07.23.19- Beware, the IRS is eyeing your inherited money
Bill Bischoff

One little-noticed tax grab is already on the table, and another waits in the wings

One of the perils of being well-off is the constant risk that the federal government and/or your friendly state and local tax collectors will figure out new and different ways to snatch more of your wealth. Especially wealth that you earned the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it. To raise your paranoia to the appropriate level, here are two new things to worry about. 

SECURE Act would eliminate big tax advantage for IRA beneficiaries

Few noticed when the House of Representatives in May overwhelming passed the imaginatively named “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019.” The vote was 417-3. Senate passage was thought to be a mere formality — until Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced opposition, because the bill no longer includes a provision that would allow tax-free Section 529 college savings account withdrawals to cover homeschooling costs. Read More

07.22.19- Badly Screwed: The Elite Are Spitting in Your Face!
Tom Beck

For the past two months, I’ve sunk my mind into the subjects of income inequality and wealth inequality. It took me on a journey that included over 13 lengthy books, countless recorded lectures, and numerous all-nighters to finally articulate my main conclusion on the matter, based on the facts.

Bottom line: America’s politicians, wealthy businessmen, and CEOs do not, in their heart of hearts, give the slightest thought to the average person’s well-being.

There are laws that could be legislated, right here and right now, that would make life in America more equal and give opportunity to the poor and under-skilled to prosper. Read More

07.20.19- Trump's Fight With The Fed Over Interest Rates Is A Scripted Farce
Brandon Smith

There is a very bizarre narrative being circulated in the mainstream economic media and it goes a little something like this:

“The Federal Reserve has capitulated on liquidity tightening yet the US economy is “stronger than ever”, isn't that weird?”

There are a couple things wrong with this statement. First, the Fed has not yet capitulated on its tightening policy. In fact, we have been hearing since last November from the mainstream media and some alternative media that the Fed was going to lower its Fed Funds Rate and end monthly balance sheet cuts at “any moment”, yet several months later it still has not happened. Just last month the Fed cut another $38 billion in assets from its balance sheet; a move that was barely discussed in the mainstream because it does not fit with the prevailing delusion that the Fed has “already capitulated”. When the Fed cuts rates back significantly and the asset dumps stop, then and only then can anyone say with any authority that the Fed has ended its tightening cycle. Read More

07.19.19- The Greatest Hoax of All
Donald Jeffries

Fifty years ago, our government and its state-run media tell us, Americans sent men to the moon. Neil Armstrong said “One small step,” and all that, and the photographs of the event were startlingly clear. Well, except for all the shadow anomalies, and lack of stars in the sky, that is.

As a twelve year old, and a huge astronomy junkie, I followed the Apollo program nearly as closely as I memorized Major League Baseball batting averages. I knew all the astronauts’ names, and even had a favorite; Jim Lovell, who would head the ill-fated Apollo 13, denying him the honor of walking on the moon.

At the time, I remember being a bit disappointed. I guess I expected the kind of world-wide attention that was depicted in a film I liked as a child; 1964’s The First Men in the Moon. The reaction on Earth just seemed kind of subdued to me in contrast, considering it was the most monumental achievement in human history. Read More

07.18.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 5
Corey Lynn

Eugenics emerged with a bang in the early 1900s with a primary focus of controlling the population. What began as fairs and baby contests for the best pedigree and maintaining ancestral records to distinguish traits, evolved into a cesspool of genetic manipulations and infertility by the hands of scientists, “philanthropists” and the entire medical industry, whether some knew it or not. But that wasn’t enough for the masses – GMOs, big tech, geoengineering, and AI moved to the forefront to pick up the slack – and suddenly health began. declining everywhere.

• More than 170 foods have been reported to cause food allergies, and children’s allergies to food have increased 50% between 1997 and 2011.

• 60% of processed food consumed by Americans is genetically modified, while nearly 40% of American adults were obese in 2015-2016, up from 34% in 2007-2008.

Read More

07.17.19- Promise The Moon
Jeff Thomas

In the 2018 US general election, a spate of liberal candidates appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, each making dramatic promises for a more collectivist US.

Until the 2016 election, the US hadn’t seen many openly collectivist candidates since before World War II, but since the campaign that gave rise to avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialist candidates have appeared in abundance and have become “the other democrats.” They’re not only plentiful, but unapologetic in their socialist stance.

But why should this be? And, more importantly, where will it lead? Read More

07.16.19- The Next Industrial Revolution
Doug Casey

What you’re going to read in the next few minutes will be shocking and unbelievable. But it’s also factual and logical. That will make it upsetting and disturbing. Most people are at least vaguely aware of what’s happening. But very, very few are aware of its degree or the implications.

As you probably know, I believe times are about to get quite rough economically and politically. But, at the same time, I’m very optimistic about what’s happening in science and technology. So let me hazard some predictions. And break the old rule about how, if you predict an event will occur, to make sure you don’t predict its timing.

THE RECENT PAST

I was born just after the end of WW2. It was an idyllic era to be an American. The U.S. had more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Things were mellow at home as “Leave It to Beaver” in the ’50s transitioned into “California Girls” in the early ’60s. Read More

07.15.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 4
Corey Lynn

Eugenics is all about controlling the population. This is not a lost art – it is an evolved art that they have perfected. The U.S. population growth hit a historic 80-year low last year and the entire world population growth is on a downward spiral, particularly in western countries. This is due to a decrease in the number of births and an increase in the number of deaths, along with an infertility crisis. How did this happen?

• While the birth rate is declining, infertility is rapidly rising, immigration is climbing to be the “new replacement population” for the U.S. which has been projected to tip the scales after 2030.

• The U.S. birth rate has fallen to the lowest in 30 years, and men’s sperm count has reduced by 50% over the past 40 years in western countries.

• There is a direct link between the HPV vaccine and infertility rates, and since 1991 the birth rate for teenagers has declined 67%. Read More

07.13.19- Do You Truly Have Free Will?
 Chris Martenson

How we’re constantly at war with our biological programming

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

~ Carl Jung

I love that Jung quote.  I’ve used it generously in conversation, seminars and writings throughout the years.

Initially, I assumed that the “unconscious” he referred to the place in our brains where our experiences, beliefs and memories are undetectably stored.  You know, psychology stuff:  ego, subconscious, id. Old memories from childhood lurking beneath the conscious frame of reference, directing thoughts and coloring our current experiences. Read More

07.12.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 3
Corey Lynn

Since the dawn of eugenics, they’ve tried to trace the pedigree and traits of human beings so as to control the masses. Through DNA, they have not only accomplished this, they have extended a branch to the population to show off their ancestral trees. Much like in the days of pedigree fairs, people had no idea what they were signing up for.

• Bill Gates funded scientists to study 40,000 DNA samples from 23andMe and assessed genes having to do with preterm labor and God knows what else.

• Billionaires, government and big pharma are investing in biotechnology companies that transform cells and rewrite DNA, amassing the world’s largest stores of “usable” designer genetic code.

• 30 million Americans have already voluntarily submitted their DNA to the likes of 23andMe, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Genomelink and several others. Read More

07.11.19- Are White People Too Stupid To Survive?
Paul Craig Roberts

There is a strong case that they are.  Having been demonized for many years and intimidated from defending themselves, white people are now intentionally discriminated against by the racial “minorities” (actually vast world majorities) of the people they have been pressured to elevate above them.  Once the “oppressed” are put in charge by dumbshit whites, the whites are really oppressed.

Heterosexuals or straights are also demonized and bullied.  White males are portrayed as rapists, but no one is permitted to say that about the flood of illegal Third World migrants that have overrun Europe and the US.  When young white girls 10 years old are gang-raped by the migrants, it is “racist” to complain.  Everywhere in the Western world, what little is left of it, the political leaders have abandoned the white populations. We only have traitors.

No one anywhere in the Western World represents the white populations except demonized leaders like Marine Le Pen, who the French government wants to imprison.  As she represents French people, she is considered to be a Nazi. Read More

07.10.19- Major Red Flags Are Causing Many To Doubt Whether Justice Will Be Done In The Jeffrey Epstein Sex Scandal
Michael Snyder

It won’t just be Jeffrey Epstein that will be on trial in the months ahead.  As this scandal unfolds, the entire U.S. legal system will be on trial, and if justice does not prevail many Americans will lose faith in the system for good.  And of course the rest of the world will be watching too, and so what are they supposed to think about us if we are not able to put Epstein and all of his dirty friends in prison?  As I detailed in part three of this series, the evidence against Jeffrey Epstein and his partners in crime is mounting.  If Jeffrey Epstein is put behind bars that will be a step in the right direction, but it will not nearly be enough.  At this point it is exceedingly clear to everyone in America that many of Epstein’s famous friends also regularly had sex with underage girls, and they must be held accountable.  In my most recent book I talked about how fundamentally broken our current legal system is, but if federal prosecutors are able to nail Epstein and all of his elite friends that were involved in these sex crimes, I might have to reconsider my position.

However, at this point I am not holding my breath. Read More

07.09.19- Goodbye Dollar, It Was Nice Knowing You!
Philip Giraldi

The significance of the European move cannot be understated…

Over the past two years, the White House has initiated trade disputes, insulted allies and enemies alike, and withdrawn from or refused to ratify multinational treaties and agreements. It has also expanded the reach of its unilaterally imposed rules, forcing other nations to abide by its demands or face economic sanctions. While the stated Trump Administration intention has been to enter into new arrangements more favorable to the United States, the end result has been quite different, creating a broad consensus within the international community that Washington is unstable, not a reliable partner and cannot be trusted. This sentiment has, in turn, resulted in conversations among foreign governments regarding how to circumvent the American banking system, which is the primary offensive weapon apart from dropping bombs that Washington has to force compliance with its dictates.Read More

07.08.19- You Are Being Trolled
Dmitry Orlov

The world is on the brink of war, again. And again. And, yes, yet again. And then it’s not on the brink of war any more… but wait, there’s more! Of course there’s more, there always is. US aircraft carrier battle groups are steaming toward North Korea… or not. They are steaming about aimlessly, nowhere near North Korea, but in a very threatening manner. Then Trump and Kim Jong Un meet, get on great, sign a piece of paper that means nothing and part friends. Now the aircraft carriers are steaming about far less menacingly. Then Trump and Un meet again, to sign some other meaningless piece of paper, but then John Bolton shoots his mouth off and the deal is off. But Trump and Un continue to exchange love letters, so the bromance isn’t dead. In any case, war between the US and North Korea is not just unwinnable but unthinkable: South Korea’s capitol is within striking range of North Korean artillery and all US military bases in the region are within range of North Korean rockets. War with North Korea is definitely off. Executive summary: nothing happens. So, what was that all about? Read More

07.06.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS part 1
Corey Lynn

Over 60,000 Americans were sterilized in the U.S., in the name of eugenics, but it didn’t end there. The phenomenon of men’s sperm declining by 50% and infertility in females rapidly rising – stumps no one – they just won’t tell you the truth.

• Over 60,000 Americans were sterilized in the name of eugenics and the Supreme Court law wasn’t repealed until the 1970s.

• The U.S. population growth hit a historic 80-year low in 2018 due to less births, while immigration continues to grow – projected to be the primary contributor after 2030.

• Nearly every western country has a historic low birth rate – media is silent.

• The Rockefellers worked with scientists, WHO, UNFPA, USAID, multiple governments, and others, to create anti-fertility vaccines that would sterilize both men and women on a mass scale, with research evolving into crops as well.

• DNA databases you voluntarily submit your DNA to are being used for scientific research, by law enforcement, and based on history – for eugenics.

• Over 60% of processed food Americans consume is genetically modified. Coincidentally, children have seen a 50% increase in food allergies since 2011, and obesity and health issues are rapidly rising. Read More

07.05.19- Central Banks Will Keep Easing "Until Parliaments And Palaces Burn"
Bill Blain

“There must be someway out of here, said the joker to the thief...”

Oh, what a beautiful morning… It’s a Friday in July, so I may as well have an off the wall rant! If you are stuck in the office, send me a mail and we can bemoan we’re not working from home in the back garden!

I was reading a note yesterday that we’re now into the second longest expansion in global economic history. The recovery has been slow and steady, reflecting the new normal, longer-for-longer expectations of the post 2008 crisis. Aren’t we the lucky ones? Despite the current geopolitical fears and global uncertainties our supportive central banks and diligent regulators are making sure we sleep soundly at night.. (Do I really have to say it? OK. US READERS: Sarcasm Alert) Read More

07.04.19- Rediscovering America: A Quiz For July 4th
Jason Stevens

Near the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson described the Declaration of Independence as “an expression of the American mind.” On Independence Day, Americans should remember not only the Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War but, more important, the fundamental principles and ideals that created and sustain the nation.

The quiz below, from the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio, provides an opportunity for you to test your knowledge of the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence.

1. On what day did the Second Continental Congress officially declare American independence from Great Britain? Hint: John Adams thought this day would be celebrated for generations as “the most memorable … in the history of America.” Read More

07.03.19- The Only Thing Worse Than The World Dying
Would Be If It Died Unseen And Unappreciated
Caitlin Johnstone

ABC News put an article out the other day titled “Was Tulsi Gabbard’s nuclear war warning during Democratic debate hyperbole, or all too real?“, which makes a surprisingly reasonable appraisal of just how close we all are to losing everything all at once.

It’s a mainstream media piece, so of course it ends with a couple of think tank denizens claiming that Gabbard’s dire warnings during the debate are hysterical nonsense, but the first half of the article quotes authorities on nuclear disarmament confirming that we may very well be as close to nuclear annihilation as we were at the height of the last cold war.

Gabbard’s claim during the Democratic debate that we are at greater risk of nuclear war than at any time in history is entirely reasonable given the relentless escalations against Russia that this administration has been mounting, and is a perspective shared by experts like leading US-Russia relations authority Stephen Cohen. Read More

07.02.19- AT&T Fires Up Sweat-Inducing 5G in “Sin City” With Plans for 20 More Despite Anticipating More Lawsuits
BN Frank

Last February, telecom executives gave congressional testimony that they could NOT provide any studies that prove that 5G technology is safe.

Unfortunately, plenty of research already proves it isn’t (see 1, 2, 3).

Not only that – cybersecurity experts, (see 1, 2), environmentalists (see 1, 2, 3) meteorologists, NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, and utility companies have ALL warned that installing 5G everywhere could lead to widespread catastrophic events.

Regardless, AT&T is introducing 5G in more U.S. cities despite this  as well as growing 5G opposition and that Americans ARE NOT signing up for it where it’s already been installed.

Even ballsier, the company is doing this while fighting current lawsuits AND they are anticipating more lawsuits will follow.  Of course, all telecom companies have been anticipating lawsuits for awhile now. Read More

07.01.19- It's No Bitcoin: Facebook's Libra Currency Is Tied to Government Currencies
Ralph Fucetola

Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek was, as he says in the 1990 introduction to his Denationalization of Money: The Argument Refined, one of the chief “gold bugs” of the 20th century. And he reminded us, so long as politicians want to control money, gold-backed currency is essential to protect our liberty from the politics of inflation.

But his concern for money and market reached back to his earlier work, as noted in a number of articles posted in recent years at mises.org. As noted by Nikolay Gertchev:

In a series of five lectures delivered in 1937, and published under the title Monetary Nationalism and International Stability, Hayek offers an in-depth analysis of the main deficiencies of the present-day monetary system. In a nutshell, he identifies two factors that disrupt international economic relations: the fractional reserve commercial banks and the national central banks. The former are the primary source for the international transmission of the business cycles, while the attempts of the latter to correct the imbalances de facto amplify the resulting instability. Read More

06.29.19- Freedom and Liberty At Risk
Justin O. Smith

“Even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Anyone who listened to Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren share her horror over states making gains in halting abortion understands that true liberty and individual rights, even states’ rights, mean nothing to the Democrats. Warren called for a federal law that codifies Roe v Wade, with the certain knowledge that the federal government treasury would be used to coerce states to fall in line, as has been done regarding so many other federal laws. 

Even at the local city and county governments, citizens witness elected officials, claiming to be “conservatives” — who think they know better than the people — go against the will of the people, just as the city council in Murfreesboro, TN and also Rutherford County council did recently when they voted a thirty-five percent and six percent tax increase respectively to pay for services and pay raises and to preserve a government “savings account”. Read More

06.28.19- Buy Gold, Sell Bonds
Michael Cannivet

As the first-half of 2019 draws to a close, investors have much to cheer about. A lot of money has been made across many asset classes.

If you're considering tweaking your strategy for the second-half of the year, I have four words for you: Buy gold, sell bonds.

Why Gold Is Attractive Again  

Gold has been dead money since 2011. But lately, it's showing signs of life again. Gold recently broke above an important resistance level at $1,350. Some technicians think this sets the stage for a run to $1,700. Read More

06.27.19- The Diminishing American Economy
Paul Craig Roberts

Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovered economy.  Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression.  However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored.

For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the work force to take advantage of the job opportunities.  During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2019, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.8 percent. Read More

06.26.19- The Pain Of This New Economic Downturn Is Starting To Show Up All Over The Country
Michael Snyder

It is going to take a miracle for the U.S. economy to pull out of this tailspin, because the economic numbers are really starting to deteriorate very rapidly now.  On Tuesday we got some more new numbers, and they were just as bad as we thought they might be.  But even before today’s numbers all of the data were telling us the exact same thing.  The New York Fed’s Empire State manufacturing index just suffered the worst one month decline in U.S. history, Morgan Stanley’s Business Conditions Index just suffered the largest one month decline that we have ever seen, global trade numbers are the worst they have been since the last recession, and just last week I detailed the complete and utter “bloodbath” that we are witnessing in the U.S. trucking industry right now.  So considering what we already knew, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that new home sales in the U.S. were down a whopping 7.8 percent during the month of May…

Sales of new U.S. homes slumped 7.8% in May, as sales plunged in the pricier Northeastern and Western markets.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 626,000 in May, down from 679,000 in April. During the first five months of the year, purchases of new homes have fallen 3.7% compared to the same period in 2018. Read More

06.25.19- No Inflation? A Day Trip To The Regional Amusement Park Costs A Family Of Four OVER $1,000 This Summer (2019)
Paul “Half Dollar” Eberhart

Cedar Point is the closest “day-trip” amusement park to where my family lives.

This is arguably the best amusement park in the nation in terms of the number/quality of thrill-rides/roller-coasters, and sure, this is subjective opinion, but I’m saying that as having gone to amusement parks all over the country for most of my life, including many in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and In other states I’m sure I’m forgetting about because that data has not yet been de-fragmented in my brain, and by “most of my life”, I mean, I’ve gone to amusement parks as a kid, as a student, as a single, as a married fella, and as a family man.

It takes less than 2-hours to drive to this park, so it is possible to leave home, enter the park when it opens, stay until the park closes, and drive home, all in the same day, and that is exactly what we did on Saturday, as we always do when going to this particular park. Read More

06.24.19- Why Legal Cannabis Will Be Bigger Than Cryptos
Teeka Tiwari

Editor’s Note: Longtime readers may know Teeka Tiwari as a world-renowned cryptocurrency expert. He made his first crypto recommendation to his readers in April 2016, well before the crypto boom in 2017.

But Teeka has been diving deep into a new, booming industry – legal cannabis. He’s been flying all over the world… talking to the most important CEOs in the cannabis space. And, as he details below, he sees this industry as an even bigger play than cryptos…

While legal cannabis isn’t our usual beat at the Diary, we have a treat for dear readers interested in speculating in this new industry. Read on below as Teeka shows why there’s still time to get in on the ground floor of this lucrative trend… before it skyrockets. Read More

06.22.19- The Politics of Personality
Donald Jeffries

The election of Donald Trump planted a loud and divisive lightning rod into the middle of our political discourse. Everything in American politics now is channeled through this billionaire/reality TV star, and how one feels about him. It is not about issues now, not even the limited issues Americans are allowed to discuss.

The social justice warriors have won; all politics in this country are emotion driven now. There is no reasoning, no flexing of the intellect. It is all about how you feel,  and the larger, timeless principles America was founded upon have become irrelevant to a public that is basically ignorant of them anyway.

The laughable establishment “left” has collectively lost their minds. Just this week, they trotted out the trillionth or so example of “racism,” when they complained that weddings are “too white.” Can snow be next? The fact that these unbalanced, childish complaints are taken seriously tells us all we need to know about America today, and the disgraceful leaders we’ve allowed to destroy it. Read More

06.21.19- The Advent of Truth-Destroying Technology
Paul Craig Roberts

Tyler Durden on Zero Hedge reports that the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds.  Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality:

“I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything.

The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, then things that are fake became our reality. Read More

06.20.19- An Examination Of The Leftist Cult And Their Religion
Brandon Smith

There is a common misconception among newer activists in the liberty movement that the idea of the “false left/right paradigm” means that there is no political spectrum; that the entire notion of left vs right is a fabrication. This is not exactly the case. When we talk about false paradigms in regards to politics (or geopolitics), what we are actually referring to is the elitist class, otherwise known as globalists, and the fact that they have no left or right political orientation. They do not care about Democrats or Republicans, they have no loyalty to either party. Their loyalty is to their own agenda, and they will exploit BOTH sides to get what they want whenever possible.

Beyond the globalists, average people do indeed fall on a political spectrum that could be broken down and simplified to a set of basic ideals or ideologies. On the left side of the spectrum we find the collectivists and socialists, who believe that society (the group) is vastly more important than the individual and that the actions of individuals must be strictly monitored and governed to prevent negative effects on the group. Read More

06.19.19- Americans Are Losing the Only Fight Worth Having
Bill Bonner

DUBAI – A man walks over the footbridge across an artificial lake in an artificial town. 

On the other side, he unrolls a mat, kneels, and bows in prayer, facing the Holy City of Mecca.

This morning at 6 a.m., it is already almost unbearably hot and humid.

Later in the day, the heat will intensify, reflecting off the glass and concrete towers all around. It will be about 105 degrees before noon.

Dubai is an improbable place for a modern city. And an improbable place for your editor…

Between the desert on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other, Dubai looks as though it might be swept away by one or the other at any moment. Read More

06.18.19- Gold Standard Coming Into View…US Must Adapt
Gold Trade Note
Jim Willie

A Perfect Storm is hitting the Gold market, with an internal factor (return to Quantitative Easing on steroids), an external factor (Shanghai Gold Exchange taking market share), and a systemic factor (Basel 3 Rule permitting Gold in account ratios). All three forces are positive in releasing Gold from the corrupt clutches of the Anglo-American banker organization. The Eastern Hemisphere has a planned coordinated and effective strategy to abandon the USDollar and to adopt the Gold Standard. It has happened first in the trade payment form, actually more like a global blossoming process. More progress can be inferred in its early stages. In the last ten years since the Lehman Brothers failure, all systems have undergone the same reckless treatment that the mortgage bonds endured. Slowly the realization is coming to the fore, stated by a few astute analysts. In the last decade, the US-UK bank management wing of the cabal has created the USTreasury Bond as the global subprime bond. This is the result of magnificent persistent QE abuse, hidden derivative activity to produce false bond demand, foreign dumping of USGovt debt securities, astonishing debt explosion, pilferage of foreign bond holdings, and wickedly false AAA debt rating. Read More

06.17.19- Waiting For The Black Swan
Chris Martenson

War with Iran would be the beginning of the end

Two more tankers were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning  (6/13/19) in the Gulf of Oman, and if hostilities advance we could be facing a ‘black swan’ event. One that changes everything, and divides the world into ‘before’ and ‘after’ periods.

