging Inflation: February Update
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02.04.22- A Crash OVER 80% is Coming - 'Roller Coaster Crash'
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02.03.22- The U.S. Economy Just Took A Turn In A Very Ugly Direction
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02.02.22- The Economy is
Excerpted from Sunday January 30th GoldFix Weekly Report: Next week companies will resume stock buy-back programs. This, now that the Fed is done, should underpin any strength we get for the next few months. Volatility, to the extent we get it, will be an expression of doubts on that. Read More |
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02.01.22- Death by Inflation or
Why do central banks find themselves in a dilemma? Why has inflation risen so much? What is a bottleneck? What does tapering mean, and how could it affect us? The objective of this article is to answer these, and other, questions. Read More |
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01.31.22- Our Guide to the Engineered Market Sell-Off of 2022
And it all centers around the Fed. Fears of rate hikes started rattling stocks all the way back to the end of last year. Now, in the new year, uncertainty has clobbered stocks and cryptocurrencies. Headlines are now squarely focused on inflation and interest rates. Read More |
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01.29.22- Missing the forest for the tree
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01.28.22- Consequences, Consequences, Who Would Have Guessed...
But, one month in, I’ve formed a pretty unshakable view on the year ahead: 2022 is going to be very different. That does not necessarily mean very bad. Different and Bad are not mutually reinforcing unless you let them be… Whatever happens in coming months, this will be a year of tremendous opportunity… but also danger. Read More |
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01.27.22- 2022 - The Worst Bear Market
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01.26.22- Inflation Is The Kryptonite That Will End Our Decades-Long Monetary Policy Ponzi Scheme
The linchpin that allows the world’s nefarious central banking model to be so effective is that the commonfolk - the plumber, the electrician, the teacher, the bartender, bus driver or barber - don’t understand it. Read More |
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01.25.22- We Are Being Warned That A Horrifying STOCK MARKET CRASH Which Could Wipe Out Trillions Has Now Begun
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01.24.22- Tech Stocks' "Reality Bites" Moment Has Arrived
Tech stocks have taken a thumping this year – a well-timed reality check or a threat to bring down the whole market? Probably time for a clean out of all the speculative, improbable and fantastical perpetual motion machines that beguiled IPO and SPAC investors during the easy money era. Reality bites and it’s time to get real.. Let’s start the week with a statement of the downright bleeding obvious: Read More |
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01.22.22- Bad News, I'm Afraid
Many people wonder why the problem isn’t going away. Here’s the answer:
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01.21.22- “So Goes January, so Goes the Year”
The stock market endured another defeat today - all three major indexes absorbed losses. The Dow Jones went skidding 313 points, the S&P 500 an even 50, the Nasdaq Composite 186. Read More |
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01.20.22- PayPal Just Entered the Digital Currency Space
The ironic thing is that the world’s supply chains had been working extremely well. Yes, there was always a hiccup here and there. But after decades of building the infrastructure and systems to support “just in time” supply chains, things were working. Read More |
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01.19.22- Another Major Shortage Alert: The Florida Orange Crop In 2022 Will Be The Smallest Since World War II
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01.18.22- China's Property Sector Is Crashing Again And This Time It Has Reached The Country's Biggest Developer
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01.17.22- Mediocrity in power
Every nation has its fair share of people with no useful abilities, yet harboring considerable ambition and an insurmountable craving for la dolce vita. The longing is there, but with no means for its realization. So, what are they to do? Sooner or later the mediocre find a workable solution: they go into politics. Read More |
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01.15.22- Weekend Rant: Vaccine Aristocrats Strike Again
The skit begins with jazzy VO: “There’s a new doll in town and the fun is contagious. It’s Anti-Vax Barbie! She’s STRONG. She’s INDEPENDENT. She doesn’t trust SCIENCE!” Read More |
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01.14.22- The Fiscal & Monetary Cliffs
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01.13.22- Janet Yellen's Poison Pill Tax Gambit May Soon Explode Into a Huge Trade War
Poison Pill Set to Backfire To understands what’s happening we need to go back to the beginning. In April of 2021 Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen worked out a tax deal with the EU. Both the EU and the US want global minimum taxes and the deal Yellen worked out with the EU would heavily penalize US corporations if Congress did not pass Build Back Better. Read More |
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01.12.22- Troubling Trends In 2022
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01.11.22- The Real Threat to Democracy is Corrupting Wealth Inequality
Imagine a town of 1,000 adults and their dependents in which one person holds the vast majority of wealth and political influence. Would that qualify as a democracy? Read More |
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01.10.22- Worst Week for the 30-Year Long Bond in 49 Years
Epic Moves Jim Bianco posted an interesting Tweet Thread today on bond yields. Read More |
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01.08.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: When That Ol’ Mojo Stops Workin’
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01.07.22- Money supply and rising interest rates