A lot of us are waiting for ‘something’ to happen. We know that there are too many unsustainable trends and practices running and we fall into the “let’s just rip the Band-Aid off” camp.   Some, like myself, have lost faith in the political leadership and institutions and doubt they retain any capacity to attend to anything more than their own selfish interests, let alone manage the difficult tasks ahead rooted as they are in systems theory and managing complexity.

So, let’s get on with it already.  Bring it on.  Black swans are welcome to those who feel a swift kick to the behind is sometimes needed to begin setting things straight. Read More

06.15.18- It’s Coming And It’s Going to SUCK
Karl Denninger

Those who believe there will never be another recession are flat-out insane.

The business cycle has never been repealed.  Every person who has predicted that someone has “conquered” it over the decades has been wrong.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: EVERY PERSON who has made such a prediction or claim through the last roughly 100 years HAS BEEN NOT ONLY WRONG THEY’VE BEEN DISASTROUSLY WRONG.

It won’t be different this time around.

What is different is that through the last 40 or so years we have allowed the Federal Government to run enormous and continuous, compounding deficits.  This has propped up asset markets to a tremendous degree but it has impoverished more than 90% of the population of the nation on a progressive and rapidly-increasing basis.  Like all exponential series it started small and while there were a few who raised an alarm about the behavior of the government and Fed they were not listened to since the immediate impact was too small to be considered serious. Read More

06.14.19- FAANG Companies Facing Impacts from Imminent Antitrust Probe
Birch Gold Group

On June 3, a total of $137 billion in market cap was wiped from existence in one day as, according to Wolf Richter, four of the infamous FAANG companies became targets of an imminent antitrust probe (emphasis ours):

It’s a rare moment in recent years that US government regulators are suddenly going after four tech and social media giants simultaneously – Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple. … The index dove 4.3% today, the biggest percentage decline since the infamous 4.6% drop on December 24, 2018. In terms of dollars, $137 billion in market capitalization was wiped out.

Reuters is calling it an “unprecedented, wide-ranging probe of some of the world’s largest companies.”

Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are four companies part of a more comprehensive “FANGMAN” index put together by WolfStreet to monitor their market performance. Read More

06.13.19- How the Stock Market Actually Works
Rick Ackerman

Here is the best explanation I’ve seen to date of how the U.S. stock market works.  It is from John Jay, who posts regularly in the Rick’s Picks Forum: “The stock market is the primary bag-man the Federal Reserve uses to transfer the U.S. Dollars they create from thin air to the .01%.” Just so. When you consider how many hundreds of billions of dollars find their way into the pockets of the very rich when just a half-dozen mega-cap stocks rally sharply, you begin to understand how the U.S. economy actually works.

“Compare this to TARP,” writes Jay. “It was a check written directly to the .01% without a money laundering intermediary like the stock market.  You and I are like seagulls picking up the scraps after a killer whale pod consumes a school of herring. We can make a nice little living doing just that!” Read More

06.12.19- The American Bolsheviks Are Coming…
Bill Bonner

It’s coming. It’s happening.

Our dark fears and midnight tremors are coming to life. In the broad daylight.

The Bolsheviks are invading the suburbs and cities… and even the Corn Belt… all across America.

American Jackassery

Both Democrats and Republicans are turning to three-part programs – one part Soviet economic claptrap, one part Mussolini’s political bamboozle, and one part pure American jackassery.

Today, we begin the hard work of giving them the mockery they deserve. We only worry that we will run out of scorn and sarcasm before we are finished.

Politics is always and everywhere the enemy of civilization. It is the enemy, too, of economic progress. Most important, it is the enemy of dignity and clear thinking. Read More

06.11.19- Sometimes Things Turn
James Howard Kunstler

A February night in 1924, in a Manhattan concert hall owned by the Aeolian piano company… the wailing, warped, and flatted clarinet glissando that opens George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue announced the 20th century’s self-recognition that something new was up in the world, and especially in the USA. The composer tried to represent the stupendous energy of the maturing industrial culture in a symphonic cacophony with a core of the deepest tenderness — capturing all the wonder and grace of the moment. For America, everything was on the move. Love and power were in the air.

The idea that this was the American century stuck. The 1920s were a kind of hormonal rush of wonders and amazements. Radio, movies, airplanes, giant industries, electric power in farm houses, the dizzying rush of progress that welled up into a dangerous wave that broke over the world in economic depression, and then war in 1939 — by which time George Gershwin was gone at 38. Read More

06.10.19- Socialism Rises Due To The Great American
Economic Growth Myth
Lance Roberts

There is little denying the rise of “socialistic” ideas in the U.S. today. You can try and cover the stench by calling it “social democracy” but in the end, it’s still socialism.

Since 1775, millions of Americans have given their lives in defense of the American “idea.” The tyranny and oppression which arise from communism, socialism, and dictatorships have been a threat worthy of such sacrifice. I am sure those patriots who died to ensure the “American way of life” would be disheartened by the willingness of the up and coming generations adopt such ideals.

But such shouldn’t be a surprise. It is the cycle of all economic civilizations over time as we “forget our history” and become doomed to repeat. it.  Read More

06.08.19- The State of the Economy
Paul Craig Roberts

Support Your Website

Dear Readers: We live in a Matrix of Lies in which our awareness is controlled by the explanations we are given.  The control exercised over our awareness is universal.  It applies to every aspect of our existence.  In the article below I show that not only is our understanding of the economy controlled by manipulation of our minds, but also the markets themselves are controlled by official intervention.  

In brief, you can believe nothing that you are officially told.  If you desire truth, you must support the websites that are committed to truth.

The story line is going out that the economic boom is weakening and the Federal Reserve has to get the printing press running again.  The Fed uses the money to purchase bonds, which drives up the prices of bonds and lowers the interest rate.  The theory is that the lower interest rate encourages consumer spending and business investment and that this increase in consumer and business spending results in more output ad employment. Read More

06.07.19- How $30 Trillion Disappears…
Bill Bonner

Stocks went up on Tuesday and Wednesday – a total gain of 207 points for the Dow. Futures markets are predicting another up day today.

But the economy continues to sink. The longest expansion in U.S. history seems to be approaching its end. Here’s CNBC:

Job creation skidded to a near-halt in May in another sign that the U.S. economic momentum is slowing.

Companies added just 27,000 new positions during the month, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP and Moody’s Analytics that was well below Dow Jones estimates of 173,000.

The reading was the worst since around the time the economic expansion began and the jobs market bottomed in March 2010 with a loss of 113,000. Since then, the private payrolls count has increased by 21.3 million. Read More

06.06.19- The Trade War Is About To Become
An Economic World War III
Brandon Smith

For many years I have examined how wars of all types have been used by the money elite to distract the masses and maintain a certain level of influence over social and political systems. But war is not only a useful tool for keeping the status quo. Some wars, particularly world wars, are often catalyzed and exploited by those with a globalized agenda as a way to change the way civilizations function and think. The goal? To influence the masses to abandon their attachments to concepts like individualism, nationalism, free markets and sovereignty, and to embrace collectivism and total globalization.

That is to say, the ideals that globalization idealist hate get blamed for the wars they help start, then they introduce their centralized systems as a “solution” to the problems they created. The trade war situation will be no different. Read More

06.05.19- 32 Tips For Navigating A Society Full Of
Propaganda And Manipulation
J. Johnson

For as long as there has been human language, humans have been using it to manipulate one another. The fact that it is possible to skillfully weave a collection of symbolic mouth noises together in such a way as to extract favors, concessions, votes and consent from other humans has made manipulation so common that it now pervades our society from top to bottom, from personal relationships between two people to international relationships between government agencies and the public.

This has made it very difficult to figure out what’s going on, both in our lives and in the world. Here are some tips for navigating this complex manipulation-laden landscape, whether that be the manipulations you may encounter in your small-scale personal interactions or the large-scale manipulations which impact the entire world: Read More

06.04.19- The War On Truth
Paul Craig Roberts

“The ability of the owners of the political/media class to discredit and neutralize anyone who poses a threat to their interests simply by rearranging the narratives about them is one of the most destructive psychological weapons in their arsenal. The main reason it’s so hard to convince the public that they have been taken in by propaganda and smear campaigns is because for some stupid reason, one of the most shameful things anyone can do in our society is be fooled. If we are to overcome the narrative dominance of the powerful, it is essential that we find a way to shift that shame from those who have been fooled onto those who have been fooling them.”  — Caitlin Johnstone

Dear Readers:

This is my quarterly call for your donations.

This website originated on New Year’s Eve 2011.  I had enjoyed two months retirement before you called me back into action.  We are now well into the 8th year of my recall from retirement. Read More

06.03.19- Do We Face a Global Food Disaster?
F. William Engdahl

No, this is not at all an endorsement of the apocalyptic scenarios of AOC or that famous young Swedish climate expert, Greta. It is, however, a look at unusual weather disasters in several key growing regions from the USA to Australia, the Philippines and beyond that could dramatically affect food availability and prices in the coming year. That in turn could have major political implications depending on how the rest of the growing season develops.

USA Midwest Waterlogged

According to the latest May 20 report of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the US Department of Agriculture, corn and soybean crops are well behind the planting growth levels normal this time of the planting season. They report that only 49% of all planned corn acreage in the US has been planted compared with 78% at this time a year ago. Of that only 19% has yet emerged from the ground compared to 47% in May 2018. In terms of soybeans, barely 19% of crops have yet been planted compared with 53% a year before. Rice acreage planted is down to 73% compared to 92% a year ago in the six US rice-growing states. Of course, should weather dramatically improve the final harvest numbers could improve. Read More

06.01.19- These Are The ‘Good Old Days’
Chris Martenson

At tipping points like now, the steps we take in the present determine our future

Bill was 48 when his wife stunned him with a request for divorce. Right up until that moment, he’d thought everything was fine.

He’d been pouring all his energy into his work to provide a very comfortable life for his wife and 2 children. But she was unhappy and fell out of love while Bill wasn’t paying attention to matters at home. He’d taken her for granted and forgot to be present for the most important people in his life, and to be grateful in the moment.

After she was gone, Bill was filled with emptiness and regret. All he wanted was to get her back, but it was too late. The damage had been done. What he had before was now in the past. Read More

05.31.19- Globalists Only Need One More Major Event To Finish Sabotaging The Economy
Brandon Smith

As I predicted in my article 'Trump Trade Wars A Perfect Smokescreen For A Market Crash', published in March of 2018, as well as in my article 'The Trade War Distraction: Huawei And Linchpin Theory', published in December of 2018, the US/China trade dispute has escalated into an all out war with no end in sight. The claims of many analysts and skeptics a year ago that the trade war would be over quickly and that China would fold to US tariffs has been proven incorrect. The reason why these analysts got it so wrong centers primarily on their misunderstanding of the true purpose behind the events.

The goal of this war is NOT to balance the US trade deficit or pursue more fair circumstances for US exports and imports. The intention of the Trump Administration is NOT to fight back against Chinese “exploitation” of US markets, this kind of rhetoric is pure theater.  Nor is it Trump's intention to undermine globalist structures or agreements in order to bring back American manufacturing (a carrot that has been flaunted in front of American faces for a long time to lure them into supporting destructive policies such as dollar devaluation). On the contrary, the real purpose of Trump's trade war is to provide a distraction massive enough to cover for the controlled demolition of the US economy and parts of the global economy by globalists and the central banks they control. Read More

05.30.19- Why A “Safe Retirement” Is Becoming
Too Difficult to Obtain
Birch Gold Group

It used to be that you could save money for retirement, put some of it into Treasuries and/or CDs, and your “nest-egg” would be primed to give you retirement security.

That clear retirement path ended in 2000, according to John Mauldin in a recent SeekingAlpha article (emphasis ours):

Until 2000 or so, it was a simple matter to put all your savings in CDs, Treasury bonds, or tax-free muni bonds and generate a steady income. Better yet, you could do this with no risk, just by keeping your money in FDIC-insured banks. This is not possible today due to low rates.

Of course, saving money for retirement is not an easy task. But before 2000, the leverage you could gain from the “simple” plan Mauldin identified was greater. That leverage came from better interest rates that CDs and Treasuries provided. Read More

05.29.19- Monsanto is finally getting a taste of its own poison
Joe Jarvis

Monsanto is the quintessential evil corporation.

In the 1960s it created Agent Orange, a defoliant–hardcore weedkiller–which the USA used during the Vietnam war. The military sprayed vast swaths of the jungle causing horrible health effects like cancer and birth defects in American veterans and Vietnamese civilians exposed to the chemical.

Then Monsanto brought their products home to the USA and started dumping its poison on the homeland.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup, widely used as a weed killer. Monsanto holds patents on gene edited varieties of crops modified to withstand the herbicide while weeds die around them. It is also used to kill wheat plants for easier harvesting.

This means that practically everyone in the USA who consumes mainstream food products is exposed to Roundup. Read More

05.28.19- Pain Is Inevitable; But Suffering Is Optional
Adam Taggart

How to avoid becoming collateral damage in the coming crash

Sometimes you really do find enlightenment at the top of the mountain.

I spent this week hiking in Montana’s Bitterroot mountain range, as a participant in the pilot run of a new personal-growth-through-adventure-travel startup.

In our group was a famous professional cyclist, who had been a superstar on the Tour de France for many years.

He has a fascinating life story, both on and off the bike. His tales of the super-human efforts required to prevail at the most elite level of this punishing sport are mind-blowing. Read More

05.27.19- The CPI Is Underrepresenting Food Inflation By 40%:
Here's The Proof
Tyler Durden

The "muzzle" on reported inflation has policymakers and analysts perplexed.

As Joseph Carson, former director of economic research at Alliance Bernstein writes in his follow up to a "New Working Theory on Inflation", numerous economic explanations and theories have been offered, and policymakers are considering making changes to their operating price-targeting framework. Yet, before any decisions are made policymakers should consider all of the factors that could be keeping a "muzzle" on published inflation.

Here are two:

First, a little more than 20 years ago the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) introduced a number of new measurement techniques in the estimation of consumer inflation (see Boskin Commission). So the current business cycle, which started in 2009, is the second consecutive cycle in which these new procedures have been employed. Read More

05.25.19- The Ongoing Destruction of the Minds of Children
Gary D. Barnett

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.
— Isabel Paterson

Compulsory schooling is a travesty. To call it education is absurd. Real education is lifelong learning as an individual, while compulsory public schooling is the indoctrination of children as a collective exercise to bring all down to the lowest level. Prisons called schools are simply the forced means to stifle individual brilliance while promoting sameness and monotony. The result of this brainwashing is meant to teach children to obey orders, and to be satisfied spending their lives in a virtual cage of ignorance, to never become entrepreneurs and dissenters. Read More

05.24.19- How to Survive the Journey Ahead:
A Graduation Message for a Terrifying Age
John W. Whitehead

“No matter who you are, no matter how strong you are, sooner or later, you'll face circumstances beyond your control.” — Cersei Lannister, Game of Thrones

Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people.

They will find themselves overtaxed, burdened with excessive college debt, and struggling to find worthwhile employment in a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion. Their privacy will be eviscerated by the surveillance state. They will be the subjects of a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies and government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice.

As such, they will find themselves forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

It’s a dismal prospect, isn’t it? Read More

05.23.19- Why Imminent Pension Crisis Reveals
a Grim Future for All Retirees
Birch Gold Group

Whether or not you’re relying on a pension for part of your retirement, there is a grim future on the horizon for retirees tied to the pensions’ demise.

John Mauldin shines a light on the math that seems to explain why public pensions aren’t living up to their task:

So, when we say a plan is “fully funded,” it may not be so if the assumptions are wrong. Almost all public pension funds assume investment returns somewhere around 7% (and some as high as 8%+). That’s highly unlikely due to the debt we’ve accumulated, and debt is a drag on future growth.

Setting aside the fact that “assuming” anything isn’t a good idea, public pensions are basing their calculations on the assumption of a 7% return, but Bloomberg reports they aren’t even close to hitting the mark (emphasis ours):

The median public fund, which typically has a fiscal year ending June 30, returned 3.25% for the three quarters through March 31, according to Wilshire Associates Trust Universe Comparison Service. Read More

05.22.19- Origins of the Deep State in North America Part III: What is the Fabian Society and to What End was it Created?
Matthew Ehret

Our first two installments have dealt with the origins of the Deep State in North America by reviewing the creation of the Rhodes Scholarship/Chatham House network at the end of the 19th century and the infiltration of indoctrinated scholars into every governing branch of western society. We traced the key players in this Oxford-based network who were formed with the intent of fulfilling the will of Cecil Rhodes to “form a church of the British Empire” and undo the effects of the American Revolution as a global phenomenon. We also saw how these networks worked closely with another early “think tank” called the Fabian Society in order to advance an agenda that required the destruction of the sovereign nation state system which had been founded upon the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. This was exemplified by the 1999 “Chicago speech” of Fabian asset Tony Blair when he stated that the world must now embark upon a “post-Westphalian order” setting the stage for 9/11 and the new era of regime change that was soon unleashed. In the following report, we will look at the origins of the Fabian Society, by examining some of its founding members and governing philosophy. Read More

05.21.19- The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part 2: Milner’s Perversion Takes Over Canada
Matthew Ehret

Canada’s history has remained clouded in misinformation and outright lies for over 200 years, while basic truths which were once well understood by leading statesmen in Canada a century past are now treated as little more than myth or “conspiracy theory”. Yet as the above quote written by the pen of Lord Alfred Milner indicates, the crafting of the Canadian identity has been bought for the price of a national soul. The greatest obstacle to Canadian sovereignty today is found in the fact that Canada’s synthetic identity has been constructed over the past decades with the intention of obstructing the establishment upon this earth of a world of sovereign republics, which was and still is the outgrowth of the success of the American Revolution. To do so, we must investigate how the Anglo Dutch oligarchy has played through such institutions as the Rhodes Trust, Fabian Society, and Round Table Movement. These structures have played a key role in mis-shaping every key standard of economic, political, cultural and scientific behaviour which defines the Canadian System and associated identity to this day.

Part one of our story focused upon the creation of these institutions, and their methods of penetrating their networks throughout influential institutions of Canada from 1865 to 1943, and the evolution of the Round Table into the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) in 1919. American branches were created in 1920 with the Council on Foreign Relations and Institute of Pacific Relations, while a Canadian branch was established in 1928 with the Canadian Institute for International Affairs (CIIA). Key Canadian patriots resistant to the RIIA’s plans were also introduced in the form of “Laurier Liberals” O.D. Skelton and Ernest Lapointe, both of whom aided in influencing the highly malleable Prime Minister William Mackenzie King towards the Canadian nationalist cause, greater cooperation with American Patriots such as Franklin Roosevelt and away from the RIIA’s plans for world government under the League of Nations. With the mysterious deaths of Skelton and Lapointe in 1941, all such resistance melted away and Canadian foreign policy become fully infected by Rhodes Trust/ Fabian agents of the CIIA. Read More

05.20.19- The Origins of the Deep State in North America
Matthew Ehret

Part one: The Rise of the Round Table Movement and the Sad Case of Canada (1864-1945).

“Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits… One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.”

-Henry C. Carey (Lincoln’s advisor), Harmony of Interests, 1856 Read More

05.18.19- Trump's Last Stand
Peter Schiff

General George Custer met his doom charging into a battle he thought he could win, against an opponent he did not understand. Based on his views about the fast-emerging trade war with China, it looks to me that Donald Trump, another blonde with a very high opinion of himself, is charging into an economic version of the Little Bighorn. By mistaking the real nature of international trade, the costs of tariffs, the effects of currency movements, and the supposed ease with which the United States could quickly re-establish itself as a low-cost manufacturer, Trump risks shredding the safety nets that have undergirded the U.S. economy for decades and plunging us into a war we are ill-equipped to fight.

The prevailing view is that a trade war hurts both sides, but in a war of attrition, we can both outpunch and outlast the competition. Many argue that based on its smaller economy, the spotty performance of its stock market, and its vital need for American customers, China is in a weaker position. With our larger economy, surging stock market, strong currency, and prodigious borrowing capacity they believe that the U.S. can pressure China to capitulate, albeit with some short-term pain. Read More

05.17.19- The Darkness Rising - Twilight of
Those Who Would Be Gods
Jesse's Café Américain

The retail sales number came in rather badly this morning.

There is no real recovery. Just a papering over of the rot endemic to oligarchy.

Gold and silver are struggling at overhead resistance.  

Gold is much more interesting to watch here because of its nature as a safe haven. 

And of course its central role in the changes in the monetary regime which have been called currency wars.

Stocks have reached the 38.2% fibonacci retracement level. They may keep on reaching for 50%.

It is reported that JP Morgan is holding $2.3 trillion in stock derivatives, or roughly 2/3rds of the entire market.

Let's see how this charade plays out.  My general forecast is for pain. Read More

05.16.19- We Have 3 Years Before The National Debt "Death Spiral"
Mac Slavo

According to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Debt Management, the U.S. government is just five years away from the point of no return.  With the national debt spiraling quickly out of control, there are only a few years left before every single dollar the government borrows will go toward funding interest payments on the national debt.

The Independent Blog said that the main takeaway from the Debt Management Office’s Fiscal Year 2019 Q1 Report, which featured the Office of Management and Budget’s latest projection of the U.S. government’s borrowing from the public, is shown in the chart below: Read More

05.15.19- The Economy Has Fundamentally Changed In The 21st Century... And Not For The Better
Charles Hugh Smith

The net result is we have an economy that's supposedly expanding smartly while our well-being and financial security are collapsing.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other metrics of economic activity don't measure either broad-based prosperity or well-being. Elites skimming financialization profits by expanding corporate debt and issuing more loans to commoners while spending more on their lifestyles boosts GDP quite nicely while the security and well-being of the bottom 90% plummets.

Under the hood of "recovery" and a higher GDP, life has gotten harder and more insecure for the bottom 90%. The key is not to look just at wages (trending up, we're assured) or inflation (near-zero, we're assured) but at aspects of daily life (lived experience) that cannot be captured by conventional economic / financial attempts at quantifying the economy. Read More

05.14.19- 5 Memes… because if you can’t laugh about government, you’ll cry
Daily Bell Staff

Read More

05.13.19- The World To America: "You're Fired!"
Dmitry Orlov

Some ironies are just too precious to pass by. 

The 2016 US presidential elections gave us Donald Trump, a reality TV star whose famous tag line from his show “The Apprentice” was “You are fired!” Focus on this tag line; it is all that is important to this story. Some Trump Derangement Disorder sufferers might disagree. This is because they are laboring under certain misapprehensions: that the US is a democracy; or that it matters who is president. It isn’t and it doesn’t. By this point, the choice of president matters as much as the choice of conductor for the band that plays aboard a ship as it vanishes beneath the waves.