That is about to change. The world of continual Keynesian stimulus is coming to its inevitable end with prices rising beyond the authorities’ control. Being blinded by neo-Keynesian beliefs, no one is prepared for it. Read More |
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01.06.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Crimes against Our Country
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01.05.22- The Changing World Order:
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01.04.22- 2022: The Year of Breakdown
As a financial newsletter, we are duty-bound to give our annual market forecast - such as it is. So today we fetch our crystal ball from storage… blow away the dust… and gaze for images of the year ahead. Read More |
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01.03.22- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: People are dying, but not the ones you think for the reasons you think
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01.01.22- How To Survive The Mega Collapse Of 2022
Welcome to 2022! The New Year’s edition of the Economic Prism is a place of wild guesses and rough suppositions. Today we focus our eyes through our proprietary prism. We set our sights over a 12 month viewshed. What do we see? Read More |
It is happening again. More than a decade ago, we witnessed an absolutely unprecedented “housing bubble” in the United States followed by a horrific crash that resulted in millions of Americans losing their homes and a financial catastrophe on Wall Street that we still talk about today. But instead of learning our lessons from that disaster, we are repeating history instead. The “housing bubble” that we are currently experiencing is far larger than the one that burst in 2008, and everyone knew that if mortgage rates rose high enough it could cause the bubble to burst. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is taking place. The average 30 year fixed mortgage rate was sitting at 2.67 percent in December 2020, and now it has risen to 5.30 percent. 
The role of money
For the first time in decades inflation fills the headlines. The popular press is full of tales of hardship for the disadvantaged in society. Higher energy costs, higher food costs, rising taxes — they all serve to inflict hardship. In opinion polls politicians are facing the wrath of those who suffer. Financial commentators have not much of a grasp of the situation, reacting religiously to government statistics and many concluding that the condition is stagflation — a condition whereby the economy stagnates while prices rise. 
Americans are feeling the pinch of inflation. 
It’s no secret that China and Russia have been stashing away as much gold as possible for many years.
Don't be the fool.
It’s one thing to lose your dignity as citizens, and another to just lose your country altogether….
Is it too extreme to say an annualized GDP growth number of minus 1.4% this quarter puts us in recession in this quarter, and is it too extreme to call that a “crash?” No, it is not in the leastextreme, and I’ll tell you why, even though the standard definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP change. 
Mainstream media outlets are pushing the narrative that the economy is running smoothly under President Joe Biden, mimicking his Thursday morning statement that the economy is still resilient.
None of these shocks can be postponed anymore. The Left’s war on America’s psyche is over….
Ugly Day. But I’m more and more amazed how Microsoft’s CEO picked the very peak to dump half his shares last November.
America is a drama queen, like the Queen Bee in one of those Real Housewives shows on cable TV, whose entire purpose in life is creating colorful conflicts within her circle of sisters….
International Man: Commodity prices go through cycles. Where are we in this cycle, and what do you think comes next?
Millennials (born between 1981 to 1996) have spent much of their lives living in an economic utopia where goods are cheap and plentiful. Unlike the generations before, these youngsters have yet to experience rapid inflation and shortages until now. 
The new Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Quarterly Derivatives Report was just released for positions held as of Dec 31, 2021. The report covers Over-The-Counter derivatives positions, including precious metals derivatives held by US banks, meaning that the listed futures and options contracts on the COMEX are not included in this report. Unlike the COT report, which never identifies traders by name, the OCC report does name the top four US banks in each category (where applicable). The OCC report for precious metals only includes positions in silver, platinum and palladium. 
Given how much is at stake, this financial revolution is among the most important questions today’s societies could possibly grapple with. It should be under discussion in every parliament of every land, and every dinner table in every country in the world.
Rising interest rates threaten to destabilise both financial asset values and the fiat currencies in which they are priced. This outcome is feared by the chattering classes who increasingly speculate about currency resets. 
Earlier this week, 21WIRE highlighted 
I’ve been more confused than usual by markets since late last week. I am struggling to figure out the “tell” in what seems like very confusing, messy and even unusual markets. On the war front and longer term ramifications of sanctions, 
In 2017, the super lawyer David Boies was at a corporate retreat at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, Florida, hosted by his law firm, Boies, Schiller and Flexner. Boies was a liberal legend: He had represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, and, in 2013, successfully defended gay marriage in California, in Hollingsworth v. Perry, paving the way for the landmark Supreme Court ruling two years later. 
A thread just appeared on Twitter in which a couple of people who seem to understand the commodity trading business explain the nightmare that now confronts those traders. Here’s an excerpt, with a few technical terms explained for clarity:
SWAP Lines are a cunning strategy. And the current global shift in geopolitics will lead to the first major implementation of SWAP Lines due to war, as opposed to a global financial crisis.