I have made these points continuously since before Trump got into office. Whether or not you think that Trump was actually elected, he did get in somehow, and there are reasons to believe that this had something to do with his wonderfully refreshing “You are fired!” tag line. It’s a fair guess that what motivated people to vote for him was their ardent wish that somebody would come along and fire all of the miscreants that infest Washington, DC and surrounding areas. Alas, that he couldn’t do. Figurehead leaders are never granted the authority to dismantle the political establishments that install them. But that is not to say that it can’t be done at all. Read More

05.11.19- A compound in pomegranates can trigger cancer cell death
Michelle Simmons

The interest in fruits rich in polyphenols has recently increased due to their cancer-fighting potential. In a study published in the journal Nutrition Research, a team of researchers from China found that a compound in pomegranates called punicalagin can fight against cancer by triggering cancer cell death.

A previous study carried out by the same researchers revealed that punicalagin induces autophagic cell death in papillary thyroid carcinoma cells. For the current study, the research team hypothesized that punicalagin triggers DNA damage associated with cell death because DNA damage was previously reported as an inducer of autophagy. Autophagy can encourage tumor suppression during cancer initiation and protect tumors during progression. Read More

05.10.19- "Get The Popcorn Ready" - Why The World's Most Bearish Hedge Fund Thinks The Biggest Crash Is Almost Here
Tyler Durden

Conventional investing wisdom would have you believe that anybody who has remained bearish on global markets since the financial crisis has not only lost a boatload of money, but has missed out on the opportunity to cash in on one of the most torrid bull markets in recent memory.

However, as Horseman Global's Russell Clark has proven over and over again, this simply isn't true. A few years back, we anointed Horseman with the title "The world's most bearish hedge fund" for a very simple reason:

Of all existing asset managers, Horseman may be the one with the biggest and longest net short position in history. Just look at the chart below, which shows that Clark's net exposure was (as of March) was a staggering -88.14%, with a gross short position of 160%. Read More

05.09.19- Border Crisis: Most Arrests In 12 Years; Over 168,000 Released Into US; Measles, Chickenpox Found
Tyler Durden

More than 168,000 illegal immigrants have been released into the US this fiscal year - a number sure to surge as the border crisis worsens, according to Nathalie R. Asher, acting chief of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's deportation branch.

In Wednesday comments to Congress, Asher added that according to the results of a pilot program, 87% of released immigrants fail to show up for their court hearings, resulting in judges ordering them deported in absentia, according to the Washington Times, which adds that tracking them down has been a daunting task for officials. 

Nearly 110,000 were nabbed at the southwestern border in April, including nearly 100,000 caught by the Border Patrol trying to sneak into the U.S. The other 10,000 were encountered when they showed up at ports of entry demanding to be let in, despite lacking permission. -Washington Times Read More

05.08.19- Seven Laws of Investing
Gary Christenson

Lance Roberts listed James Montier’s 7-Immutable Lawsof Investing. They are:

1. Always insist on a margin of safety.
2. This time is never different.
3. Be patient and wait for the fat pitch.
4. Be contrarian.
5. Risk is the permanent loss of capital, never a number.
6. Be leery of leverage.
7. Never invest in something you don’t understand.

Those sensible rules apply to gold and silver. Read More

05.07.19- The Old World is Dying
Michael Krieger

Yesterday, Trump took to Twitter and unexpectedly threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods this coming Friday. This caught most people by surprise given incessant commentary over the past several months about how good trade talks were going and how close both sides were to signing a monumental deal. Although Trump’s tweet led to immediate turmoil in global financial markets, U.S. equities have gone up in a straight line since the market opened and are barely down as I write this. Investors appear to assume this is just theater meant make the U.S. public think he’s being tough, so that when he ultimately signs a largely meaningless sham deal with no teeth he can talk it up and pat himself on the back for being a brilliant negotiator. I’m not convinced this is correct, but it’s what markets seem to be pricing in. Either way, we’ll have answers soon enough.

More importantly, I continue to think the U.S. and China are on a major collision course irrespective of what happens with the trade deal. This charade will likely resolve either with no deal and an immediate dangerous ratcheting up of tensions, or we’ll get a deal so weak and irrelevant it’ll fail to fundamentally alter the U.S.-China economic relationship in any meaningful way, which was supposedly the whole point. Read More

05.06.19- Which SHTF situation is most likely to actually happen?
Zoey Sky

The prepping lifestyle can be overwhelming for most people but at its core, preppers prioritize readiness in all aspects of their lives. But amid all the talk about prepping skills, survival gear, and food supplies, how do you know which disaster event has the highest chance of occurring within your lifetime? (h/t to TheSurvivalistBlog.net)

How to prepare for possible SHTF events

For this article, an “SHTF” event is defined as “any event that upends your life” after it occurs, such as flooding in a major city. These events would be classified as major disasters or catastrophes, not personal emergencies. Read More

05.04.19- Why Does Time Seem Like It’s Speeding Up?
Truth Stream Media

Does constant exposure to digital technology change the way we perceive time?  I would have to agree with the following video from Truthstream Media and say yes.

When human attention is hyperfocused on a single point, all other environmental stimuli tends to be cut off. When we completely cut our experience off from our surroundings, this often makes us feel as though we are suffering from what is sometimes called "time loss".

Add to this the neverending quest for a new hit of dopamine that digital culture provides and you have a recipe for the mass warping of human brains. Read More

05.03.19- Covington Gives a Glimpse of Civil War Two
Matt Bracken

During the attempted electronic lynching of the Covington Catholic high school boys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the mask hiding the Left’s genocidal rage slipped and was momentarily visible. The reality of the confrontation was inverted 180 degrees by the duplicitous mainstream media so that a smiling white teenager was made to face the wrath of an Orwellian two-minute hate that stretched on for days, even after the factual record was corrected. Accelerated by social media, the virtual lynch mob called for, among other horrors, MAGA-hat-wearing teenage boys to be fed headfirst into wood chippers, or for them to be locked en-masse into their school and the school to be burned to the ground.

This hurricane of socially sanctioned racial fury did not arise spontaneously, but was the result of deliberate cultivation over the past few decades by the political Left, academia, the mainstream media, and the Hollywood entertainment elite. Entire books could be written laying out the many already familiar examples of the Left encouraging racial animosity against whites, but that is not my goal in writing this piece. Read More

05.02.19- Show Me the Real Money
Gary Christenson

Those circulating dollar bills, euros, pounds, and yen are DEBTS (notes) issued by central banks to extract wealth from citizens and the economy, dilute the purchasing power of the currency, and nourish the banking cartel.

I’ll show you real money. It looks like this:

Read More

05.01.19- How the Financialization Scam Works
Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Financialization is our subject…

What is it? How does it happen? Does it matter? Who cares?

Let’s begin with the last question: Who cares?

Answer: Nobody… until it blows up.

Fantasy World

Financialization creates a fantasy world… funded by a mis-priced, rigged credit market.

Here is how. Imagine that you are 12 years old and you set up a lemonade stand. You make lemonade. You sell it to passers-by for more than it costs you to make it. Read More

04.30.19- Tom Petty was Right
James Howard Kunstler

How to account for Americans being the most anxious, fearful, and stressed-out people among the supposedly advanced nations? Do we not live in the world’s greatest democratic utopia where dreams come true?

What if the dreaming part is actually driving us insane? What if we have engineered a society in which fantasy has so grotesquely over-run reality that coping with daily life is nearly impossible. What if an existence mediated by pixel screens large and small presents a virtual world more compelling than the real world and turns out to be a kind of contagious avoidance behavior — until reality is so fugitive that we can barely discern its colors and outlines beyond the screens?

You end up in a virtual world of advertising and agit-prop where manipulation is the primary driver of human activity. That is, a world where the idea of personal liberty (including any act of free thought) becomes a philosophical sick joke, whether you believe in the possibility of free will or not. You get a land full of college kids trained to think that coercion of others is the highest-and-best use of their time on earth — and that it represents “inclusion.” You get a news industry that makes its own reality, churning out narratives (i.e. constructed psychodramas) to excite numbed minds. You get politics that play out like a Deputy Dawg cartoon. You get a corporate tyranny of racketeering that herds spellbound citizens like so many sheep into chutes for shearing, not only of their money, but their autonomy, dignity, and finally their will to live.Read More

04.29.19- Wealthy Elitists Freak Out As Hordes Of Homeless People Take Over Their Neighborhoods All Over The West Coast
Michael Snyder

The elite are very “tolerant” of the homeless until they start showing up in their own neighborhoods.  Even though the mainstream media keeps telling us that the U.S. economy is “booming”, the number of Americans living on the streets continues to grow very rapidly, and this is particularly true in our major west coast cities.  More than half a million Americans will sleep on the streets of our cities tonight, and they need help, care and shelter.  Sadly, as economic conditions deteriorate that number is likely to double or even triple.  Of course many among the elite are all in favor of doing something for the homeless, as long as they don’t have to be anywhere around them.

For example, let’s talk about what is going on in Los Angeles.  No city on the west coast has a bigger problem with homelessness than L.A. does, and many in the homeless population enjoy camping out on the beautiful beaches in the L.A. area at night. Read More

04.27.19- No One Is Coming to Rescue You—Especially Not a Presidential Candidate
Brittany Hunter

No one is coming to help you, so you might as well stop waiting and start fixing your own life today.

We are only a few months into 2019, and already the 2020 presidential election season is well underway. Each week, it seems that more candidates are entering the race, especially in the Democratic field. And as the country cycles through its political flavors of the week, social media has become overrun by passionate posts that read more like stump speeches in support of a given candidate.

Nearly every single person has an opinion about who this country should be supporting. And nearly every single one of them believes that their lives will be significantly better, or worse, based on who occupies the White House. But this gives politicians far too much power. Read More

04.26.19- Nearly 102 Million Americans Do Not Have A Job Right Now – Worse Than At Any Point During The Last Recession
Michael Snyder

Wouldn’t it be horrible if the number of Americans without a job was higher today than it was during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009?  Well, that is actually true.  As you will see below, nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now, and at no point during the last recession did that number ever surpass the 100 million mark.  Of course the U.S. population has grown a bit over the last decade, but as you will see below, the percentage of the population that is engaged in the labor force is only slightly above the depressingly low levels from the last recession.  Sadly, the truth is that the rosy employment statistics that you are getting from the mainstream media are manufactured using smoke and mirrors, and by the time you are done reading this article you will understand what is really going on. Read More

04.25.19- A horrible future awaits for anyone who
depends on government
Joe Jarvis

Lice, cockroaches, and root canals all have better approval ratings than Congress.

Congress controls government spending. And nine out of every ten people say the government doesn’t spend tax dollars wisely.

57% say tax rates are too high.

(But only 13% want to cut right to the heart of the issue and abolish the IRS.)

And whatever side of the aisle you’re on, the voters’ choice of President seems to be getting more ludicrous with each election cycle.

We all agree there is plenty to bitch about when it comes to the government. Read More

04.24.19- Here’s an easy way to tell if your bank is actually safe
Simon Black

March 15, 2013 was a pretty normal day in Cyprus. It was a Friday, and most people were looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

The next morning the entire nation woke up in horror. Their politicians had been up all night, negotiating with international lenders to provide an emergency loan to the country, and its banks.

It turned out that the banks in Cyprus were all insolvent; just like banks in the United States during the 2008 sub-prime crisis, banks in Cyprus had been making idiotic decisions with their customers’ hard-earned savings. Read More

04.23.19- Now who would have thought
it would be this simple to explain!
Jeffrey Bennett

The author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry. The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the U S, especially in the minority races. Not the Catholics, not the Mormons. Last month I attended my annual training session that’s required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by 3 speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant & Muslim faiths, who each explained their beliefs. 

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Muslim gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. Read More

04.22.19- The Best Case For Free Trade Is a Personal One
Sterling Terrell

Business is personal. And all barriers to trade are restrictions on personal freedom.

The best case for free trade—the best argument in favor of unbridled commerce—might be a personal one.

Let me explain.

People Can Easily Get Lost in Facts

In making the case for something, like most people, I want to lay out facts and logic. As soon as anyone starts talking about economics, I immediately fall back on my formal training.

People can easily get lost in the facts.

A free-trade debate means I need to explain absolute advantage and comparative advantage—and freedom. Read More

04.20.19- Are “Conspiracy Theories” Tearing Society Apart Or Saving Us From Destruction?
Brandon Smith

The phrase “conspiracy theory” is often used by establishment agencies, the mainstream media and useful idiots as a tool to dismiss legitimate evidence or viewpoints that disagree with their predetermined version of events. This method of propaganda was not always as widespread as it is today. The phrase was not “created” by the CIA, but it was in fact weaponized by them in the 1960's after the assassination of John F. Kennedy with the express purpose of shutting down rational debate.

CIA memo 1035-960, circulated within the CIA in 1967 and exposed through a freedom of information act request by the New York Times in 1976, outlines strategies the agency would use to shut down critics of the Warren Commission Report. Specifically, they suggested the accusation of “conspiracy” with negative connotations attached, predominantly in mainstream books and articles. This was indeed done through the CIA's many puppets in the media, and the concept of “conspiracy theory” as a pejorative was born. Read More

04.19.19- The House on Lake Minnetonka That Never Existed
Aaron Clarey

A Tale of Two Lakes 

Allow me to regale you with the tale of two lakes - Lake of the Isles and Lake Minnetonka.

Many years ago, when the Captain was but a wee corporal, he was attending the University of Minnesota- Minneapolis.  Close to the campus was "the lakes." "The lakes" included four lakes that were chained together and formed the "crown jewel" of the Minneapolis parks system.  These lakes were:

Cedar Lake
Lake of the Isles
Lake Calhoun, and
Lake Harriet.

These lakes served as the hub of nearly all outdoor summer activity in Minneapolis and to this day remain the most popular part of the Twin Cities to be during summer.  But of the four lakes "Lake of the Isles" was the most prestigious.  Here the "old money" captains of industry built their Minneapolis mansions in the 1880's and 1900's, and thus Lake of the Isles is perimetered by beautiful mansions and even some modern day ones as well. Read More

04.18.19- How to Make Your “Embarrassing” Investments Pay Off
Whitney Tilson

I’ve learned a lot of things over my 20-year career on Wall Street.

But perhaps nothing is as valuable as talking about investing with average folks. I call it the “cocktail-party indicator.”

Whether it’s your trainer at the gym, a neighbor who has never shown any interest in the markets, or the proverbial shoeshine guy… When you hear these folks talking about how much money they’ve made in bitcoin, 3D printing companies, or the latest hot IPO… run, don’t walk, the other way.

I’ve found, again and again, that when the least knowledgeable investors among all of the people I know are piling into whatever is hot, it’s usually very near the top of a bubble.

Today, I’ll give you another example of how you can use the sentiment of average investors to your benefit – instead of riding the bandwagon to disaster…

While the rest of the investment crowd is busy looking for the next way to get rich quick, I strongly suggest taking a different route.

I buy investments that are so hated, you would be embarrassed to say you own them at a cocktail party. Read More

04.17.19- Guess who ends up paying those taxes
meant only for the rich…
Joe Jarvis

Imagine starting a small business in the USA in 1875.

Imagine working for yourself, or building a company from scratch. With no corporate taxes, and no income taxes, you kept the full rewards of your risk and labor.

It’s not surprising that in about 100 years the United States went from non-existent, to having the largest economy in the world.

Unparalleled economic freedom helped create the industrial revolution which spurred legendary economic growth from 1870 through the turn of the century.

For most of the 19th century, the main source of tax revenue for the federal government was tariffs—taxes on imported goods.

But in 1913, everything changed. Read More

04.16.19- Japanified World Ahead
John Mauldin

Regular readers may have noticed me slowly losing confidence in the economy. Your impression is correct and there’s a good reason for it, as I will explain today. The facts have changed so my conclusions are changing, too.

I still think the economy is okay for now. I still see recession odds rising considerably in 2020. Maybe it will get pushed back another year or two, but at some point this growth phase will end, either in recession or an extended flat period (even flatter than the last decade, which says a lot). And I still think we are headed toward a global credit crisis I’ve dubbed The Great Reset.

What’s evolved is my judgment on the coming slowdown’s severity and duration. I think the rest of the world will enter a period something like Japan endured following 1990, and is still grappling with today. It won’t be the end of the world; Japan is still there, but the little growth it’s had was due mainly to exports. That won’t work when every major economy is in the same position. Read More

04.15.19- The Bull(y) Rally
Adam Taggart

Something unnatural is going on

"A bully is always a coward."

~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton

The current market rally is like a playground bully; shoving to the ground anyone in its path.

But like all bullies, the braggadocio belies an underlying cowardice.

Those in charge of the status quo must be absolutely terrified to resort to the unnatural lengths they are going to right now to keep the current rally intact. Read More

04.13.19- Trump Calls for New Quantitative Easing to Prop Up U.S. Economy
Stefan Gleason

As gold and silver markets continue in choppy trading this spring, bulls are hoping a dovish Fed will sink the dollar and lift the metals.

Now that the Federal Reserve is on “pause” – presumably for the rest of 2019 – perhaps investors can stop obsessing over interest rate decisions by central planners. Perhaps markets can finally trade based on actual market signals and underlying fundamentals. 

Perhaps ... not.

With 2020 election campaigns already underway, interest rate policy will be a political football in the months ahead. Incumbent administrations almost always favor lower interest rates heading into their re-election bids, and this one is no exception. Read More

04.12.19- World Faces "Uphill Battle" With Average IQ Of Just 82!
James Thompson

David Becker has released a new version of the World’s IQ. Each country has a score showing the cognitive abilities of their citizens, this being a blend of genetics and the environment of each country, particularly as regards education and health. The world’s global score is 82. This is 12th percentile rank on the Greenwich Mean Intelligence benchmark of IQ 100. As school teachers used to say in end of year reports: “Could do better”.

What does IQ 82 mean in practical terms? The account below gives the achievements as shown in Western economies, with free education and usually free healthcare, and will need to be adjusted for other economies, probably downwards to account for poorer educational systems and the burdens of ill health. Read More

04.11.19- Growing Public Pension Crisis an ‘Existential Financial Threat’
Emel Akan

WASHINGTON—Unfunded liabilities of nearly $6 trillion in state pension plans pose a significant risk to public workers, retirees, and taxpayers across the United States, according to a new study.

Almost every state struggles with massive unfunded pension obligations due to the “risky and uncaring attitudes” of lawmakers, according to a report released March 20 by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public-policy organization.

State pensions in the United States are funded at an average of 35 percent of what they should be, according to the report. And that means an average of $18,300 in unfunded pension obligations for every resident in the country.

“Pension liabilities are really the existential financial threat facing state and local governments today,” said Jonathan Williams, ALEC chief economist and vice president. Read More

04.10.19- ANOTHER “Bomb Cyclone” Will Bring More Flooding To Parts Of The Midwest That Were Hit By
A “1,000 Year Flood” Last Month
Michael Snyder

Less than a month after a “bomb cyclone” caused a “1,000 year flood” in the middle portion of the country, another “bomb cyclone” of similar strength is going to bring even more flooding to the High Plains and Upper Midwest.  According to meteorologists, it is being projected that this new “bomb cyclone” will be “similar in intensity and in snowfall” to the last one, and the latest forecast is calling for “more than 30 inches in some areas”.  The floods that we witnessed last month absolutely devastated communities throughout the region, and now it is going to happen again.  The middle part of our nation has literally never seen anything like this happen ever before, and this is easily the worst natural disaster to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina.

Before I get into the details of the latest weather forecast, let’s review what we have witnessed so far.  “At least 1 million acres of U.S. farmland” were under water for at least 7 days last month, according to Agriculture Secretary Sunny Purdue “as many as a million calves” were lost in the flooding in the state of Nebraska alone, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops were destroyed.  Thousands upon thousands of farmers were financially ruined, and thousands of farmers will not be able to plant any crops at all this year. Read More

04.09.19- The Curse of the Thinking Class
James Howard Kunstler

How might we account for the strange melding of neuroticism and dishonesty that has gripped America’s thinking class since the ascent of Donald Trump as an epically reviled figurehead on our ship of state? It all seems to come down to shame and failure.

There is, for instance, the failure of America’s leading economic viziers to arrest the collapse of the middle class — and with it, the disintegration of families — that more than anything produced the 2016 election result. What is a bigger emergency: the destruction of all those towns, cities, and lives in flyover-land, or the S & P stock index going down twenty points?

The choice made by the “experts” the past ten years is obvious: pump the financial markets at all costs by using dishonest policy interventions which they are smart enough to know will eventually blow up the banking system. They did it to preserve their reputations long enough to retire out of their jobs. The trouble is that the damage is now so extreme that when the time comes for them to apologize it will not be enough. They will lose their freedom and perhaps their heads. Read More

04.08.19- Why a Ruinous Deflation Is Coming
Rick Ackerman

I’ve been writing on deflation since the early-1990s, when I had the topic all to myself and was regarded as a voice on the lunatic fringe. Scary essays that I freelanced to Barron’s, the San Francisco Examiner and a number of other publications turned out to have been premature, but I’ve never doubted that the endgame for a global economy glutted by debt would be a deflationary collapse. Skeptics say the Government will make this impossible by simply revving up the printing presses, creating enough money to bail out ‘the system’ regardless of how many dollars it takes. Oh really? How would this work if, as is extremely likely, a state pension system goes bust?

Realize that 28 states have been growing their liabilities twice as fast as their economies, and that in the states that lead the pack — i.e., New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Kentucky  — accrued debts have been growing three to four times as fast as their respective economies. How long can that go on?  My guess is that Illinois, with a fiscally reckless Chicago to help bring it down, will be the first state to go belly-up.  Were the Federal government to come to the rescue, actual ‘helicopter money’ would be needed, since checks would have to go out every month to retirees so that they could meet recurring expenses. Read More

04.06.19- The Growing Opposition To Factual Knowledge
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

News From Information Clearing House

I just heard from Tom Feeley:

“I have been unable to determine why the website has been  suspended, I have sent lots of, emails, telephone calls and faxes and have not received any response.

“The really frustrating thing is that I am locked out of the C panel and am unable to access files I need in order to migrate to another company’s servers. 

“It’s frustrating and infuriating that a company would treat a customer of 18 year  in such away, without warning.

“Thankfully, ICH supporters with tech abilities are assisting me and I hope that by Monday everything will be back to normal.” Read More

04.05.19- Read this if you believe that you will never need
a semi-automatic rifle.
Hedgeless Horseman

“Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
― Rudyard Kipling

Day in and day out I observe that The Rule of Law is being eroded in America, especially the Highest Law of the Land, The Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights.  If you disagree with me, then maybe you simply do not know what it is that you are looking for, so you do not miss it.  Here is a list with four things to help you better see what exactly it is that we are slowly but surely losing.

1. Read, The Law, by Frédéric Bastiat.
   
   
2. Make a list of your natural rights.
   
   
3. Read, The Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights.
   
   
4. Read, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Read More

04.04.19- US government’s net worth is now
NEGATIVE $75 TRILLION
Simon Black

Usually around the middle of February each year, the US Treasury Department releases an annual report of the federal government’s financial condition.