In 2015, I wrote about The Great Recession 2.0 that was coming upon us. I called it “
Looking forward with fingers crossed
The U.S. and its allies in the EU and others around the world have imposed the harshest economic sanctions on Russia that have ever been used. In the past, even nations directly at war with each other would continue to pay the debts they owed each other.
Today we are dumbstruck. We are awestruck and thunderstruck…
Whenever a movie has been a huge hit, the film industry tries to follow it up by doing a sequel. The sequel is almost invariably far more costly, as there’s the anticipation by those who create it that it will be an even bigger blockbuster than the original.
Tragic though the situation in Ukraine has become, the real war which started out as financial in character some time ago has now become both financial and about commodities. Putin made a huge mistake invading Ukraine but the West’s reaction by seeking to isolate Russia and its commodity exports from the global marketplace is an even greater one. 
Making your entire economy a Landfill Economydependent on the fantasy of infinite replacements and substitutions is the height of hubris and folly.
There are some people out there that thought that global financial markets would be largely unaffected by the war in Ukraine. Those people were wrong. This week, investors have received a very rude wake up call. Stock prices are plunging, commodity prices are going completely nuts, and a very thick cloud of fear has descended upon Wall Street. The fact that this war has permanently changed economic and financial conditions is starting to sink in, and it is likely that the level of panic will continue to rise in the days ahead. 
Ukraine is a manageable localized problem in a distant part of the world and Russia is going to manage it. The American crisis of confidence in its own operating system is something else.
Genetic match discovered in Covid’s unique furin cleavage site on spike protein
America’s most powerful weapon of war does not shoot, fly or explode. It’s not a submarine, plane, tank or laser. America’s most powerful strategic weapon today is the dollar.
The Durham investigation has been prolonged, much to the chagrin of Trump supporters and derision of opponents.
Critical warning signs from the credit and rates markets are being ignored by tough-talking experts while gold bides its time before it rises in a global financial crisis mathematically too sick to save.
Most of the time, the vast majority of Americans simply do not care about economics. And it pains me to say that, because I have been running a website about economics for more than a decade. But it is true. Under normal circumstances, most hard working Americans don’t have the time or the energy to debate the finer points of economic policy. But now things have changed. Here in 2022, our leaders have messed things up so badly that suddenly just about everyone is feeling the pain. Most people just want economic conditions to “return to normal”, but that isn’t going to be so easy. 
– Learn From Ayn Rand And ‘Shrug’, And Take Down The Entire Evil System
The global economy is in FREEFALL, inflation is surging, and debts/deficits are skyrocketing. Real wages, personal income weighed against inflation, is CRATERING. Meanwhile, the US stock market after its rebound off the recent low, is only single digit percentage points away from all time highs.
“To everything there is a season,” Ecclesiastes informs us - winter, spring, summer, autumn.
(Editor's Note: The criminalgovernment's official numbers provide that the current rate of inflation is 7.5%. John William's Shadow Stats suggests that the actual number exceeds 15%. The average American's purchacing power is being decimated. The blame lies directly at the the feet of the Federal Reserve. The government has devolved into a pathetic clown show and provides no value whatsoever. - JSB)
The stock market manipulations are getting even more desperate.
Our beat here at The Daily Reckoning is money - but a lot of what we write about isn’t directly related to money. It’s really about people.
Is deflation around the corner for investors? 
The year 238 AD began with Maximinus I as Emperor of Rome– a former peasant who had worked his way up through the ranks of the military before being chosen as Emperor by his troops.
When you get big enough, it can be tempting to believe that you can treat those that you do not like any way that you want. But if you treat people like garbage long enough, it is going to bite you in the rear end. Executives at Facebook apparently thought that they could viciously shut down free expression on their various platforms without damaging their financial performance. Well, they were wrong. Vast hordes of really good people have been leaving Facebook and Instagram permanently, but for a while growth from overseas was balancing that out. Now overseas growth is drying up, and the latest numbers the company just released were do disastrous that it caused a violent reaction on Wall Street. 
Brazil and Russia caught up via shock-and-awe rate hikes. But most central banks fell further behind. Then there are the reckless laggards.
That sure didn’t last long. Over the past two years, the U.S. government borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, and the Federal Reserve unwisely pumped trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system. Of course all of that money was going to be a short-term help for the economy, but it was also going to make our long-term problems even worse. So what did we get in turn for mortgaging our future? Well, it turns out that we got a few months of economic stability, tremendous inflation, and the worst supply chain crisis in the history of the United States. 
Inflation is skyrocketing in practically the entire world. Central banks are getting scared and beginning to announce the end of expansionary measures, also known as tapering.
We’ve all felt the volatility in the markets recently.