It’s called the Financial Report of the US Government… and it looks a lot like an annual report that you might see filed by a big company like Apple or Facebook.

Except that, unlike Apple and Facebook, the US government’s annual report is absolutely gruesome.

This year’s report is no exception, save for one humorous anecdote: they -just- released it. In other words, they’re a month and a half LATE (given that the report is typically released in mid-February).

I actually CALLED the Treasury Department myself in early March, asking when they would publish the report. Read More

04.03.19- Missouri bill will ban all federal gun-control laws
Fellowship Of The Minds

I thank God that our Founding Fathers, whose greatest fear was a tyrannical government, had the wisdom and foresight to institute curbs on government power in the form of numerous checks and balances.

One of those checks is the creation of a federal republic, in which the constituent geographic states have their separate powers — a founding principle that is enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which spells out the powers of the constituent (geographical) states and of the people.

Unlike centralized polities like the UK and China wherein the central or national government holds all power, and whatever powers regional/local governments have are delegated to them, in a federation the powers of regional/local governments are not derived from the central government and, therefore, cannot be taken away by the central government. In the U.S. federal republic, as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution, it is the American people who grant separate powers to the federal government in Washington, D.C., and to the 50 state governments. Read More

04.02.19- Open the Age of Reason
Harley Schlanger

President Donald J. Trump presents the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Travis W. Atkins Wednesday, March 27, 2019, in the East Room of the White House. (White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

"There, in the stars, lies mankind's entry into the long-awaited Age of Reason, when our species sheds at last the cultural residue of the beast." — Lyndon LaRouche, 1985

In unveiling his five-year U.S. manned-Moon mission and succeeding international Moon-colonization and Moon-Mars missions when he did so, immediately after the collapse of the "Russiagate" coup against him one week ago, President Donald Trump acted exactly as Lyndon LaRouche might have advised him—if only LaRouche were still alive to see these signal victories for his ideas.

The British beast may have suffered a big setback, but it is still active and still working to shred the U.S. Constitution; we must go on to inflict its final defeat. But at just the same time, we must raise up the spirit and the standpoint of our fellow men and women, up to the level from which Earth's problems can be solved—and the level at which many of Earth's quarrels disappear. The level of the Solar System, and then of our Milky Way Galaxy which governs it. Read More

04.01.19- Here’s What Pops the “Everything Bubble”…
Nick Giambruno

As regular readers of the Diary already know, the Fed responded to the 2008 financial crisis with unprecedented amounts of easy money. It claimed it would “stimulate the economy.”

But as Bill has been showing you all week (catch up here, here, and here), all that “stimulation” did absolutely nothing for the real economy. All it did was push up the price of financial assets, specifically stocks and bonds.

The $3.7 trillion created by the Fed for its “quantitative easing” (QE) ended up creating not just a housing bubble, or a tech bubble, but an “everything bubble.”

And within the everything bubble, the bond market is the most warped part. It’s where the biggest distortions are.

And I believe it’s in danger of toppling… Read More

03.30.19- The Financial Panic of 2019?
Martin Armstrong

The distortion in the yield curve is building with tremendous force. There are vast bids for US 90-day T-Bills from around the world and no offers. The shortage in US government paper is now being reported to us from repo desks around the world. There is a MAJOR PANIC in to the dollar as emerging markets come under a financial crisis, in part, instigated by Turkey. The government simply trapped investors and refuses to allow transactions out of the Turkish lira. Turkey’s stand-off with investors has unnerved traders globally, pushing the world ever closer to a major FINANCIAL PANICcome this May 2019.

There is a major liquidity crisis brewing that could pop in May 2019. European Banks have loaded their portfolios with real estate loans thanks to quantitative easing and negative interest rates, and emerging market debt. Spanish banks are especially invested in Turkish debt where they hoped to get the highest yields expecting that the IMF would never let Turkey default. On top of this, banks have been lending to each other to also avoid parking money at the European Central Bank where they would be charged with a negative interest rate. Read More

03.29.19- How to Play The Game of Life & Go Into Extra Innings
Bill Sardi

Now you and your loved ones can play the game of life into extra innings and they aren’t going to have to send in a pinch runner for you, and you won’t be forced to retire and you can still hit home runs! 

Biologists just figured out how people living in developed countries are going to live 100 healthy years and the masses aren’t going to have to wait for some high-priced drug to achieve it. 

Despite precautions from university-based researchers not to forge ahead on their own and wait for anti-senescent (sen-ess-cent) drugs to be approved, longevity seekers have jumped on this newly understood longevity bandwagon, first by adoption of intermittent fasting (Dr. Jason Fung’s book THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO FASTING: HEAL YOUR BODY THROUGHT INTERMITTENT, ALTERNATE-DAY, AND EXTENDED FASTING is a best seller). Read More

03.28.19- Behind the Mueller Distraction… a Hellish Catastrophe
Bill Bonner

The last two years have been full of absurd distractions. The Mueller Report, for example – one big, fat, waste of time.

So were the trade wars… first with Canada and Mexico… and now with China. Lots of blah, blah… gumming and jawing…

And there was the “taking the knee”… which many people took seriously. And remember Stormy Daniels? And two summits with North Korea?

What was the point? Why the circus?

Headed to $40 Trillion

Let’s look at what is really going on.

First, the Trump administration increased military spending by $190 billion – practically every penny of which went to the insiders in Northern Virginia “defense” industries. Read More

03.27.19- For The Average Investor, The Next Bear Market
Will Likely Be The Last
Lance Roberts

Just recently Anna-Louise Jackson published an interesting article asking if “The Financial Crisis” still haunted your investing. To wit:

“This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the current bull market’s beginnings. Yet, many Americans remain reluctant to invest in the stock market, a scary hangover from the 2007-09 recession.

From October 2007 to March 2009, the S&P 500 plummeted nearly 57% and it took more than five years for the index to recover. But the share of Americans with money invested in the stock market still hasn’t returned to pre-recession levels, according to various studies. Read More

03.26.19- How the Perfect Prepper Plans Still Go Wrong
Daisy Luther

When a disaster strikes unexpectedly, there’s nearly always some kind of monkey wrench that causes your well-thought-out prepper plans to work less effectively than expected.  When describing the situation, the person says sheepishly, “Normally we wouldn’t have had X circumstance going on when it happened, and our preps would have worked just fine.”

Or, in the eloquent words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone’s got a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.”

But, variables.

That’s just the thing. There is nearly always going to be a variable that doesn’t fall neatly into your imagined scenario. Your ability to roll with that is the truest test of your preps and indeed, your overall level of preparedness. It is more valid than any number of planned practice runs. Read More

03.25.19- France Is The Socialist Future We Should Dread
Veronique de Rugy

A lot of attention and ink are being poured these days in trying to explain to a generation of voters why socialism always fails. Not only does socialism always fail to deliver the economic goods; it is also a source of massive oppression and pain.

I get why so many are devoting such amounts of energy to this task. First, the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and few others have made the notion of socialism acceptable in some circles and even hip. Also, according to a poll from August, for the first time since Gallup has asked the question, more Democrats approve of socialism than of capitalism. Read More

03.23.19- 18 Statistics That Prove That America
Has Become An “Idiocracy”
Michael Snyder

What in the world has happened to us?  Once upon a time, America had the greatest system of education on the entire planet, and our people were sharp, capable and extremely well informed.  Sadly, none of those things are true anymore.  In 2006, Mike Judge made a movie entitled “Idiocracy” in which an individual of below average intelligence wakes up after being asleep for 500 years thanks to a military hibernation experiment.  When he wakes up, he quickly realizes that he is now the smartest man in America, and that is not a good thing.  The film became an instant classic, but when I originally watched it I thought that such a thing could never actually happen in this country.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.  Since 2006 our nation has been “dumbed down” at a pace that is absolutely staggering, and it is difficult to see a positive future if this trend continues. Read More

03.22.19- Government Warns Of Historic, Widespread Flooding “Through May” – Food Prices To Skyrocket
As 1000s Of Farms Are Destroyed
Mixhael Snyder

We have never seen catastrophic flooding like this, and the NOAA is now telling us that there will be more major flooding for at least two more months.  On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that “historic, widespread flooding” would “continue through May”.  More than 90 percent of the upper Midwest and Great Plains is currently covered by an average of 10.7 inches of snow, and all of that snow is starting to melt.  That means that we are going to transition from one of the worst winters in modern history to a flood season that has already taken an apocalyptic turn for farmers all across America.  At this moment, millions of acres of farmland are already underwater.  Thousands of farmers are not going to be able to plant crops this year, and thousands of other farmers that have been financially ruined by the floods will never return to farming again.  This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and it is going to get a whole lot worse. Read More

03.21.19- Social Security “Tipping Point” Could Be Arriving Faster
Thanks to Congress
Peter Reagan

The Social Security system is expected to have enormous financial pressures placed on its back for the next two decades.

If nothing is done, in 2034 the clock will be ticking for this and other entitlement programs like Medicare.

But a “tipping point” may be coming faster than most people think. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan had a prescription to offer in a recent Newsmax piece. There’s his “easier said than done” part:

The best way to solve this problem is to fund our benefits, get a balanced budget, and the system will work. Read More

03.20.19- A Recipe for Massive Government Spending
Peter Reagan

I try to avoid partisan politics in my analysis. And I never try to tell people how to vote or what they should think. I trust my readers to make their own judgments. But sometimes I can’t avoid partisan politics because they can have a major impact on markets and the economy.

Leading Democratic presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders have expressed desires to increase income taxes to 70% or even 90% on the rich, impose “wealth taxes” on their net worth and impose estate taxes that are equally onerous when they die.

The result would be that working people would pay state and local income tax on their wages, super-high income taxes on interest and dividends and annual wealth taxes and whatever was left over would be confiscated when they die. Read More

03.19.19- How States/Empires Collapse in Four Easy Steps
Charles Hugh Smith

The promises cannot be met, and so society decays into warring elites and competing constituencies.

There is a grand, majestic tragedy in the inevitable collapse of once-thriving states and empires: it all seemed so permanent at its peak, so godlike in its power, and then slowly but surely, too many grandiose, unrealistic promises were made to too many elites and constituencies, and then as growth decays to stagnation, the only way to maintain the status quo is to appear to meet all the promises by creating money out of thin air, i.e. debauching the currency.

This political expediency works most wonderfully for a time: people don't realize the silver content of their coinage is being cut to near-zero, or there's nothing holding up the value of their currency but trickery and vague allusions to past glory. Read More

03.18.19- Internet Censorship and False Flag Fake wars
coming to a city near you
Global Intel Hub

Global Intel Hub 3/17/2019 (Zero Hedge Exclusive) -- This recent shooting in NZ was not just a 'shooting' it was a crossing of the Rubicon into a new sea of Orwellian fear and loathing.  As we explain in our book, NOTHING is as it seems.  Everything is about OPTICS and what really goes on is largely disregarded.  New Zealand is a testing ground:

For years New Zealand has been utilised by app developers, social media companies and software developers to test new technologies, but the risks and benefits for Kiwi consumers and businesses remain unclear. Ged Cann reports.  If you want to test it, come to New Zealand.  That's the mantra overseas, where New Zealand's advantages as a testing ground have been common knowledge in the international tech industry for decades, according to one world-wide developer. Read More

03.16.10- The Government’s Greatest Con Job
Peter Reagan

Yesterday we documented our personal frustrations with contemporary technology.

Today we file a protest against contemporary money.

We begin with the “evolution” of United States currency…

We refer you to this $10 bank note, dated 1928:

In those antique days, a fellow could march into a bank, hand the clerk a slip of paper as illustrated above and demand the denominated amount in gold coin.

The system imposed a hard discipline upon banks… and held inflation in checkmate.

Federal Reserve banks were required to keep a 35% reserve of “gold or lawful money” on hand, lest they make a liar of the United States Treasury secretary — in this case the Hon. Andrew William Mellon.

In effect, the private citizen bound the banking system in golden handcuffs.

But one Great Depression, one New Deal and one world war later… we come now to a 1950 $10 bank note: Read More

03.15.19- World War 3 Coming? Israel Is On The Brink Of War With Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria And Iran All At The Same Time
Peter Reagan

On Thursday, rockets were fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since 2014, and Israel responded by hammering Hamas with airstrikes.  This latest exchange has brought Israel closer to another war with Hamas than ever.  But as you will see below, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.  And on top of everything else, the most pivotal election in Israel in many years is on April 9th.  If more rockets are fired at Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford to look weak because that could cost him a lot of votes in this very tight election.  But he must walk a very fine line, because a military response that is seen as too harsh could potentially spark a major regional conflict.

Everyone knows that Israel is simply not going to tolerate rockets being fired at Tel Aviv, and so it was quite a shock to learn what had happened on Thursday.  The following comes from the Jerusalem Post… Read More

03.14.19- Why Do Some People Live Paycheck To Paycheck?
Tom Chatham

It is common place today to hear of people living paycheck to paycheck. If so many people are living so close to the edge one must ask why? There are many reasons why someone might be in financial distress but one looming question remains. If they lack sufficient funds to live as they do, why do they continue on that path?

It has become evident to me that many people live paycheck to paycheck because they choose to. It seems that many people today decide what standard of living they want and start living it. They get the home, car, clothes, jewelry and other items they view as their birthright. Then they try to find a job that will pay for it all. They are basically doing things ass backwards. 

In a normal world a person gets a job and builds a life around what they can afford. They live within their means in other words. This includes having sufficient funds for emergencies so they can continue on for a while if something happens to disrupt their income. This is the way most responsible people have always lived. Read More

03.13.19- Shoot Now Or Be Shoved In The Oven
Karl Denninger

The title of this article is not hyperbole.

Gene Sperling was just on CNBC saying that health care must be treated as a right and essentially deferring the debate as to how to pay for all of that -- and of course he trotted out the trope of a kid born with severe disabilities bankrupting his or her parents.

Health care is, today, almost 20% of our economy.  One dollar in five.

80% of that is stolen through fraud, felony, extortion, racketeering and anti-trust.  All of these are illegal and in the case of anti-trust have been illegal for almost 100 years.  There have been no changes to 15 USC Chapter 1 exempting medical providers, pharmaceutical firms or others involved in the supply of drugs, devices, implements, supplies and services to these laws. Read More

03.12.19- Civil War Would Erupt If “Green Deal” Socialists
Actually Get What They Want
Brandon Smith

In the months preceding the 2016 presidential election, I predicted a Trump election win but tried to temper expectations with the reality that there were multiple scenarios exploitable by globalists which could turn the conservative elation into confusion and chaos. Just after the election, I published an article titled 'Order Out Of Chaos: The Defeat Of The Left Comes With A Cost'. In that article I warned that the political Left, when confronted with failure, has displayed a habit of doubling or tripling down and becoming even more extreme in their rhetoric and policies. I also warned that this might influence the political Right to become more extreme in response.

This is the problem when attempting to explain the False Left/Right Paradigm to people who are new to the concept. Yes, at the top of the political pyramid, all the players support essentially the same policies of centralization and more power to the elites. But, at the bottom of the pyramid, there are numerous and legitimate divides among common citizens. The divides are real, not false, and it is these divides that the elites seek to exploit. Read More

03.11.19- Third Reich Redux: Don’t Say We Weren’t Warned
Erik Rush

As widely reported in the press and widely discussed on social media venues, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey indicated that nearly two-thirds of registered voters believe that the Democratic Party supports socialism; further, that a whopping 56 percent of those aged 18-24 and 48 percent of those aged 25-34 favor a “mostly socialist” system.

Now, for those who may be exclaiming that it’s time to put a fork in America “because we’re done,” the latter two stats are admittedly pretty worrisome, even if one factors in the unreliability of some polls due to selective sampling and subjective interpretation. The numbers in question are even up from those of a 2016 Harvard University survey of adults between the ages 18 and 29, which reported that 51 percent of these did not support capitalism, with only 33 percent stating that they supported socialism instead.

This is not entirely surprising, of course; since 2016, those in younger demographics have been subjected to an unprecedented degree of leftist propaganda aimed squarely at them. Then there’s the fact that many of those in the 18-24 group are necessarily mired in academia, which is lousy with agenda-driven leftists of every stripe. As we’ve seen over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult for young adults to even function, let alone express dissenting political views, in the halls of higher education. Read More

03.09.19- There Will Be A Revolution: Bob Moriarty’s Stunning Prediction of a Global Battle to Replace Fiat Money
Lior Gantz

Revolution is ugly and messy, but it’s sometimes necessary when tyranny exists. Tyranny can take many forms, including economic tyranny, which is manifested through the monetary supply in today’s world. Getting back to the gold standard would require nothing less than a revolution, and one widely-regarded commentator is predicting that we’ll see a revolt on a global scale.

Wealth Research Group actually had the chance to speak with this daring individual, who happens to be none other than Mr. Bob Moriarty. He is the owner and publisher of the precious metal information and analysis portal 321Gold.com, as well as 321Energy.com, which covers the oil, gasoline, coal, natural gas, solar, wind, and nuclear energy markets.

Known far and wide as a true patriot and world-class aviator, Bob Moriarty had ferried general aviation aircraft all over the world for 15 years, including more than 240 over-the-water deliveries. Mr. Moriarty holds 14 International Aviation records, including Charles Lindbergh’s record for time between New York and Paris in two different categories. Read More

03.08.19- How To Earn an Income? What Do You Tell Your Kids?
Bill Sardi

Get good grades.  Get a good job.  Get a college education.  Work your way up the ladder.  You might become a millionaire.  But you are always relying on someone else determining how valuable you are.  According to the U.S. Debt Clock, in this land of capitalism and free enterprise, there are only 8,826,490 Americans out of a labor force of 156 million who are self employed and theoretically have no imposed cap on their income.

Most Americans live in debt.  The population can be divided by those who pay interest on their debt and those who collect that interest   Primarily the financial classes have the most wealth in the country because they receive interest payments and have been given near-free money to play with.  Most Americans work for someone else, even government itself, which may not be a bad idea since government issues the money.  In Illinois, State worker retirement funds are attempting to tap into private pension funds to meet their obligations. Socialism in practice. Read More

03.07.19- The Trade Deficit Continues To Explode, Factories Continue To Be Closed, And U.S. Jobs
Continue To Be Sent Overseas
Michael Snyder

The long-term trends that are gutting the U.S. economy continue to get even worse.  As you will see below, our goods trade deficit with the rest of the world hit a brand new record high in 2018, and most Americans simply do not understand why this is such a massive problem.  Every year, we buy far more from the rest of the world than they buy from us, and that means that the amount of money going out of the country far surpasses the amount that is coming in.  This constant outflow of cash is one of the reasons why we are unable to pay our bills, and so we have to keep begging the rest of the world to lend us our money back.  Needless to say, this is one of the big factors that has fueled our 22 trillion dollar national debt.  In addition, when we run absolutely massive trade deficits we lose factories and workers to other countries.  Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the United States has lost more than 60,000 factories.  As factories keep closing down, community after community is being gutted all across America, and without a doubt this is truly a major national crisis. Read More

03.06.19- 3 Top Cyber Security Threats and How To Protect Yourself Against Them
Sam Bocetta

The mass expansion of technology and global communication has made the world a smaller place. Never before has it been easier to speak with someone across the world in an instant. 

This information has its perks, but greater connectivity can open your data to everyone. The good news, there are ways to mitigate the risks and protect your data. 

The bad news is that black-hat techniques are always changing, so defensive measures must evolve as well. Cybersecurity threats are real and it’s up to us to know how to protect ourselves from them. Read More

03.05.19- Bannon Predicts 2019 Will Be “the most vitriolic year in American politics since before the Civil War”
Daisy Luther

Who can forget the hostility during the 2016 election? The battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump caused the ends of friendships, strained family relationships, and set the tone for an angry new “normal” in the United States. And Steve Bannon, who was in the thick of the fray, predicts that this next election will be even worse … and that the problems will start this year, in 2019.

If you’re not familiar with Bannon, he was formerly the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a conservative news website (and many say it’s not just conservative, but alt-right.) During the last election, Bannon left Breitbart to take on the role of chief executive of the Trump campaign. That role evolved into the position of chief strategist and senior counselor of the newly elected president.

Before we get any deeper into the article, let me preface it with the fact that I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I was not satisfied with any of the candidates put forth during the previous election.  However, when Trump won, I vowed to cover all news about him fairly.

This article isn’t really about politics, though. It’s about people. Read More

03.04.19- Where Did AOC Get Her Sweet Potatoes?
Jeffrey A. Tucker

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was trying to explain to me that the world is going to melt, we are all going to die, and probably we shouldn’t be having any more children, but I was distracted by the dinner she was preparing on camera. She was carefully cutting sweet potatoes before putting them in the oven.

She put salt and pepper on them. Salt was once so rare that it was regarded as money. Ever try to go a day with zero salt? Nothing tastes right.  That was the history of humanity for about 150,000 years. Then we figured out how to produce and distribute salt to every table in the world. Now we throw around salt like it is nothing, and even complain that everything is too salty. Nice problem.

Sweet potatoes are not easy to cut, so she was using a large steel knife, made of a substance that only became commercially viable in the late 19th century. It took generations of metallurgists to figure out how to make steel reliably and affordably. Before steel, there were bodies of water you could not cross without a boat because no one knew how to make a boat. Read More

03.02.19- The Debt Accrued Through Dollar Hegemony Is Unpayable (Except In Hyperinflated Dollars)
Michael Doliner

The United States Entity lost the war in Iraq. That fact determines the Entity’s position in the Middle East today.

After having destroyed Saddam’s army and dispossessing the Sunnis in favor of the Shi’ites, after Abu Ghraib and it’s indelible pictures, after the total destruction of Fallujah, in short after a victory achieved with the utmost brutality, contempt and humiliation of Iraq and Iraqis, the Entity was in charge. Then the “insurgents” appeared. They put improvised explosive devices along the roads so, with a phone call, they could destroy patrols of the Entity. They made car bombs so that every vehicle approaching a check-point might spell doom. They donned suicide vests to blow themselves and any nearby Entity soldiers up. Entity soldiers couldn’t go into the streets. Every move they made could be their last. The enemy was everywhere and nowhere. These people would rather die then be ruled by these idiotic mechanized barbarians. Everything seemed peaceful, but at any moment, out of nowhere, they could be blown to pieces. Read More

03.01.19- Ginseng May Work Better Than Chemo and Radiation. Here’s How…
Sayer Ji

Known for thousands of years as a powerful tonic for health, new research reveals that ginseng and other cancer stem cell killing plants may provide highly effective treatments for cancer.

Cancer stem cells are one of the keys to understanding both the root cause(s) and the most appropriate treatment approaches for cancer.

As we have explored in previous writings, cancer stem cells have been identified to be at the heart of most cancer malignancies. These extraordinarily resilient and proliferative cells, while only making up a minority of cells within a tumor (about 1 in 1,000), are relatively immortal and resistant to conventional treatments. Read More

02.28.19- In Washington, Regime Change Is Truly and
Urgently Needed!
Andre Vltchek

I am surprised that no one else is saying it, writing it, shouting it at each and every corner:

It is not Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran that are in dire and crucial need of ‘regime change’. It is the United States of America, it is the entire European Union; in fact, the entire West.

And the situation is urgent.

The West has gone mad; it has gone so to speak, bananas; mental. And people there are too scared to even say it, to write about it.

One country after another is falling, being destroyed, antagonized, humiliated, impoverished. Entire continents are treated as if they were inhabited by irresponsible toddlers, who are being chased and disciplined by sadistic adults, with rulers and belts in their hands yelling with maniacal expressions on their faces: “Behave, do as we say, or else!” Read More

02.27.19- How to Truly Measure Standards of Living
Aaron Clarey

Economics has one goal in mind - to maximize standards of living.  This noble and never-ending goal sits at the heart of economics and has, by consequence, driven the majority of financial decisions made by government, corporations, academia, and other institutions (at least nominally anyway).  Our decisions are to get us out of poverty, increase our incomes, extend our lives, and drive towards the unattainable goal of unlimited wealth so that at some point in the future we attain a "Star-Trekkian" future where money is eliminated because wealth is infinite.  And it is in this pursuit of unlimited wealth, the economics profession has settled on a measure by which we measure standards of living today - GDP or "income" per capita. Read More

02.26.19- You Can't Stop The Cycle: The Next Few Years
Will Change Everything
Michael Krieger

2018’s valuation records are astounding in that they show the S&P 500 to be more fundamentally over-valued than it was at the prior two historic stock market valuation peaks in 1929 and 2000, bona fide speculative manias.

– From Crescat Capital’s recent investor letter

Cycles are perhaps the most natural and common occurrence in the universe. The planets orbit the sun, seasons change, day turns to night and night back to day, humans are born, grow old and die.

Some of these cycles are more pleasant to think about than others, but their consistent occurrence remains factually unassailable. Indeed, it could be said that a human life itself consists of an endless series of encounters with various cycles. Cycles of the natural world and cycles created by humans themselves. Human created cycles are the focal point of today’s piece. Read More

02.25.19- The Freedom Fairy
Jeff Thomas

For some time, it’s been apparent that the former “free world” countries (the US, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc.) have been on a downward progression – socially, politically and economically.

But, in the last ten years, the awareness of this has become increasingly pronounced. With each successive year, more and more people recognise that all facets of life in these formerly great countries are heading in a decidedly negative direction.

At this point, even those who don’t understand the decline intellectually, feel in their gut that this is not going to end well. Further, they feel it all around them and sense that when the condition becomes critical, it won’t just affect others. When it reaches the crisis stage, they’ll find it right on their own doorstep.

The average person in each of these jurisdictions already no longer trusts either the media, big business or the government and feels that, somehow, they’re all in this together and that they, the electorate, will be the ones who will be the ultimate victims. Read More

02.23.19- Class Warfare
Doug Casey 

Justin’s note: Are billionaires bad?

Many Americans on the left are asking themselves this question. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the Democrat’s new rising star – is certainly no exception. Just look at what AOC said in a recent interview.

It’s not to say someone like Bill Gates, for example, or Warren Buffett are immoral people. I do not believe that.

I do think a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong.

AOC, of course, isn’t alone. Two weeks ago, The Huffington Post published a piece titled “Should Billionaires Even Exist?” The New York Times followed up a few days later when it ran a similar piece titled “Abolish Billionaires.” Read More

02.22.19- 12 Steps You Can Take if You Lose Your Job
Nilus Mattive

Losing your job is one of the most devastating life events both emotionally and financially.

Open the paper or do a quick Google search online and you’ll see all the recent corporate layoffs happening in America.

This month, General Motors said it was starting to hand pink slips to about 4,000 salaried workers in the latest round of restructuring.

In January, CNBC reported Verizon Media Group, formerly known as Oath, would be laying off 7% of its workforce, affecting approximately 800 employees. Buzzfeed, another media company, said it was cutting about 15%, or 250 of its employees. Read More

02.21.19- Plunder: An American Way of Life
Wolf Richter

Frederic Bastiat, a French economist and member of the French National Assembly, lived from 1801 to 1850. He had great admiration for our country, except for our two faults — slavery and tariffs. He said: “Look at the United States. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person’s liberty and property.” If Bastiat were alive today, he would not have that same level of admiration. The U.S. has become what he fought against for most of his short life.

Bastiat observed that “when plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” You might ask, “What did Bastiat mean by ‘plunder’?” Plunder is when someone forcibly takes the property of another. That’s private plunder. What he truly railed against was legalized plunder, and he told us how to identify it. He said: “See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” Read More

02.20.19- Greatest Bubbles of All Time
Growth to Retire

Economic bubbles are one of the most difficult events to spot of all. Thus very difficult to avoid, let alone do something about it. So why study them at all? History rarely repeats itself (at least not in the exact same way, with the exact same financial assets). 

On the other hand, we can extract some lessons from every bubble. Thus constructing some protocol for future guidance. Here I’ll write about 7 of the Greatest Bubbles of all time, and then highlight common aspects between them. 

If you like what you read, feel free to share it. Read More

02.19.19- Great Civilizations Aren’t Murdered, They Commit Suicide: The U.S.’s Likely Collapse
Mac Slavo

Historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilizations. Toynbee concluded that great civilizations don’t “get murdered,” rather, they kill themselves, and all the signs of a civilization collapse are here.

The Roman Empire, for example, was the victim of many ills including overexpansion, climatic change, environmental degradation, and poor leadership. But it was also brought to its knees when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Vandals in 455.

Collapse is often quick and greatness provides no immunity. The Roman Empire covered 4.4 million sq km (1.9 million sq miles) in 390. Five years later, it had plummeted to 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles). By 476, the empire’s reach was zero. –BBC  Read More

02.18.19- A gold backed alternative to the dollar may finally be here in the Iranian PayMon cryptocurrency
Ken Schortgen

Yesterday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence severely chastised members of the European Union for defying Washington and for their plans to create an alternative to the SWIFT system.  Additionally, he threatened these nations with sanctions or worse if they continue to follow in their support of Iran and the JCPOA.

Yet ironically, Europe's defiance to the U.S. regarding the Iranian JCPOA could have triggered the final battle for dollar hegemony in the world as multiple nations within both Europe and Eurasia are being recruited to ditch the reserve currency for a new gold backed cryptocurrency replacement.

Iranians though are opening other creative fronts. Four banks – Bank Melli, Bank Mellat, Parsian Bank and Bank Pasargad – have developed a gold-backed cryptocurrency named PayMon, and negotiations are already advanced with the Europeans as well as Russia, Switzerland and South Africa to expand PayMon trading. Iranian officials are adamant that blockchain will be crucial to improve the nation’s economy. Read More

02.16.19- The Uncertainty Hiding in the Recent Market “Rally”
Birch Gold Group

If you look at the Dow year-to-date, you might think the market has rallied fairly well for the start of 2019. You might even think the uncertainty from 2018 was accounted for to some degree.

But not so fast. According to a recent report, Liz Ann-Sonders from Charles Schwab highlighted concerns about an imminent earnings recession.

Ann-Sonders said that an earnings recession – two straight quarters of year-over-year profit declines – is possible. It’s just not “something that the market is forecasting right now.”

She attributed the possibility of this recession to waning effects from last-year’s tax cuts. And over at MarketWatch, Mike Wilson from Morgan Stanley says their earnings recession call is playing out “faster than we thought.”

He also “downgraded S&P 500’s earnings-per-share growth target for the year to 1% from 4.3% and warned of a looming earnings recession.” Read More

02.15.19- The Democratic Party's Secret Attack On The Middle Class
Charles Kadlec

Democrats repeatedly claim their goal is to promote middle-class prosperity.  Yet, their policy of increased spending financed by higher taxes and rising debt are a direct threat to the middle-class standard of living and economic security.  That is the conclusion of new research I have just completed based on an analysis of state taxes, spending and debt policies and their economic consequences based on data provided by the Tax Foundation, Sales Tax Institute, U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. government.

States are a perfect laboratory for cutting through the political spin and observing the actual economic policies of the nation’s two major political parties, along with their consequences for the average American.  Democratic states – defined as those 18 states and District of Columbia won by the Democratic candidate for President in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections – are true to the Democratic Party’s rhetoric.

First, they spend more than the 22 states won by the Republican Presidential candidate in the past three elections and the 10 Swing states.  In 2011, state and local spending per capita in Democratic states averaged $11,742 – nearly 20% more than in Republican states and 27% more than in swing states.  Moreover, between 2000 and 2011, per capita spending in the Democratic states grew by 54% compared to only 21% in Republican states and 38% in swing states. Read More

02.14.19- Avoid the Financial Circus
Gary Christenson

From Dr. Maya Shetreat, MD:

“Don’t blame a clown for acting like a clown. Ask yourself why you keep going to the circus.”

THE WALL STREET CIRCUS DISTRACTS PEOPLE

Wall Street cheerleaders assure everyone stocks go up in the long term. Yes, they rise because the dollar is devalued every year, which they seldom discuss. Their cheerleaders avoid stating that corrections and crashes occur every five to ten years. Wall Street generates fees by encouraging individuals and pension funds to stay invested for the long term.

Bad advice from Neil Irwin as published in the New York Times—January 2019:

“If it all [stock market volatility and losses] makes you want to flee – or at least shift your 401(k) into cash – that’s understandable. It’s also a bad idea.”[Really? Ride it all the way down?] Read More

02.13.19- Trump Missed His Last Great Opportunity
Wolf Richter

Lies and Claptrap

No one wants to hear about the State of the Union speech (SOTUS). Full of bluff and bluster… lies and claptrap – all of them are best forgotten, and fast.

But we return to last week’s SOTUS, as to the site of a murder, not to bury the corpse but to praise him.

For there lies DJT… Donald John Trump… slain. Like Caesar, smitten in the Capitol, but by his own hand.

Our guess is that he will never rise again. A further guess is that he will take the nation down with him; we will look at those dots tomorrow.

The problem with his SOTUS was that it failed to mention anything that might be meaningful or helpful. That is, it avoided any mention of the real state of the union.

Who would report on a company and fail to mention that it was $22 trillion in debt… and was, at the time, losing money at the rate of approximately $100 billion per month… and that it had no plans – or even hope – of cutting its losses or heading off a monumental debt crisis? Read More

02.12.19- If This Isn’t Stock Market Manipulation,
Then I Don’t Know What Is
Jesse Felder

Executive teams have leveraged up their companies to record levels while paying record valuations for share buybacks…

There is a growing chorus surrounding the topic of stock buybacks and whether they should be banned. Most recently, Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders wrote a piece for the New York Times arguing that buybacks are nothing more than corporate self-indulgence that leads to long-term harm to both companies and the economy. This may be true and, with equity valuations at or near all-time highs, buybacks certainly appear uneconomic at current prices but this is no reason to ban them. Companies should be allowed to throw money down the drain if they so choose. It’s a free country, as they say. Read More

02.11.19- Dreams Die Hard
James Howard Kunsler

Somewhere between the fevered Zzzz’s of American Dreaming and the blinding shock of being “woke,” there is a recognition that an awful lot about contemporary life is not working and can’t go on. At the bottom of this discontent is the mistaken notion that the unwind of modernity can be arrested or mitigated by “smart” and “green” this-and-that.

The disappointment over it will be epic when we discover that the laws of physics override the bright ideas of politicians. America has been blowing green smoke up its own ass for years, promoting oxymorons such as “green skyscrapers” and “clean energy,” but the truth is we’re not going to run WalMart, Suburbia, DisneyWorld, and the interstate highway system on any combination of wind, solar, geothermal, recycled Fry-Max, and dark matter. We’re just running too much stuff at too great a scale for too many people. We’ve blown through the capital already and replaced it with IOUs that will never be honored, and we’re caught in an entropy trap of diminishing returns from all the work-arounds we’re desperately trying. Read More

02.09.19- Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A
Destructive Globalist Belief System
Brandon Smith

Over many years of investigating the mechanics of global events and the people behind them I have become perhaps a little obsessed with one particular subject – the source and motivations of evil. This fascination does not stem from a simple morbid curiosity, but a strategic need to understand an enemy. Much like an exterminator needs to understand the behavior of cockroaches to be effective, I seek to understand the behavior and nature of organized evil.

One very important fact that must first be made clear in people's minds is that evil does indeed exist. Establishment propaganda has spent immense time, effort and capital attempting to condition society into believing that evil is nothing more than a social construct – an opinion. Evil is supposedly in the eye of the beholder; a product of religious conditioning. This is a falsehood. Just like concepts of beauty, concepts of evil are actually inherent in our psyches from birth. The “eye of the beholder” is irrelevant. Read More

02.08.19- Telltale Signs Of Recession
Charles Hugh Smith

I'm seeing lifestyles that are out of stock and no longer available, even in China.

Though every recession is unique, all recessions manifest in similar ways in the real economy. By real economy, I mean the on-the-ground economy we observe with our own eyes, as opposed to the abstract statistical model reflected in official declarations of when recessions begin and end.

One characteristic that never makes it into the abstract statistical representation of recession is the light switch phenomenon: business suddenly dries up, as if someone turned a light switch off. This is especially visible in discretionary purchases, which include everything from smart phones to vehicles to eating out.

Other telltale signs of recession include: Read More

02.07.19- “The Value Of The Dollar Has No Guarantee Whatsoever”
Egon von Greyerz

The statement above is of course totally accurate for a country running budget and trade deficits for over half a century with a total debt, including unfunded liabilities, in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

It could have been said today, but it actually dates back to August 1971 when the People’s Daily in China declared the beginning of the end for the monetary system of the capitalist world.

This prescient statement certainly has Cassandra characteristics. Cassandra was the princess of Troy who was given the gift to make prophecies that were true but no one believed. The Chinese government saw already 48 years ago that Nixon’s decision to end the gold backing of the dollar would be the end of the dollar and the Western monetary system. No one believed their prophecy at the time. But they are being proven right. Read More

02.06.19- CounterThink: How the Cancer Industry
Will DESTROY the New Cure for Cancer
Mike Adams

View Video

02.05.19- Home Sales to Get Even Uglier in Near Future
Wolf Richter

“Dripping down, down, down. Frustrating that the housing market is not recovering”: National Association of Realtors

What will home sales look like in January and February? Very, very lousy, according to pending home sales, a measure that counts how many contracts were signed. Contract signings run roughly one or two months ahead of when the sales close and are reported as sales. The measure of pending home sales for December projects actual home sales in January and February. To that tune, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that its Pending Home Sales Index for December fell to the lowest level since April 2014:

“It’s been dripping down, down, down,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in the interview. “Frustrating that the housing market is not recovering.” Read More

02.05.19- Home Sales to Get Even Uglier in Near Future
Wolf Richter

“Dripping down, down, down. Frustrating that the housing market is not recovering”: National Association of Realtors

What will home sales look like in January and February? Very, very lousy, according to pending home sales, a measure that counts how many contracts were signed. Contract signings run roughly one or two months ahead of when the sales close and are reported as sales. The measure of pending home sales for December projects actual home sales in January and February. To that tune, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that its Pending Home Sales Index for December fell to the lowest level since April 2014:

“It’s been dripping down, down, down,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in the interview. “Frustrating that the housing market is not recovering.” Read More

02.04.19- If You Are Warm Right Now, Thank Capitalism
Raymond Niles

Last night the temperature fell 3 degrees an hour. As I write this, it is negative 10 degrees outside. A “once in a generation” polar vortex has swept into the American Midwest from the Arctic.

I am lucky to be alive. It would take me just a couple of hours to die from hypothermia if I were outside in such weather. But I am not just alive, I am comfortable. It is a balmy 73 degrees in my home. I am relaxing by my gas fireplace that gives off a warm heat as gentle flames dance about and please my eye. I can hear the gentle whir of fans blowing heat around my living room, generated by my furnace. I write this on my comfortable sofa with a computer on my lap powered by electricity and fed information via the Internet, itself powered by electricity and glass-fiber conduits that carry information to me from computers and minds from across the earth.

My refrigerator is full. I went to the grocery store last night in my car that is powered by an internal combustion engine and fueled by gasoline, which was refined from petroleum that was pumped out of wells drilled in miles-long holes and transported in pipelines and rail cars and refined at complex and gargantuan refineries and made accessible to me via pumps placed at stations in convenient locations for me to use. I am eating an orange that was grown in Florida or Brazil thousands of miles away and transported to me by railroads and airplanes powered by jet engines. Read More

02.02.19- How Rich Is Rich?
Tyler Durden

With an ever-growing chorus of ‘soak the rich’ rising from the left-er of the leftists, it is becoming increasingly important to know what “rich” is – How much would you have to earn in a year in the U.S. before someone considered you rich?

Statista’s Niall McCarthy has the answer. According to a recent YouGov poll ,that depends heavily on you ask…

The research found that the American public considers an annual income between $90,000 and $100,000 necessary to be deemed rich. The fieldwork for the survey was carried out in September 2018 and it found that 76 percent of respondents think an annual income of $10,000 constitutes being poor.

That label gets shaken off once yearly earnings hit $30,000 with half of the population saying someone in this income category is neither rich nor poor. Read More

02.01.19- How Do You Beat The Bankers At Their Own Game?
Tom Chatham

Those that have been following events for several years know they are under attack by an enemy that has no face and means to do them great harm. Nothing less than their sovereignty and freedom is at stake. Absolute control over people and resources is the ultimate goal.

People need to understand that the bankers need to collapse everything and leave the population in want of resources and supplies. Just like after a natural disaster when the government shows up to provide help to those that have lost everything, the bankers want to show up after the population has lost everything in a collapse, to be their savior and gain control of everyone by offering resources in exchange for compliance. Read More

01.31.19- U.S.-China War May Be “Just A Shot Away”
Jim Rickards

I have warned repeatedly that currency wars and trade wars can lead to shooting wars. Both history and analysis support this thesis.

Currency wars do not exist all the time; they arise under certain conditions and persist until there is either systemic reform or systemic collapse. The conditions that give rise to currency wars are too much debt and too little growth.

In those circumstances, countries try to steal growth from trading partners by cheapening their currencies to promote exports and create export-related jobs.

The problem with currency wars is that they are zero-sum or negative-sum games. It is true that countries can obtain short-term relief by cheapening their currencies, but sooner than later, their trading partners also cheapen their currencies to regain the export advantage. Read More

01.30.19- So You Want to Get Rich: Focus on Human Capital
Charles Hugh Smith

Wealth is flowing to those who earn money from their human capital and enterprise. 

So you want to get rich: OK, what's the plan? If you ask youngsters how to get rich, many will respond by listing the professions the media focuses on: entertainment, actors/actresses, pro athletes, and maybe a few lionized inventors or CEOs. 

The media's glorification of the few at the top of these sectors masks the statistical reality that those who attain wealth in these pursuits number in the hundreds or perhaps thousands, not in the millions. As in a lottery, the odds of joining such a limited group are extremely low. 

There are 330 million Americans and 150 million people reporting income, so statistically, the odds of getting rich improve significantly if we focus on joining the ranks of the 11 million people who are getting rich from their human capital rather than on the few thousand people earning big bucks in music, film, sports, etc. Read More

01.29.19- Bunnies, Bombers and Butter
Gary Christenson

The welfare people and the warfare people control congress, appropriations, corruption and national policies. Implications are grim.

If a nation subsidizes butter, it will get more butter. The U.S. and most other western governments subsidize welfare and warfare. Those expenses inevitably increase and are inescapable, like the mathematics of debt.

The U.S. federal and state governments created a huge network of government programs, giveaways, entitlements and public assistance. The welfare people have increased the number and cost of those programs every decade. Giveaways will expand next decade when the U.S. elects a welfare-oriented politician as President. She will push for Universal Basic Income, Medicare for all, guaranteed jobs, free tuition, wealth taxes and more.

The symbol for the welfare people could be the Easter Bunny, who distributes free goodies.Read More

01.28.19- Feminism Is A Disease - And Masculinity Is The Cure
Brandon Smith

It seems these days like everyone and their genderfluid grandma has some “profound” insight into the minds and world of men. Men and masculinity are spoken of in the media with sharp tones of fear mixed with disdain, as if we are a dangerous aberrant genetic anomaly that needs to be studied under a special microscope that will protect the observer from being influenced by our vitriolic pheromones. The problem is, most of these “experts” on manhood are not men at all, or, their observations of male behavior are tainted with deep-seated resentments.  That is to say, they are hardly objective.

I recently came across an article by The Atlantic titled 'Psychology Has A Healthier Approach To Building Healthier Men'. Written around the same time as the embarrassing failure of Gillette's “Toxic Masculinity” ad campaign, I assume The Atlantic like many other mainstream media outlets was privy to this coming propaganda push and is attempting to rally the leftist troops to defend an ideological partner in crime. YouTube itself has even been aiding Gillette by removing dislikes from the video's vote count, which just goes to show that YouTube (owned by Google) is not a business but a propaganda machine, pure and simple. Read More

01.26.19- Toxic Masculinity and White Privilege
Doug Casey

Just a forewarning, this is one of the most controversial Conversations With Casey we’ve ever published. You might want to skip reading this one if you’re easily offended.

Justin: Doug, what did you think of that Gillette ad?

Doug: The first thing that came to mind was that, when I was a kid in the ’50s, Schick razors used to sponsor boxing on television. Boxing, ritualized unarmed combat, is about the height of masculinity. It was, logically, sponsored by a razor company.

Now, we have a razor company that’s saying that almost any kind of masculinity is toxic. It’s a complete turnaround, an inversion. And, just as an FYI, Schick has run ads making the same point. As have Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s – both of which are owned by major corporations. I never previously cared what kind of razor I used – never even noticed the brand. But I’m simply not going to buy their stuff from now on, simply because I refuse to support these despicable people even on the tiniest level. I suppose I’ll give Porter Stansberry’s OneBlade razor a second shot. It’s a great shave, just rather retro. Read More

01.25.19- Do This to Profit in a Bear Market
Jeff Clark

“Why on Earth,” a concerned reader asked recently, “would you even consider recommending buying any stock in a market you describe as bearish? After all, if the market is going to fall this year, then most stocks are going to fall with it…”

That’s a fair question. Most stocks are strongly correlated to the performance of the S&P 500. So, if the broad stock market falls in 2019 – as I’ve argued it will – then buying most stocks is going to be a mistake.

That seems logical. But it’s simplistic thinking.

You see, even in bear markets there are lots of chances to profit by buying stocks. Back in 2008, for example, one of the best-performing strategies was to simply wait on the sidelines until the stock market reached historically oversold conditions – where the proverbial rubber band was stretched about as far as possible to the downside – and then buy stocks in anticipation of an oversold bounce. Read More

01.24.19- Experts Uncertain About Social Security’s Future Prove One Thing is Certain
Birch Gold Group

A lot can happen between now and 2034. If you were to listen to a consensus from experts, you’d hear Social Security could run out of money in about 15 years.

This idea was recently addressed in a MarketWatch article, which included this potential result:

As most retirees and soon-to-retirees already know, Social Security is slated to run out of money in 2034 and, unless changes are made between now and then, beneficiaries beginning in that year will receive only 79% of what they otherwise would be owed.