Over the second half of January, we witnessed a fresh wave of volatility in equity markets, culminating in a pullback that caused widespread concern and endless headlines in the mainstream financial press. There was speculation of a full blown correction, other “experts” disagreed and predicted that central bankers would never allow that to happen, while others still tried to account for the market’s moves by using the same explanations we’ve been hearing throughout the covid crisis every time there’s any sort of bad news in the financial press. 
This morning I am struggling to find a single topic for my usual Friday rant. There are literally so many separate threads driving markets, from recession/recovery indicators, company earnings reports, domestic politics, geopolitics, and rising dissent, that it’s difficult to focus on any one point and paint it as the dominant factor.
What would our country look like if an epic market crash suddenly wiped out 35 trillion dollars in financial wealth? You may not want to think about something so horrible, but we are being warned that it could soon happen. Stock prices have been falling for three weeks in a row, and last week was the worst week for U.S. stocks in a really, really long time. The S&P 500 is now down more than 8 percent from the peak of the market, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is already in correction territory. At this point, the Nasdaq is off to its worst beginning to a year in decades, and many are extremely concerned about what is coming next. Bank of America is warning that 
The breakdown of global supply chains is well-known by now. Whether it’s finding groceries in your supermarket, buying a new car or buying appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators, goods are scarce. Also, deliveries take forever and choices are limited.
One of the most striking learnings to come out of the pandemic had nothing at all to do with viruses, vaccines, or virology. It had to do with the world’s supply chains.
Over the past couple of years, we have been hit by one thing after another. Whenever it seems like things may be calming down, another crisis suddenly erupts, and as a result a lot of Americans have developed a really bad case of “crisis fatigue” at this point. According to Google, crisis fatigue is “a burnout response to prolonged exposure to unexpected and stressful events”. Perhaps you can identify with that definition because it sounds exactly like what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, the truth is that what we have been through so far is just the beginning. As I 
The crisis engulfing China's property sector - which has prompted Beijing to capitulate on its tightening ambitions yet again, and forced China to launch an increasingly more aggressive easing campaign, which so far culminated in the first rate cut in Chinese official rates in almost two years - has impacted the country's biggest developer, sending the shares and bonds of Country Garden Holdings - which is even bigger than Evergrande - plunging amid fears that a reportedly failed fundraising effort may be a harbinger of waning confidence. 
Jimmy Kimmel Live, fast becoming Leonid Brezhnev’s never-realized dream of a Soviet Tonight Show, just put out a high-effort gag called “Anti-Vax Barbie.” It’s impressively on-message:
According to Doug Ramsey of the Leuthold Group, 334 companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange recently hit a 52-week low, more than double the amount that marked new one-year highs. That’s happened only three other times in history - all of them occurring in December 1999. 
Janet Yellen worked out a tax deal with the EU last April hoping to force Congress to approve Build Back Better. Guess what?
During the past two years the world has changed. Events that have changed our lives in a substantial and unexpected manner, permanently in most cases so far, are not so frequent. Within living memory, or at least life span, of people still alive, these events are the invasion of Poland in 1939, the fuel price shock of 1973, September 11 of 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan, Lehman Brothers as a symbol of prudence overcome by greed and now the Covid-19 virus. Of all these events, the past two years are having(have had?) the greatest and probably most lasting effect on the whole world. 2022 ought to show if there happens to be evidence of the extent of the changes to come and the direction 
Try to find a developing-world kleptocracy in which the top few collect more than 97% of the income from capital. There aren't any that top the USA, the world's most extreme kleptocracy. We're Number 1. 
What you’re actually seeing in the rhetorical hoo-ha over the January Sixth capitol riot is the main cattle-prod driving mob madness - fear of Covid-19 - losing its power to terrorize the public. The Party-of-Chaos put on a grand opera of lamentation Thursday to celebrate its unity in victim-hood - we wuz so traumatized by the riot! - but in the background, they can see their dearer dream of total vaccination - and total control of the population - fade in the winter mists. 
The establishment, including the state, central banks and most investors are thoroughly Keynesian, the latter category having profited greatly in recent decades from their slavish following of the common meme.
The year of sickening global psychosis ended with virologist and vaccine-uberspecialist Dr. Robert Malone truth-bombing the Internet with three hours of straight talk about the US health authorities’ campaign to destroy the lives of at least half a million US citizens (so far) and, leading by example, to harm multiples of that number of innocent people across all of Western Civilization. Podcaster Joe Rogan assisted skillfully in an interview that is finally rocking the world out of an epic consensus trance. 
At the risk of boring you by repeating myself, now at this beginning of the new year and with the publication of my book Principles for Dealing with theChanging World Order, I want to concisely convey the most important thoughts I have about the paradigm we are now in, which is a result of how the world order appears to be changing. To be clear, while I express concerns and risks, I believe that we collectively have the power to manage our challenges well if we are smart and considerate with each other. Also, please know that I am not sure that any expectations I have are right. I’m just passing along my thinking for you to take or leave as you like. 