But the article continues by highlighting the uncertainty behind this and other “consensus” predictions (emphasis ours):

To be sure, predicting what will come out of Congress in the next few months is an inexact science at best, much less the next 15 years.

The article features an interview with one (of many) experts on Social Security, Andy Landis, who worked at the Social Security Administration (SSA). In 1983, changes were enacted that, according to Landis, bring a certain perspective to expert predictions about Social Security. Read More

01.23.19- Three Ways the Government Shutdown forecasts a totally boring federal collapse
Joe Jarvis

Imagine: the federal government collapses, poof, gone.

Maybe it’s 2034, the date the government admits it can’t pay it’s $50 trillion Social Security bill.

Or maybe it’s earlier. The national debt is at almost $22 trillion, plus the massive everything-bubble created by the federal reserve money printing. Those don’t bode well for the future of the dollar.

It is inevitable that all this debt and the debasing of the US dollar will eventually hurt.

The longest government shutdown in history is a tiny preview, a little case study on what is coming when the federal government shuts down for good.

When it can’t pay its bills, when it runs out of cash flow, or when the US dollar has no value, what will happen? Read More

01.22.19- What Will Take the Place of America?
Phil Butler

The dog and pony show that is US leadership is an ongoing embarrassment for millions of American brought up to believe in excellence. Big talk, never-ending controversy, and mudslinging, and disastrous decisions on a daily basis have made a mockery of freedom and democracy. Trump-Russia, propaganda, and the rewriting history and truth are bigger threats than terrorism. Here’s another brief look at the mayhem from Washington. Here’s some food for those who think.

Investigative genius Gordon Duff wrote recently about the psychopathic killer, former Vice-President Dick Cheney in a piece about the indecency of Washington. Discussing a new film called “V-I-C-E,” which fries Cheney on the spit like a big fat hen, Duff encapsulates what mucky slime our nation’s capital is infested with the following passage:

“Cheney may well have been or well may still be the most powerful leader in America’s history, a history that is rocked with failure upon failure, an end to American power, an end to American honor, such as it is or was, an America whose cohesion at home and reputation around the world may well be irreparable.”Read More

01.21.19- C.S. Lewis Sounded the Alarm on
the Dangers of Progressivism
Benjamin Hutchinson

While most of us associate C.S. Lewis with theological literature, the renowned author sounded the siren against progressivism’s clear dangers not only to the political rights and liberties of man, but also to our very perception of the reality of mankind…

C.S. Lewis: World-renowned author, philosopher, theologian. Christian apologist. Mere mention of his name fills our minds with images of faith-based allegory, of lions, witches, and wardrobes, of rational defenses of the Christian faith.

But political commentator and staunch opponent of progressive ideals?

That’s not what we think of when we think of C.S. Lewis. Read More

01.19.19- The U.S. Economy and the Ponzi Scheme
Dr. Kal Kotecha

In a Ponzi scheme, money is taken from one source to pay for another, without actually having a real foundation or solid guaranteed future store of funds.  The initial returns generate excitement leading to more spending based mainly on reporting of false gains and the continuing propagation of unrealistic ideals.  At some point, the scheme loses its’ viability and fails to deliver as promised resulting in collapse and loss of funds, leaving victims’ scrambling to try to make up in some way for their losses.

The most famous Ponzi scheme of modern day was run by Bernie Madoff from New York City who managed to turn $5,000 saved from a lifeguarding job and installing sprinkler systems into nearly $65 billion of accounts.  During the run of the scheme he was able to amass an impressive list of clients including numerous celebrities and other well-known public figures.  Arvedlund, E. (2018).

His scheme was so elaborate and well-thought out that he was able to keep it running for over two decades while offering ten percent or higher returns.  In addition, his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, at its’ peak was handling five percent of the trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange.  The scheme was exposed when his sons turned him in after he admitted to them that he was running a Ponzi scheme.  Subsequently, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Arvedlund, E. (2018). Read More

01.18.19-This problem is 10,000 times bigger than the border wall
Simon Black

We are in the midst of the longest government shutdown in history.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having the government shut down. As I’ve said before, I believe it is my moral duty to pay as little taxes as possible.

The government does some really stupid things with your tax dollars. I’d rather not pay for a $2 billion Obamacare website that doesn’t work, or to defend Congressmen against sexual assault allegations.

So, by starving the beast, I at least ensure they’re not squandering my money.

But I think it’s ridiculous that this government posturing is financially crippling the 800,000 government workers (and millions of contractors) who are now out of work – or being forced to work without pay.

To be fair, last night the president signed a law guaranteeing they would be paid for past work – a month into this fiasco. It’s a step in the right direction, as there’s a word for forcing people to work without pay – slavery. Read More

01.17.19- This New Market Could Make You a Fortune in 2019
E.B. Tucker

He stared down his opponents, with his eyes barely visible under the broad brim of a Stetson cowboy hat.

He had a rattlesnake with its jaw open and fangs exposed glued to the front of it. With a Texas drawl, he’d tell the other players how he had killed it himself.

At 6’4’’ and 170 pounds, Amarillo Slim was the greatest gambler to ever live. He made his first million in 1947 when he was only 19. His unforgettable look helped make poker a mainstream game around 20 years ago.

Slim was so good at poker, he said he was one of only four men who deserved to call themselves players. He won millions of dollars back when a million was considered serious money. He took pots from presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Hustler magazine founder Larry Flint, and even drug lord Pablo Escobar. Read More

01.16.19- Where Will You Be Seated at
the Banquet of Consequences?
Charles Hugh Smith

To get a good seat at the banquet of consequences, the owner of capital has to shift his/her capital into scarce forms for which there is demand. 

The Banquet of Consequences is being laid out, and so the question is: where will you be seated? The answer depends on two dynamics I've mentioned many times: what types of capital you own and the asymmetries of our economy.

One set of asymmetries is the result of the system isn't broken, it's fixed, i.e. rigged to favor the few at the expense of the many. There are many manifestations of neofeudal asymmetry that divides neatly into two classes and two systems, the nobility and the serfs.

A rich kid caught with drugs gets a wrist-slap, a poor kid gets a tenner in the Drug Gulag.

Upper-middle class households are tax-donkeys, paying high taxes and getting few deductions, while mega-wealthy corporations and financiers enjoy offshore tax shelters of the kind exposed by the Panama Papers. Read More

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

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. Read More

01.14.19- Why I Will No Longer Recognize the Week
Aaron Clarey

One of the main problems with life is that to merely survive takes all (and more) of your youth.  That to just get by you need to work two jobs, double time it to earn yourself a degree, double time it again to pay off the associated debts, and then still double time it a third time to establish yourself in a career.  If you do it right and are frugal along the way, you inevitably "win" where you have the American dream, no debts, and an adequate retirement account.  You are free to live your life and you're lucky if this happens before 40.  If you're not frugal, succumbing to the marketing industry's propaganda to buy expensive cars and houses through debt, you merely damn the remainder of your life to double timing it forever, dying penniless, or perhaps like most boomers - in debt. Thankfully, the majority of my readers are in the previous group where we are either already there, or well on our way, ensuring we do not waste our lives. Read More

01.12.19- This Technology Will Be Bigger Than the Internet
Jeff Brown

Last October, a modified Toyota Prius drove itself 3,099 miles – from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan.

There was a human in the driver’s seat, but he didn’t touch the steering wheel, gas, or brake pedals for the entire trip. The self-driving car drove itself the entire distance.

If any readers are curious about the trip, have a look at the time-lapse video of the entire coast-to-coast journey here.

This coast-to-coast, self-driving journey was the first of its kind. Yet it got little to no press.

But make no mistake, this is a remarkable achievement. This sort of trip wouldn’t have been possible even just a few years ago.

Today, I want to share with you the technology that made it possible, and show why it’s a trend that ought to be on every investor’s radar… Read More

01.11.19- The Recession Will Be Unevenly Distributed
Charles Hugh Smith

Those households, enterprises and organizations that have no debt, a very low cost basis and a highly flexible, adaptable structure will survive and even prosper.

The coming recession will be unevenly distributed, meaning that it will devastate many while leaving others relatively untouched. A few will actually do better in the recession than they did in the so-called "recovery."

I realize many of the concepts floated here are cryptic and need a fuller explanation: the impact of owning differing kinds of capital, fragmentation, asymmetry, opacity, etc. ( 2019: Fragmented, Unevenly Distributed, Asymmetric, Opaque).

These dynamics guarantee a highly uneven distribution of recessionary consequences and whatever rewards are generated will be reaped by a few. Read More

01.10.19- Here’s Where the Next Crisis Starts
Jim Rickards

The case for a pending financial collapse is well grounded. Financial crises occur on a regular basis including 1987, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2007-08. That averages out to about once every five years for the past thirty years. There has not been a financial crisis for ten years so the world is overdue. It’s also the case that each crisis is bigger than the one before and requires more intervention by the central banks.

The reason has to do with the system scale. In complex dynamic systems such as capital markets, risk is an exponential function of system scale. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses.

This means a market panic far larger than the Panic of 2008.

Today, systemic risk is more dangerous than ever because the entire system is larger than before. Due to central bank intervention, total global debt has increased by about $150 trillion over the past 15 years. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever, have a larger percentage of the total assets of the banking system and have much larger derivatives books. Read More

01.09.19- The Last Act Crowns the Play
Hugo Salinas Price

For uncounted ages, the world's thinkers accepted, unquestioningly, the fact that human life is what it is, and cannot be changed: that its nature is unalterable.

Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306 -337 AD) legalized Christianity but allowed the existence of other religions. Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD; other religions were considered foolish.

The  ancient view regarding the unalterable condition of earthly human life continued to prevail, but a new and powerful element was introduced into human life during the reigns of Constantine and Theodosius I: the element of Hope for humanity, the hope of eternal and blessed life after death for those who accepted Christ as their Savior.

The ancient view of human life as unalterable continued to prevail in Europe up until the "Renaissance of Learning" in the 16th Century. Read More

01.08.19- Our Politics Now: Up vs. Down, Not Left vs. Right
Brandon Weichert

If you were to view the evolution of politics in the West in traditional left versus right terms, you undoubtedly would see the political preferences of most people have shifted leftward.

Just look at how most Americans view federal spending: total government spending (federal, state, and local) accounts for 37.7 percent of the country’s overall gross domestic product. In other words, 37.7 percent of America’s economic growth is set to be generated by government spending (which is why Wall Street and other analysts worry about a government shutdown). There was a time—not long ago—in this country’s history when government spending was in the single-digits. But, those days are gone.

Why? 

Because the American people did not expect the government to do as much back then as they expect it to do today. But government spending is a two-way street. It is not merely corrupt politicians who have figured out that the path to power is through injudicious government handouts. Read More

01.07.19- Why Trump Must Legalize Pot
Nick Giambruno

Editor’s Note: Today, we turn to our weekend guest editor, Crisis Investing’s Nick Giambruno. Below, Nick shows why President Trump’s defining legacy likely won’t be an infrastructure boom or The Wall. It will be bringing legal pot to America.

Legal pot is a bit out of our wheelhouse here at the Diary. As Bill often says, his usual beat is money. But cannabis is now legal nationwide in Canada. It is expected to be lawful in Mexico starting this year. And a majority of Americans now favor legal pot. With all these forces converging, this is a trend that should be on every investor’s radar.

Longtime Diary readers know that I closely follow the legal cannabis market. For newer readers, just know that I’ve dedicated hundreds of man hours to investigating this new market. And all of my research is pointing to one conclusion: Cannabis will be legal nationwide, likely before the end of President Trump’s term. Read More

01.05.19- Tax Attorney: Social Security Participants About to be “Disenfranchised”
Bob Adelmann

If Rebecca Waiser is right, millions of Americans are about to be “disenfranchised”of their Social Security benefits. Waiser, a licensed tax attorney and certified financial planner writing for Fox Business, says the math is incontrovertible and irreversible.

According to the trustees running the program, Social Security will be forced to start cutting benefits by 2034, 15 years from now. According to Waiser the crisis will hit in three years.

Wrote Waiser:

Disenfranchisement ... is defined as the state of being deprived or a right or privilege ... [but, as] the Supreme Court ruled in the 1960 case Flemming v. Nestor ... the receipt of payments from the program is not a “right,” even where the participant had paid into the system for years. Read More

01.04.19- Markets are all about flows
Alasdair Macleod

This article looks at prospective supply and demand factors for financial assets in the New Year and beyond. Investors should take into account money flowing into and out of financial assets as well as stock flows, particularly escalating government bond issuance, which looks likely to accelerate significantly in the coming years. It adds up to the fundamental case for physical gold and silver.

At this time of year, the thoughtful soul considers prospects for markets. Pundits are laying out their forecasts, and they fall into two broad camps. There are brokers and fund managers who talk of value. Their income and assets under management depend on continually inflating prices. Then there are the pessimists, a ragbag of doom-mongers who sweepingly point to risks on a grand scale. The collapse of Italy, Deutsche Bank, China, Brexit… take your pick. Very few engage on the subject that really matters, and that is the underlying monetary flows into and out of financial markets. Read More

01.02.19- 2019 From a Fourth Turning Perspective
Jim Quinn

“An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. The scenario described above is fairly close to the current situation, driven by the showdown between Trump and the Democrats regarding the border wall. Read More

01.02.19- The World Known to Me Is Fading Away
Paul Craig Roberts

In a few hours it will be another new year, 2019. I can remember when 1984 seemed far in the future, both as a calendar date and George Orwell’s predicted dystopia, to which 9/11 and the digital revolution gave birth in the 21st century. Now I find myself 35 years past 1984 and a stranger in a strange land.

Over these holidays two occurrances brought the strangeness of the present time home to me.

One was the arrival of the memoir, From the Cast-Iron Shore (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019) by my friend and onetime colleague, Francis Oakley, an historian of the medieval era and past president of Williams College. The other was the report that a Japanese man had married a hologram.  Read More

01.01.19- Opinion: Roubini: President Trump is flirting with mutually assured economic destruction
Nouriel Roubini

Now that financial markets see the danger of the Trump presidency, the risk of a financial crisis and global recession has grown

NEW YORK (Project Syndicate) — Financial markets have finally awoken to the fact that Donald Trump is U.S. president. Given that the world has endured two years of reckless tweets and public statements by the world’s most powerful man, the obvious question is: what took so long? Read More

12.31.18- Guess What These Four Fastest Growing States
Have in Common…
Joe Jarvis

Keep the federal government shut down and let the states set policy.

“Non-essential” government workers… well then what the hell are they doing there?

Every penny of federal spending should be only the most absolutely crucial, necessary cent to keep the country’s most basic functions going…

I know, I know, I feel stupid just saying it. It would truly be better if everything was left up to markets–the people. I long for the day when no sector of the economy is violently monopolized, and funded via protection racket–security and courts included.

The whole thing is a farce, the system built to serve the elite. It’s disgusting that our tax dollars pay for a single politicians’, bureaucrats’, lobbyists’, or corporate cronies’ hors-d’oeuvres, let alone their salaries, kickbacks, bailouts… Read More

12.29.18- The Baby Boomer Survival Guide – Part 2
Bill Bonner

What is money really good for?

Money is our beat at the Diary. 

But money means nothing without philosophy. Beyond what we need to survive, money has no importance.

Is it good? Is it bad? It depends.

We need a simple philosophy to make sense of it – to guide us past the Gucci bags… past cable TV… and past the million-euro apartments of the 16th arrondissement in Paris.

Not that there’s anything wrong with them. But they are expensive.

And if you don’t have money, you need to be able to pass up luxury, gluttony, and self-indulgence with your nose in the air… not with your shoulders bent in defeat and self-disgust.

And for that, you need philosophy. Or at least aesthetics.

All people – unless they are saints or mental defectives – want to feel good about themselves. That is their primary aim in life and the only reason they are interested in money (save the minimal amount for survival). Read More

12.28.18- The Arrival Of The Credit Crisis
Alasdair Macleod

Those of us who closely follow the credit cycle should not be surprised by the current slide in equity markets. It was going to happen anyway. The timing had recently become apparent as well, and in early August I was able to write the following:

“The timing for the onset of the credit crisis looks like being any time from during the last quarter of 2018, only a few months away, to no later than mid-2019.” [i]

The crisis is arriving on cue and can be expected to evolve into something far nastier in the coming months. Corporate bond markets have seized up, giving us a signal it has indeed arrived. It is now time to consider how the credit crisis is likely to develop. It involves some guesswork, so we cannot do this with precision, but we can extrapolate from known basics to support some important conclusions. Read More

12.27.18- The Baby Boomer Survival Guide – Part 1
Bill Bonner

What should you do if you are running out of time and money?

This is the question we get from readers over 50… over 60… and sometimes, over 70.

We baby boomers were famously saying “Na… na… na… Live for today.” 

Now, it’s tomorrow. And many of us – often through no fault of our own – are having trouble making ends meet.

In the Diary, we write about the world of money – about economic policy and how it affects us.

But what if, in your world of money, you are running short? What should you do to get more?

Check under the seat cushions? Rob a bank? Read More

12.26.18- “The Worst Is Yet To Come Next Year”
Michael Snyder 

When talking heads on mainstream news networks are using phrases such as “the worst is yet to come next year”, that is a clear indication that a new financial crisis has arrived.  And that is an extremely bold statement to make considering that this is already the worst quarter for the stock market in 10 years, this is the worst December for stock prices since 1931, and we just experienced the worst Christmas Eve that Wall Street has ever seen.  So when Mark Jolley made the following statement during a recent guest appearance on CNBC, it definitely raised some eyebrows…

“I would love to be more optimistic but i just don’t see too many positives out there. I think the worst is yet to come next year, we’re still in the first half of a global equity bear market with more to come next year,” Mark Jolley, global strategist at CCB International Securities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

At this point last year, nobody on Wall Street was talking like this.

In fact, nobody was talking like this even four or five months ago.

But after three extremely painful months the outlook has completely changed, and a lot of market participants are really starting to freak out. Read More

12.25.18- The Greatest Gift For All
Paul Craig Roberts

Christmas Column 2018

Dear Donors, thank you for your support in 2018. Although you have kept me working yet another year, I find it encouraging that there are some Americans who can think independently and who want to know. As Margaret Mead said, it only takes a few determined people to change the world. Perhaps some of you will be those people.

My traditional Christmas column goes back to sometime in the 1990s when I was a newspaper columnist. It has been widely reprinted at home and abroad. Every year two or three readers write to educate me that religion is the source of wars and persecutions. These readers confuse religion with mankind’s abuse of institutions, religious or otherwise. The United States has democratic institutions and legal institutions to protect civil liberties. Nevertheless, we now have a police state. Shall I argue that democracy and civil liberty are the causes of police states? Read More

12.24.18- How to Barter for Survival (not just a list): 100+
Items to Barter in a Post-Collapse World (2018 Edition)
SurvivalWoman

Editor’s Note: This resource has been updated and revised for 2018.

Do you know how to barter?  In preparedness circles, the term barter is used a lot when describing a post SHTF situation when goods and services may no longer be available through normal channels.  According to Wikipedia, ”barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money”.

A lot of people think of bartering as something to do when they are down an out, perhaps unemployed, or low on cash.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Bartering has been around for eons and is simply a smart way to acquire goods and services under the radar screen.

Today I would like to share some very simple tips for bartering as well as my own suggested list of items and skills that may be useful for barter in a post-collapse economy.Read More

12.22.18- Do you really have to go to work?
Joe Jarvis

Monday through Friday, 9-5, are work days. You commute to the office every day. And then you have the weekend off.

That’s how it has been for decades and decades, right? And before that Sunday was the only day off, and the hours were much longer.

These traditions began in factory settings when everything had to be standardized. It’s not like farmers were clocking in and punching out… they worked when there was work to do. Which was basically always.

But as we turn over to 2019, do we still need to work the five day work week? Do we still need to commute to the office? And should work even be hourly or even salary for most professions, or task-based? Read More

12.21.18- The History of Banking Control in the United States
Alain Pilote

The dictatorship of the bankers and their debt-money system are not limited to one country, but exist in every country in the world. They are working to keep their control tight, since one country freeing itself from this dictatorship and issuing its own interest- and debt-free currency, setting the example of what an honest system could be, would be enough to bring about the worldwide collapse of the bankers’ swindling debt-money system.

This fight of the International Financiers to install their fraudulent debt-money system has been particularly vicious in the United States of America since its very foundation, and historical facts show that several American statesmen were well aware of the dishonest money system the Financiers wanted to impose upon America and of all of its harmful effects. These statesmen were real patriots, who did all that they possibly could to maintain for the USA an honest money system, free from the control of the Financiers. The Financiers did everything in their power to keep in the dark this facet of the history of the United States, for fear that the example of these patriots might still be followed today. Here are some facts that the Financiers would like the population NOT to know… Read More

12.20.18- The 10 Daily Habits of Prepared People
Daisy Luther

For some people, preparedness is about the big things: the well-stocked retreat home, buying yet another firearm, or getting a super-fancy generator. While these things can certainly be classified as preparedness endeavors, it isn’t the expensive and dramatic gestures that make us truly prepared people.

The way prepared people spend their time before an emergency is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy.

It’s the small daily habits that become an innate part of our everyday lives – habits that may not even be noticeable to someone outside the lifestyle.

Real preppers, the ones you should look to for advice if you happen to be new to preparedness, are the ones who quietly conduct their daily lives with an eye towards readiness. Not only are these the qualities you should strive for yourself, but they are also the qualities that can help you to determine whether someone is the “real deal” or an armchair survivalist. Read More

12.19.18- Anything Goes!
Hugo Salinas Price

The disturbing fact regarding human life on planet Earth is that we are, all of us, and I include myself, living the life of lunatics, because we are all out of touch with Reality. I except from this condition, the few remaining tribes of primitive people living in the remote jungles of places such as Borneo, the Amazon river basin and other similar locations.

Some few humans, among whose small number I count myself,  know that this is our condition, but the vast majority of humanity are not aware of the dire situation in which we live.

One result of the collective insanity which prevails in our modern world is that it has allowed the very worst of the lunatics, possessed by destructive impulses, to rise to dominant positions in human societies.

Whether a few of us humans are aware of our deplorable condition of living out of touch with Reality – the definition of lunacy – or not, this is the situation in which we have to live.  Read More

12.18.18- I Can’t Afford to Live in this Private Community. And I Wish Everywhere Was Like This.
 Joe Jarvis

Private government is really nothing new.

And I don’t mean some arrangement between coercive government and “private” companies that make their money from government contracts.

That arrangement actually produces the inequality that people blame on free markets.

Notice how everyone is taxed. Yet the government spends the money enriching the government defense contractors, handing out subsidies to already rich oil companies, bailing out sub-par automakers and predatory bankers…

In contrast, private government is not coercive.

No one forces you to live in a neighborhood that charges a “tax” like a homeowners’ association fee. But when a government monopolized all the land, you have no choice but to pay the taxes they demand. Read More

12.17.18- Why Speculators Should Love the Crypto Crash
Greg Wilson

On February 12, 1827, financier George Brown hosted a meeting at his Baltimore home.

Joining him were 24 of the leading merchants of the day.

The topic: making Baltimore competitive on the Eastern Seaboard.

You see, New York had recently opened the Erie Canal… and it was a smashing success. Shipping prices decreased dramatically, and workers flocked to the state.

Other cities across the U.S. East Coast planned more canal construction. Baltimore merchants feared being left behind. Read More

12.15.18- Texas Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional
Sean Moran

A Texas federal judge on Friday ruled that Obamacare violated the Constitution, likely pushing the ruling towards the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Reed O’Connor, a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas appointed by former President George W. Bush, ruled that Obamacare violated the Constitution.

Twenty Republican state attorneys general brought the suit, Texas v. Azar, who asked the court to rule that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the Constitution after Republicans managed to zero out Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act last year. The judge ruled that the law’s individual mandate violates the Constitution and therefore the entire ACA violates the Constitution.

Judge O’Connor acknowledged that health care is a “politically charged affair — inflaming emotions and testing civility.” Read More

12.15.18- What is the Deep Web and How Do You Get There in 2018?
Gary Stevens

The deep web and dark web are terms that have enjoyed plenty of headlines in recent years. You could conclude — wrongly, it turns out — that nothing exists in that seedy cyberalley except for deals that involve contract killing, illegal drugs, human trafficking, weapons, pornography and other not-so-nice products and services.

The Silk Road, a website synonymous with shady dealings, was shut down twice by the FBI and its founder, the Dread Pirate Roberts, also known as Ross Ulbricht, imprisoned for life.

The deep web and dark web aren’t the same thing, though. The dark web occupies only a fraction of the deep web. If you want to visit the deep web, you might already be there. It’s any place you go for content without a permanent URL — behind a paywall, password protected or dynamically generated. Read More

12.13.18- A Bad Moon Rising – Over Several Markets
Gary Christenson

John Fogerty (Credence Clearwater Revival) wrote “Bad Moon Rising” in 1969. The lyrics are relevant today.

“I see a bad moon a-rising (market correction/crash)

I see trouble on the way (inflation and war)

I see earthquakes and lightnin’ (defaults and bankruptcies)

I see bad times today” (polarized angry voters)

Jim Cramer of CNBC fame likes stocks. On Tuesday, October 23, before the DOW collapse of 608 on Wednesday, October 24, CNBC reported:

“Cramer advises patience, not panic, saying don’t dump stocks in this sell-off.” [Dow 10/23/18 – 25,191. Dow 12/10/18 – 24,423.]

“He added Tuesday’s session appears to be a ‘garden variety’ sell-off.”  Read More

12.12.18- A Crisis in the Making: Know Your Rights
or You Will Lose Them
John W. Whitehead

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”—Thomas Jefferson

We are approaching critical mass, the point at which all hell breaks loose.

The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.

What makes the outlook so much bleaker is the utter ignorance of the American people—and those who represent them—about their freedoms, history, and how the government is supposed to operate.

As Morris Berman points out in his book Dark Ages America, “70 percent of American adults cannot name their senators or congressmen; more than half don't know the actual number of senators, and nearly a quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sixty-three percent cannot name the three branches of government. Other studies reveal that uninformed or undecided voters often vote for the candidate whose name and packaging are the most powerful; color is apparently a major factor in their decision.” Read More

12.11.18- As Many as 8 Million Children Are Kidnapped and Trafficked Into Sex Slavery Every Year by Global Pedophile Network – of Which Many Politicians Are Members
Ethan Huff 

According to official statistics that you’ll never hear reported by the mainstream media, as many as 800,000 children in the United States, and eight million children globally, are being kidnapped and trafficked into sex slavery every single year as part of a massive pedophilia network that spans the entire world. And though it might not be comfortable to think about, many high-level politicians on both sides of aisle actively participate in, and partake of, this unimaginable evil.

Earlier this year, The International Tribunal for Natural Justice (ITNJ) met for three days to launch its Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Trafficking and Child Sex Abuse, the purpose of which is to investigate and bring to the forefront this prolific scourge of child sex abuse all around the world, much of it satanically ritualistic in nature.

One of the speakers at this event was Chief Counsel Robert David Steele, a former CIA officer who opened the Plenary Session of this first Judicial Commission of the Tribunal. He spoke about how child torture, child murder, and child organ harvesting are now “accepted” practice within the highest levels of government all across the globe, as well as within non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations, academia, and “civil” society. Read More

12.10.18- Dow 10,000
Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – Trading continued yesterday… with stocks swinging lustily from tree to tree like drunken monkeys.

When the closing bell finally sounded, the Dow was down just 79 points. The monkeys were greatly relieved.

And today, the Fed sets up another drink. Here’s a headline from The Wall Street Journal:

Fed May Slow Rate Increase Pace

Our advice to readers: Relax… and enjoy the comedy show.

Buffett Indicator

Deutsche Bank reports that 89% of the world’s assets are in negative territory so far in 2018 – in dollar terms. Is this a buying opportunity?

Presidential economic advisor Larry Kudlow must think so. This is what he told Fox News recently:

The economy is in terrific shape. We’re in an economic boom. People thought it would be impossible. The reality is we are clicking on all cylinders. They are absolutely crushing it, profits are rising, confidence is up, blue-collars are up, wages are up…  Read More

12.08.18- What to Do When the Market Goes “Nuts”
Jeff Clark

Editor’s Note: Today, we hand the reins over to master trader Jeff Clark. Unlike Bill, who’s a self-proclaimed “fuddy duddy” when it comes to investing, Jeff is a trader. He looks for very short-term setups to make money in stocks.

Jeff’s insights are different from our usual Diary essays. But with the S&P 500 plunging in Q4, Jeff believes there’s never been a better time to be a trader. Below, he shares how he makes money when the stock market goes a little crazy…

According to the efficient market hypothesis, there’s nothing insane going on in the stock market. Stock prices reflect all of the currently available information and investors’ analysis of that information.

Hogwash.

In the long term, I’ll agree that markets are efficient, investors are rational, and stock prices generally end up where they are logically supposed to.

In the short term, though, the market is nuts.

Fear and Greed Read More

12.07.18- Things Change, But Not Always For The Better
Tom Chatham

The whole universe operates in cycles. Just as the seasons change on a regular basis, all other things change on schedule as well. A person is born, they go to school, they get a job, they get married and buy a home. Later they have children, buy a bigger home, send their children to school and save for retirement. Their children grow and leave home, they get a smaller home and retire. These are predictable cycles most people go through in life but never pay much attention to.

Knowing that these cycles occur can give a person an idea of what to prepare for in the future. We know that the national debt doubles about every 8 years. We know that the economy goes into a recession every 6 to 8 years. We know that the FED manipulates the economy with money printing and interest rates. We know politicians spend money we don’t have to get reelected. We know from history that these things eventually cause problems that we must deal with as individuals.

When we realize these things we can make plans to deal with these problems before they happen and limit the affects they have on us. The problem is that most people do not see these things coming because they are kept occupied with other trivial things and they have short memories. Then when these disruptions occur they are caught seemingly unaware and suffer for it. To be aware is to be prepared. Read More

12.06.18- "Too Perfect to be Natural": Those Strange Seismic Waves
Joseph P. Farrell

My inbox has been veritably flooded with so many different versions of this story, I don’t know where to begin, other than to say thank you to all of you who drew it to my attention. The story has now rippled around the word from its point of origin – Madagascar – to the antipodes and back again more times than the seismic waves themselves. But this story is truly strange, and since we’re into “strange stuff” on this website, as one might imagine, I have some of our trademark “high octane speculation” to offer, but first, here’s one version of the story:

Strange seismic event detected in Wellington ‘too perfect’ to be natural

Now, ponder, for a moment, the utter strangeness of these paragraphs: Read More

12.05.18- Is An Offshore Account Safe?
Jamie Virjhof interviews Dennis Miller

In response to our recent articleabout investing offshore, many readers asked for more information. They expressed many concerns, particularly about safety.

Jamie Virjhof, Relationship Manager of Weber Hartmann Virjhof & Partners Ltd. recently interviewed me and addressed those concerns.

I have permission to share it with our readers.

Is International Diversification really necessary?

Dennis Miller’s recent article, “Should Investors Have Money Offshore?” raised the ever-important question whether you can really trust the government. Dennis elaborated how the government does not always have the best interest of their people in mind. This was one of the reasons why he decided to bring some of his wealth offshore. Read More

12.04.18- Another Serious Real Interest Rate Fallacy
Keith Weiner

What is the real interest rate? It is the nominal rate minus the inflation rate. I previously wrote about one problem with this notion (the nominal rate exists in the market, but the real rate is imaginary). Now let’s turn to another problem.

To visualize this problem, let’s make an analogy to someone who inherits a family farm. There are two approaches to making a living from a farm. In the first—we’ll call this investing—Farmer Brown determines how to produce the greatest amount of food at the least cost. He increases production of milk from his herd, and apples from his orchard.

In the other approach—we’ll call this liquidating—Liquidator Larry sells off the farm, bit by bit. The back 40 acres can be sold to a developer of high-end condos. The apple trees can be chopped down, because cabinets made of fruitwood are hip in high-end condos. The barn can be torn down, because those condos need flooring. Wood planks from old barns is really cool. Read More

12.03.18- How “Laziness” Can Make You Wealthy
Mark Ford

The desire to work less is not a vice, but a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence. When combined with commitment, persistence, and common sense, it creates economic efficiency, an essential component of building great wealth.

– From Principles of Wealth, by Mark Ford

The unpaid bills are stacked next to the unwashed dishes. You’ve been short about $1,200 per month since the divorce.

You need something to fill that income gap – some sort of money-making scheme that’s feasible, flexible, and profitable. It can’t be a financial investment because you’ve got no savings. What’s there to do?

Before going to sleep, you check your email. You see an ad, but before you delete it, you notice something about extra income. “What the hell?” you ask. You decide to give it a try. Read More

12.01.18- How to Profit From Trade War Hysteria
Justin Spittler

The trade war has claimed its biggest victim.

…Apple (AAPL).

Apple sells the wildly popular iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. It’s one of the most recognized companies on the planet. It was the world’s most valuable publicly traded company until Microsoft (MSFT) overtook it on Monday.

So how did a company this powerful get caught up in the trade war? Simple. On Monday, President Trump threatened to introduce a 10% tariff on consumer electronic products made in China.

This would impact the iPhone and other Apple products… Read More

11.30.18- Rothschild rule ends after 250 years; new era to begin
Benjamin Fulford

The announcement on October 24, 2018 by Rothschild & Co that they are getting out of the trust business (i.e., managing other people’s money) is a major historical turning point that almost slipped by unnoticed.

It was in 1769 that Mayer Rothschild, the founder of the dynasty, first started to manage money for royalty. Now, seven generations later, his descendant Alexandre de Rothschild has been forced out of the business by multiple international criminal investigations that are zeroing in on this criminal family, Pentagon sources say. It means that for the first time in 249 years, the Western financial system is freeing itself from Rothschild financial control.

In particular, the arrest of Goldman Sachs bankers in the 1Malaysian Development scandal means that the Rothschilds’ involvement is about to be revealed, French investigators and other sources say. Read More

11.28.18- The Best Stock Investors: Dead People
Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE – The stock market got a healthy bounce Monday. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

But you don’t have to guess. Because you don’t make money in the stock market from short-term moves. You’ll guess wrong as often as right, and you’ll end up getting nowhere. 

It’s the big, long-term moves that make a difference. And the trouble is, sometimes, those moves last longer than we do.

Timing for Dummies

Our “Timing for Dummies” model calls for buying stocks when you can get the Dow for less than five ounces of gold (it’s currently about 20)… and selling stocks when the price goes over 15 ounces of gold.

Otherwise, you just wait. In gold. Read More

11.27.18- End This Madness
Justin O. Smith

It is a bit of an alienating experience for one to see the nation of his birth and the principles of our ancestors under constant assault, from foreigners and people born here who are amerikkans rather than Americans. I refer to those Muslims who desire Sharia law, the Black Muslims who simply hate America, LaRaza with its Hispanic communists and conquerors who want to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico, the communist Democrat Party that seeks the eradication of our Founding Principles and the destruction of our Constitution and Republic, and those communist proletarians, the TAKERS, who seek their upkeep and livelihood at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. 

But I am not powerless, even in my moments of weakness when I feel a bit lonely in the realization that far too many Americans are not concerned, as much as they should be over these developments. Although I may still suffer over the suffering of others, I know a better way than the “fundamental transformation” of America and “Democratic” Socialism exists for Us all; having things has never been so important to me as having Quality of Life and Liberty, and I intend to fight ’til my last dying gasp to keep this America, I love so well, on a path towards the greatest Freedom and Liberty for All. Read More

11.26.18- Thoughts From The Precipice
Chris Martenson

Things are worsening. But we’re not over the edge quite yet.

As you already know, things are unraveling. The narratives of the past are being revealed as false and fraudulent — even harmful.

For example, the fallacy of pursuing “ever more” growth. Growth up to a point is beneficial, but it turns self-destructive when it exceeds what available resources can sustain.

As it is practiced, economic growth as pursued around the world today is now destructive. If we continue on our current trajectory, it will become fatal.

It already has for an increasing scope of the natural world. Beauty is being ruined. The complex web of life is being shredded. Species loss is accelerating.

This kind of damage is essentially permanent.  Read More

11.24.18- Mad World
Jim Quinn

And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad world, mad world

The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears’ Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy. Read More

11.23.18- The Assassination of Bitcoin
Dan Denning

Editor’s Note: The Bonner & Partners offices are closed today for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In lieu of our regularly scheduled Diary, we share the below guest essay from Bill’s righthand man, Dan Denning.

As Bill reported last week, central banks are toying with the idea of launching a bank-backed cryptocurrency. Dan believes that outcome is all but assured. Only one thing stands in the way… bitcoin.

The collapse of bitcoin – down 68% year to date and 78% from its all-time high of $20,000, set in December 2017, when it traded at $4,200.22 earlier this week – may have a perfectly normal explanation. 

It’s a bubble that popped. Or it’s happened before and is nothing to worry about. As my colleagues have shown their readers in the last week, bitcoin dropped 94% in 2010, 94% in 2011, 85% from 2013 to 2015, and 76% in a three-month period alone in 2013. Read More

11.22.18- How Not to be a Turkey on Thanksgiving
Joe Jarvis

Ask a turkey a week before Thanksgiving if the farmer loves him.

The farmer comes every day to feed the turkey and feed him well.

He provides free accommodations: a nice yard to peck around in, water, shelter from predators.

From the turkey’s perspective, a week before Thanksgiving, life has never been better.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains “The Great Turkey Problem” in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. Read More

11.21.18- An Odor of Perfidy
James Howard Kunstler

I suspect there’s a hidden agenda behind the announcement in The Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Hillary Clinton aide Mark Penn that the Ole Gray Mare is actually eyeing another run for the White House in 2020. No, it’s not just that she would like to be president, as she averred on video last week in a weak moment, or that she has decided late in life to go full Bolshevik policy-wise. It is to establish her in the public mind as a serious candidate so that when she is indicted a hue-and-cry will arise that the move is a purely political act of revenge by the wicked Trump.

Of course, she’s not a serious candidate because too many people recognize her naked corruption, and she’s carrying so much noisome baggage that her entourage looks like one of those garbage truck convoys hauling New York’s trash to flyover country. Prosecutors don’t even have to search very hard for evidence of her misdeeds. It’s smeared all over the swamp-scape in the established facts about the Steele Dossier and its engineered journey through the highest levels of the FBI and Department of Justice, and the wild machinations that ensued when the cast of characters in those places scrambled to cover their asses following the debacle of Hillary’s election loss. Read More

11.20.18- The globalist plan to exterminate humanity begins now:
“Useless eaters” must be eliminated, say globalists
Charles Hugh Smith

Far beyond the distractions of political bickering and cultural trends, the big, big picture that’s unfolding across our world right now is a plan to exterminate 90% of the current human population in order to “save” the planet and protect what globalists see as the future of human survival on a cosmic scale.

This plan is under way now due to two very important developments:

#1) The rise of robotic systems that can replace human labor, eliminating the need for a world of impoverished human workers whose only reason for existence — from the point of view of the globalists — was to be exploited for cheap labor and manipulated votes. Read More

11.19.18- Soaring Health-Care Costs Forced This Family to Choose Who Can Stay Insured
Aziza Kasumov

David and Maribel Maldonado seem the very definition of making it in America. David arrived in the U.S. from Mexico as a small child. His father supported the family by working long hours as a mechanic while his mother raised their 10 children. By the time David had a family of his own, his career as a salesman was flourishing. His wife Maribel, whose family is also from Mexico, worked as a hairstylist while caring for the couple’s two children. David’s annual salary reached about $113,000 by the time the children were in their teens. It was more than enough to live in a pretty suburban house outside Dallas, take family vacations, go to restaurants and splurge at the nearby mall. And to afford health insurance.

Then, in 2012, Maribel discovered she had breast cancer. “Your world comes crumbling down,” David says.

Maribel had a double mastectomy, paid for by the insurance David obtained through his job, a small welding business with fewer than a dozen employees. Read More

11.17.18- Potential Impacts of the Midterm Elections
on Your Retirement
Birch Gold

Now that the midterm elections are pretty much over, the Democrats control the House, and the Republicans control the Senate.

This may have several important impacts on your retirement over the next two years (and beyond, depending on policy adjustments). These potential impacts could be crucial because the economic foundation they influence appears to be on shaky ground.

In a peer-reviewed paper from the Indiana Legal Studies department, four authors collaborated and published an alarming discovery (emphasis ours):

The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been offloaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy, and their representation among those in bankruptcy has never been higher.  Read More

11.16.18- Does Any of This Make Sense?
Charles Hugh Smith

Does any of this make sense? No. But it's so darn profitable to the oligarchy, it's difficult to escape debt-serfdom and tax-donkey servitude.

We rarely ask "does this make any sense?" of things that are widely accepted as beneficial-- or if not beneficial, "the way it is," i.e. it can't be changed by non-elite (i.e. the bottom 99.5%) efforts.

Of the vast array of things that don't make sense, let's start with borrowing from future income to spend more today. This is of course the entire foundation of consumer economies such as the U.S.: the number of households which buy a car or house with cash is near-zero, unless 1) they just sold a bubble-valuation house and paid off their mortgage in escrow or 2) they earned wealth via fiscal prudence, i.e. the avoidance of debt and the exultation of saving.

Debt has this peculiar characteristic: it has to be paid back with interest.Depending on the rate of interest and the length of the loan, this translates into a mind-numbing reality: borrowing $100 can cost $200 once interest is factored in. Read More

11.15.18- Scum vs. Scum
Chris Hedges

There is perhaps no better illustration of the deep decay of the American political system than the Senate race in New Jersey. Sen. Bob Menendez, running for re-election, was censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from the Florida businessman Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Medicare of $73 million. The senator had flown to the Dominican Republic with Melgen on the physician’s private jet and stayed in his private villa, where the men cavorted with young Dominican women who allegedly were prostitutes. Menendez performed numerous political favors for Melgen, including helping some of the Dominican women acquire visas to the United States. Menendez was indicted in a federal corruption trial but escaped sentencing because of a hung jury. 

Menendez has a voting record as sordid as most Democrats’. He supported the $716 billion military spending bill, along with 85 percent of his fellow Senate Democrats. He signed a letter, along with other Democratic leaders, calling for steps to extradite Julian Assange to stand trial in the United States. The senator, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, is owned by the lobby for Israel—a country that routinely and massively interferes in our elections—and supported moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. He helped cause the 2008 global financial crisis by voting to revoke Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law enacted to create a firewall between commercial and investment banks. Read More

11.14.18- Nikola Tesla’s Wireless Energy Dream Is Going Mainstream
TraderStef

Big things are happening in the world of wireless technology and power transmission. Here is TraderStef to break-down what it means for the future…

Wireless power technology recently became popular with its application in charging wireless-capable devices, (such as a smartphone) via a Powermat interface. There is one company currently building out a true wireless power supply without the need for an intermediary “pad,” which could develop into an investment opportunity of a lifetime if it or another company successfully launches an IPO, not to mention the upstream manufacturing interface components.  I will get to that later.

The exploration of wireless power brings to mind a man made famous for attempting to build it first, Nikola Tesla. A great down-to-Earth source for detailed information about his life is available at the Nikola Tesla Museum, located in Belgrade, Serbia. In case you are too young, living under a rock, or born into a tribe that’s remote from civilization, here is a brief summary of Nikola’s good work on Earth. Read More

11.13.18- Reading the Second Amendment
Sheldon Richman

The Second Amendment’s syntax permits only one reasonable interpretation.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” - Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Is this sentence so hard to understand? Apparently so. Even some of its defenders don’t like how it is worded because it allegedly breeds misunderstanding. 

But the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is indeed a well-crafted sentence. By that, I mean that its syntax permits only one reasonable interpretation of the authors’ meaning, namely, that the people’s individual right to be armed ought to be respected and that the resulting armed populace will be secure against tyranny, invasion, and crime. Someone completely ignorant of the 18th-century American political debates but familiar with the English language should be able to make out the meaning easily. Read More

11.12.18- How to Survive the “Deep State”
Doug Casey

Almost everyone looks for a political solution to problems. However, once a Deep State situation has taken over, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn it around, and probably only in a small country.

Maybe you’re thinking you should get behind somebody like Ron Paul (I didn’t say Rand Paul), should such a person materialize. That would be futile.

Here’s what would happen in the totally impossible scenario that this person was elected and tried to act like a Lee Kuan Yew or an Augusto Pinochet against the Deep State:

First, there would be a “sit-down” with the top dogs of the Praetorian agencies and a bunch of Pentagon officers to explain the way things work. Read More

11.10.18- It’s a Fraud. A Pyramid scheme. A Ponzi scheme.
And a Lie.
Dr. Mehboob Makhdoomi

Many of us do think that something isn’t quite right with the world economy. One in a million actually understands, where does it go wrong? Powers that be, do not want you to know about it as it’s your ignorance which keeps them at the top of the financial food chain. I don’t know of any other example in history where so many were looted by so few.

Modern banking system creates money faster than our hearts beat. However, they make it so complex & unintelligible that none but they alone, understand it. All economies work pretty much the same way but since most of the global transactions use US dollar, making it the majority of the world’s currency, I will exemplify the US system.  Read More

11.09.18- What Do We Make Of The Midterm Election?
Paul Craig Roberts

Readers are asking for my thoughts about the midterm elections. 

Looking at this CNN map–it seems that except for thin areas of the northeast and west coasts and hispanic and black enclaves in the southwest and south, the country overwhelmingly voted Republican.

In my opinion, flyover America voted Republican because the “deplorables” want to defend Trump. They want to defend him for two reasons. One is that he spoke to their economic plight caused by the US corporations exporting their jobs, leaving the American workforce and middle class hard-strapped. The other is that the adoption of Identity Politics by the Democratic Party has made the Democrats the party that hates white people—especially white heterosexual males who are defined as the victimizer of minorities, homosexuals, and women. It takes a really stupid white person to vote for Democrats who see white people as the problem. Read More

11.08.18- America, the Tyranny of the Stupid
Gordon Duff 

People around the world are convinced that the United States is a nation run by criminal psychopaths and morons. A greater fear is that world leaders mistakenly assume that their American counterparts who do and say insane things continually are, in actuality, normal people operating inside some “master plan.”

Then, when time and time again, no such plan materializes, and it is demonstrated that America has blundered into a diplomatic, economic or military morass, for some unknown reason, a “reset” occurs, and the wrong assumptions are again made.

At every level, humanity errs in assuming that those in command are there because of talent and worth or that, because America is so wealthy and powerful, that its people are such because of moral and intellectual superiority. Read More

11.07.18- How do we keep getting dragged into this
electoral spectator sport?
Joe Jarvis

Ah, elections…

Little more than a bare-knuckle boxing match. If you were to suddenly catch a glimpse of such a fight, you would see real blood, real punches, swollen lips, black eyes, and a final knockout.

It looks like a real spontaneous fight. But the match was planned, set up, with rules and parameters.

That’s an election. Except that it is shoved in all of our faces, while they lie and tell us it wasn’t a planned fight.

Not interested in seeing the blood and gore? Not interested in watching two people beat each other to a pulp? You can turn off the boxing match, but good luck avoiding election coverage. Read More

11.06.18- Are You Prepared For Lockdown? How To Stay Safe When All Hell Breaks Loose In America
Daisy Luther

Tensions are incredibly high in the United States right now. I realized that over the past three years, I’ve written that they’re “at an all-time high” far too many times. So, I’ll just say, they’re high enough that all hell could break loose at any moment given the right (wrong) application of fuel to the flame. The number one thing you can do for this situation to keep your family safe is to be prepared for lockdown.

Pretending that it isn’t happening or hoping to hug it out is not a rational response to the chaos that is coming.  I know that some cling to their misguided views on the way the world works with the ferocity of a mother bear protecting cubs, but for the rest of us, there’s this thing called reality. When we accept it, we can prepare for it.

People near the border are quite reasonably concerned that if thousands of immigrants push through our border illegally, they and their families could be at risk. People in other parts of the country are concerned about the aftermath of whatever happens when these people arrive at the border. Regardless of what occurs, somebody is going to be unhappy. Add in the fiercely-fought midterm elections and the threat of civil unrest is high. Read More

11.05.18- The Fourth Turning and the War of the Worlds
Jim Quinn

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning– Strauss & Howe 

The paragraph above captures everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen during this Fourth Turning. It was written over two decades ago, but no one can deny its accuracy regarding our present situation. The spark was a financial crash. The response to the financial crash by the financial and governmental entities, along with their Deep State co-conspirators who created the financial collapse due to their greed and malfeasance, led to the incomprehensible election of Donald Trump, as the deplorables in flyover country evoked revenge upon the corrupt establishment. Read More

11.03.18- This Radical Proposal for Social Security Underscores Its Desperate Future
Birch Gold Group

The ever-controversial Alan Greenspan was Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, a period marked by relatively low interest rates and market self-regulation.

But the economic crisis that started in 2008 shed critical light on Greenspan’s economic policy. He’s 92 now, and as he promotes a new book, he’s sharing some rather radical economic ideas.

In a recent Barron’s interview, he opines on the bleak outlook for U.S. entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, indicating that he views such programs — at least in their current state — as an “anchor” on U.S. economic growth. Read More

11.02.18- Politicians Are Creating
The Worst Economic Crash In History
Martin Armstrong

Politicians have totally and completely misunderstood the trends within the global economy and as a result, they are actually creating one of the worst economic debacles in history.

I have explained several times that the bulk of investment capital is tied up in two primary sectors – (1) government bonds and (2) real estate. Because of income taxes, real estate has offered a way to make money in capital gains without having to pay income taxes.

Money has looked to park in real estate around the world for many various different reasons as in Italy it was the escape from inheritance taxes as well as banks or in Vancouver to gain a foothold for residency fleeing Hong Kong. In Australia, there was the Super Annuation Fund which allowed people to use retirement funds for real estate.

People spend more when they believe that they have big profits in their home. Read More

11.01.18- Shock Claim: The Media Is Reporting That Some In The 2nd Migrant Caravan Have “Guns” And “Bombs”
Michael Snyder

A second migrant caravan has been attempting to breach Mexico’s border with Guatemala, and the media is reporting that some migrants in that second caravan are armed with “guns” and “bombs”.  This is a very serious claim, and it needs to either be confirmed or retracted, because it is not helpful to have unconfirmed reports spreading like wildfire on social media.  There have been endless discussions about these migrant caravans on all the major news networks in recent weeks, and they are getting so much attention that they are almost overshadowing the midterm elections which are going to happen next week.  And if this latest report is true, concern about these caravans is certain to reach a fever pitch…

The second group back at the Guatemalan frontier has been more unruly than the first that crossed. Guatemala’s Interior Ministry said Guatemalan police officers were injured when the migrant group broke through border barriers on Guatemala’s side of the bridge.

Mexico authorities said migrants attacked its agents with rocks, glass bottles and fireworks when they broke through a gate on the Mexican end but were pushed back, and some allegedly carried guns and firebombs. Read More

10.31.18- Is America Finished?
Paul Craig Roberts

The refusal of the Democratic Party and the military/security complex to accept the results of the 2016 US presidential election and the misuse of their positions of power to prevent Donald Trump from exercising presidential powers is a revolutionary step, well described by Angelo Codevilla here.

Americans are now so polarized that they “no longer share basic sympathies and trust, because they no longer regard each other as worthy of equal consideration.” Codevilla blames the progressives and their attitude of moral superiority, but his explanation is independent of who is to blame. I blame both sides. The Constitution and our civil liberties took a major hit from the “conservative” Republican regime of George W. Bush. 

The consequence has been to weaponize government for use against the domestic adversary. In other words, unity has departed us. The absence of unity makes it easy for the ruling oligarchy to achieve its material interests at the expense of the welfare of the American people. Indeed, it is amazing to find progressives aligned with the military/security complex to block Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. Read More

10.30.18- A Perfect Storm Is Brewing
Michael Snyder

Will we someday look back on October 2018 as the turning point?  As the month began, people were generally feeling pretty good about things, and the U.S. stock market quickly set a new all-time high.  But from that point on, the wheels fell off for Wall Street.  We just witnessed the worst October for U.S. stocks since the financial crisis of 2008, and at this point more than 8 trillion dollars of global wealth has been completely wiped out.  But it isn’t just the stock market that is being shaken.  The horrific violence in Pittsburgh is just the latest in a string of events that have rattled the entire nation.  Sometimes I feel like I am literally watching the fabric of our society come apart right in front of my eyes.  It is almost as if there is a tangible presence of evil in the air, and it seems to be getting stronger over time.  For quite a while I have been warning that levels of anger and frustration are rising to unprecedented levels, and all of that anger and frustration is leading people to do things that are absolutely unthinkable.  And if people are this crazed now, how bad are things going to get once the economy really starts unraveling? Read More

10.29.18- End of the World – Part Two
Gary Christenson

Part one discussed the “what” and “why” of unpayable debt, an inevitable “reset” or the end of the current financial world. Part two addresses when.

REVIEW FROM PART ONE:

• A risk/reward analysis for 2018—202? points toward gold and silver, not stocks, bonds, corporate debt, student loans or most asset classes.
  
  
• The “everything bubble” will burst. Consequences will be dire for many individuals, businesses and governments.
  
  
• Debt and spending are “out of control.” Central banks will “paper over” massive defaults, and fiat currencies will devalue.
  
  
• Hyperinflation, defaults and resets occurred in many countries and could (will) happen in developed countries such as the U.S.
  
  
• Rig for stormy weather! Gold and silver bullion and coins are “insurance” against the inevitable currency devaluations that must occur in our debt based fiat currency systems. Read More

10.27.18- What a bunch of idiots
Brandon Smith

Tell me this isn’t crazy–

A few days ago the creator of the most famous consumer ‘credit score’ in the United States announced a major overhaul in how it rates borrowers.

Consumers live and die by this ‘FICO score’. A high FICO score means that it’s easy to obtain loans at lower interest rates.

And a bad FICO score (in theory) means that you have a history of not paying your debts… hence making it difficult to obtain loans.

Well it turns out there are tens of millions of people in the US who either don’t have FICO scores at all (i.e. NO credit history), or they have BAD credit.

So FICO decided that they would reinvent the way they calculate the scores– giving a big boost to people with bad credit.

Virtually overnight, people who have a history of not paying their bills will immediately be deemed creditworthy.

And poof… they’ll have access to more debt than ever before. Read More

10.26.18- Deep State Rolls out Staged “Bomb” Attack on CNN Headquarters, Just as Mike Adams and Alex Jones Publicly Predicted on Multiple Video Broadcasts
Mike Adams

Exactly as publicly predicted by myself and Alex Jones, the anti-American globalists are now running pipe bombs false flags against CNN. This is not merely similar to what we publicly predicted would take place before the mid-term elections; it is exactly what we publicly predicted would take place. We even named CNN as the most likely target to be selected by the globalist operatives running the operation.

“CNN’s New York Headquarters Evacuated After Suspicious Package Found,” reports Mediaite.com. Similar “pipe bombs” were also reportedly mailed to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros. “The CNN bureau at Columbus Circle in new York City was evacuated Wednesday morning after mailroom workers found a suspicious device,” reports The Gateway Pundit. “The bomb scare comes on the heels of suspected IEDs mailed to the home  former President Obama in Washington, D.C. and the New York state homes of former President Clinton Clinton and major Democratic Party donor George Soros this morning.” Read More

10.25.18- Will there ever be a "freedom loving" majority? And do we even need there to be?
Joe Jarvis

The good old days never existed.

People like to romanticize a time when America was more wholesome… when everyone got along and put petty differences aside to fight wars and such.

A time when political campaigns were more civil… like in the Presidential election of 1800.

That was when a pro-Adams newspaper said that “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced,” if Jefferson was elected.

And the Jefferson supporters responded by claiming that Adams was more like a hermaphrodite than a man or woman. Read More

10.24.18- The Average Stock Is Overvalued Somewhere Between Tremendously And Enormously
Vitaliy Katsenelson

My business is to constantly look for new stocks by running stock screens, endlessly reading (blogs, research, magazines, newspapers), looking at the holdings of respected investors, talking to a large network of investment professionals, attending conferences, scouring through ideas published on value investor networks, and finally, scouring a large (and growing) watch list of companies to buy at a significant margin of safety.

With all of that, my firm is having little success finding solid companies at attractive valuations.

Don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at several charts, below, that show the magnitude of the stock market’s overvaluation and, more importantly, put it into historical context. Read More

10.23.18- Weaker Dollar Helps Set Silver Prices for a Breakout
Birch Gold Group

This week, Your News to Know rounds up the latest stories involving precious metals and the overall economy. Stories include: Silver prices are set for a breakout as the dollar falls, gold buyers return after two-quarter absence, and gold could surge near $1,280 an ounce in the short term.

Why silver prices are set for a breakout as the dollar falls

With gold having recaptured much of its losses earlier this month, silver could be next in line for a breakout on the back of a weaker dollar reports Money Morning. As columnist Peter Krauth notes, silver moved as the stock market went through a tailspin and ultimately ended higher at $14.28 an ounce.

But the metal’s reaction to the weakening of the dollar was even more notable, as a fall in the DXY allowed it to close last Thursday at $14.56 an ounce. By Monday, silver was trading at $14.67.Read More

10.22.18- Who’s financing the “spontaneous” migrant caravan trekking towards the United States? Here are some clues
JD Heyes

(Natural News) On his nationally syndicated talk show Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh discussed the growing migrant “caravan” currently making its way towards the United States.

In particular, Limbaugh talked about what it would take for hundreds and thousands of people to make such a long journey on foot, and through a number of countries after the caravan originated in Honduras.

Where would the migrants sleep? How would they eat? Where would their water come from?

He also discussed issues like personal hygiene; where would they shower or bathe? Where would they go to the bathroom? Read More

10.20.18- End of the World – Part One
Gary Christenson

Predicting the end of the world, physical or financial, is seldom helpful. If the prediction is correct, how do you profit from the insight? If the prediction is wrong and the “end of the world” is delayed (typical), you lose credibility.

An estimate of risk versus reward based on an analysis of current information is more useful. 

Assessment: The 2018-2020 risk for most asset classes, such as stocks, bonds, corporate debt, and real estate is high while the potential reward in those asset classes is low. Gold and silver are opposite. Their long-term risk is low (September 2018) and their long-term potential reward is huge. Read More

10.19.18- How to Make a Fortune in the Gold-Backed Crypto Revolution
Nick Giambruno

Justin’s note: Recently, we broke new ground at Casey Research. Crisis Investing chief analyst Nick Giambruno revealed a revolutionary way to make big money from gold—even if the spot price stays flat or continues to fall.

We estimate only one in 10,000 gold investors knows this secret. And yet… it could help you take a tiny stake and pocket a huge payday. And as Nick shares below in today’s Dispatch, this is just the tip of the iceberg… It’s time to make your move today.

For thousands of years, gold has been the safe-haven asset. No government can easily confiscate, nationalize, freeze, or devalue it at the drop of a hat.

It’s simply the best way to preserve wealth over the long term.

Now, with the advent of cryptocurrencies and decentralized blockchain technology, people have a complementary tool for advancing their financial freedom.

In recent months, dozens of gold-backed digital currencies have started to sprout up.

In a world dominated by constantly depreciating government fiat currencies, I think gold-backed digital currencies are a convenient way for ordinary people to protect their wealth.

Let’s take a step back and look at how it all started…Read More

10.18.18- 4 Ways the Skyrocketing Budget Deficit Could Wreck Your Retirement
Peter Reagan

In many ways, the current U.S. budget deficit represents uncharted territory.

Investopedia defines a budget deficit when “expenses exceed revenue and it is an indicator of financial health.” Referring to the U.S. they added “Accrued government deficits form the national debt.”

According to an official statement released by Steve Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney at the Treasury, the FY 2018 budget deficit rose 17% over the previous period to $779 billion.

In the same statement, they noted this was “$70 billion less than forecast in the FY 2019 mid-session review.” Even so, it remains the largest deficit since 2012 ($1 trillion).

Mulvaney commented on spending in a CNBC article:

America’s booming economy will create increased government revenues…

But this fiscal picture is a blunt warning to Congress of the dire consequences of irresponsible and unnecessary spending…Read More

10.17.18- “When the bubble bursts, America will experience an economic crisis much greater than the 2008 meltdown or the Great Depression”
Michael Snyder

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.  Currently, we are in the terminal phase of an “everything bubble” which has had ten years to grow.  It is the biggest financial bubble that our country has ever seen, and experts are warning that when it finally bursts we will experience an economic downturn that is even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Of course many of us in the alternative media have been warning about what is coming for quite some time, but now even many in the mainstream media have jumped on the bandwagon.  The Economist is one of the most prominent globalist mouthpieces in the entire world, and so I was stunned when I came across one of their articles earlier today that was entitled “Another economic downturn is just a matter of time”.  When the alternative media and globalist media outlets are both preaching economic doom, that is a very clear sign that big trouble is imminent.

But for the moment, global financial markets seem to have settled down a bit.  U.S. markets were down on Monday, but there wasn’t that much volatility.  Once again, it was tech stocks that got hit the hardest… Read More

10.16.18- UN Climate Change Report: A Choice between “Mad Max and Hunger Games”
Jonathan Miltimore

Humanity, we’re essentially told, is doomed lest people concede their freedom to the experts, lawmakers, and bureaucrats who can save us.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week released a special report detailing all the ways climate change is predicted to wreak havoc on humans.

The report is about 800 pages long, so I’ll offer a summary to save you some time:

• Global temperatures today are 1.0°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
  
  
• We’re seeing an increase in extreme weather and other negative consequences as a result of the increase, including receding sea ice in the Arctic and rising global sea levels.
  
  
• A 1.5°C increase will be (much) worse than a 1.0 increase; 2°C would be much worse than that.
  
  
• We’re currently on track to exceed 3°C.
  
  
• Only drastic changes in the world economy can prevent global calamity. Read More

10.15.18- International relations: the calm before the storm?
Thierry Meyssan

All international problems are currently suspended, awaiting the results of the US mid-term elections. The partisans of the old international order are gambling on a change of majority in Congress and a rapid destitution of President Trump. If the man in the White House holds fast, the protagonists of the war against Syria will have to admit defeat and move on to other battle fields. On the other hand, if Donald Trump should lose the elections, the war on Syria will immediately be revived by the United Kingdom.

The current situation – extending from the Russian response to the destruction of its Ilyuchin-20 to the US mid-term elections on 6 November – is uncertain. All the protagonists of the war in Syria are waiting to see whether the White House will be able to pursue its policy of breaking away from the current international order, or if Congress will become the opposition and immediately trigger the process for the destitution of President Trump. Read More

10.13.18- The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did as Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today
Daisy Luther

With all of the ridiculous new regulations, coddling, and societal mores that seem to be the norm these days, it’s a miracle those of us over 30 survived our childhoods.

Here’s the problem with all of this babying: it creates a society of weenies.

There won’t be more rebels because this generation has been frightened into submission and apathy through a deliberately orchestrated culture of fear. No one will have faced adventure and lived to greatly embroider the story.

Kids are brainwashed – yes, brainwashed – into believing that the mere thought of a gun means you’re a psychotic killer waiting for a place to rampage.

They are terrified to do anything when they aren’t wrapped up with helmets, knee pads, wrist guards, and other protective gear. Read More

10.12.18- Dow 40,000 is coming, but only after ‘a large panic event’ passes, analyst warns
Shawn Langlois

‘Investors should be out of stocks for most of 2019’

Back in January 2016, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.15%was trading around the 16,000 level, Yves Lamoureux, president of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co., said the blue-chip index would topple 25,000 within three or four years. It didn’t take that long. 

Now, with the Dow clinging to a 500-point cushion above that milestone, Lamoureux is standing firmly behind another bullish call: Dow 40,000. 

Oh, but there’s a catch.

“We see a large panic event taking shape now that continues into next year — the melt-up we forecasted is done,” he told MarketWatch. “Investors should be out of stocks for most of 2019.”  Read More

10.11.18- The Human Drive for Inequality
Doug Casey

At the Foundation for Economic Education Conference (FEECON) in 2017, I met Bill Frezza. He’s been teaching a critical lesson about equality, learned from the horrors of the AT&T telephone monopoly. What follows, I mostly learned from him.

After the invention of the telephone in the mid- to late-1800s, innovators produced great accomplishments as they strived to improve the technology to

In 1913 (the same ominous year in which the Federal Reserve Act was created, destroying the foundations of the free market), American Telephone & Telegraph cronied its way into a government-created telecommunication monopoly that lasted for 70 years. And during that time, telephone innovation stopped cold. Our phones were wired permanently to the wall. Oh, and they weren’t our phones. Read More

10.10.18- The Cracks In The Market’s Floor Grow Wider
Dave Kranzler

“The only time we’ve ever seen a confluence of risk factors anywhere close to those of today was the week of March 24, 2000, which marked the peak of the technology bubble.” – John Hussman, Hussman Funds, in his October Market Commentary

The yield on the 10-yr Treasury has broken out, hitting its highest level since July 2011:

By the end of June 2011, the Fed had only reached its half-way mark in money printing. It was shortly thereafter that the Fed had implemented its “operation twist.” Operation twist consisted of selling the Fed’s short term holdings and using the proceeds plus extra printed money to buy Treasuries at the long-end of the curve – primarily 10-yr bonds. That program is what drove the 10-yr bond yield from 3.40% in July 2011 to as low as 1.33% by mid-2016. At one point the Fed owned more than 50% of all outstanding 10-yr Treasuries. The Fed’s massive money hyper-stimulated the housing and auto markets. Read More

10.09.18- The Biggest Threat to US National Security Is the US Government
Eric Zuesse

A dictatorship does not represent the public but only the aristocracy that, behind the scenes, controls the government.

Jonathan H. Adler, Professor at Case Western University School of Law, noted, regarding George W. Bush’s secret policy for the NSA to access everyone’s phone-records, that “The metadata collection program is constitutional (at least according to Judge Kavanaugh),” and he presented Judge Kavanaugh’s entire published opinion on that. Kavanaugh’s opinion stated that the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution could be shoved aside because he thinks that the ‘national security’ of the United States is more important than the Constitution. Kavanaugh wrote:

The Government’s program for bulk collection of 2 telephony metadata serves a critically important special need – preventing terrorist attacks on the United States... In my view, that critical national security need outweighs the impact on privacy occasioned by this program...

The Fourth Amendment allows governmental searches and seizures without individualized suspicion when the Government demonstrates a sufficient “special need” – that is, a need beyond the normal need for law enforcement – that outweighs the intrusion on individual liberty…

In sum, the Fourth Amendment does not bar the Government’s bulk collection of telephony metadata under this program.  Read More

10.08.18- With corruption like this, it’s no wonder so many pension funds are insolvent
Simon Black

Last week, the head of a New York state pension fund found herself a new job.

Vicki Fuller, the former head of New York’s $209 billion fund, now earns $275,000 per year working part time for a natural gas group called The Williams Companies– good work if you can get it.

It’s noteworthy that when Ms. Fuller ran her state pension fund, she invested $110 million of taxpayer money to buy bonds issued by none other than The Williams Companies.

Bear in mind that Moody’s, the credit rating agency, downgraded Williams’ financial outlook to “negative” because of the company’s high leverage and risk.

The fund that Ms. Fuller managed also voted in favor of huge, multi-million dollar pay packages for senior executives of The Williams Companies even though the stock price was dropping. Read More

10.07.18- Ask yourself: Why are there no prescription medications without horrific side effects?
S.D. Wells

The reason there are no prescription medications available today where the side effects aren’t worse than the ailment being treated is because Big Pharma will not treat or heal anything without creating several new issues that keep their “customers for life” coming back for more. Most Americans do not want to stop eating junk food, fast food, corporate franchise restaurant food, microwaveable food, prepared food bar “stuff,” and “diet” food that’s mostly chock full of synthetic sweeteners, GMOs and MSG.

Due almost entirely to these nasty eating habits, about 200 million Americans seek medical doctors to prescribe them chemical-filled pills to kill the pain, quell the hypertension, reduce the inflammation, unclog the clots, numb the anxiety, and nullify the depression. Read More

10.06.18- Think You're Prepared For The Next Crisis? Think Again.
Adam Taggart

Even the best-laid preparations have failure points

No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force. ~ Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. ~ Mike Tyson

Scottish poet Robert Burns aptly penned the famous phrase: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft a-gley.” (commonly adapted as "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.")

How right he was.

History has shown time and time again that the only 100% predictable outcome to any given strategy is that, when implemented, things will not go 100% according to plan. Read More

10.05.18- The World Is Quietly Decoupling From the U.S. – And No One Is Paying Attention
Brandon Smith

Blind faith in the U.S. dollar is perhaps one of the most crippling disabilities economists have in gauging our economic future. Historically speaking, fiat currencies are essentially animals with very short lives, and world reserve currencies are even more prone to an early death. But, for some reason, the notion that the dollar is vulnerable at all to the same fate is deemed ridiculous by the mainstream.

This delusion has also recently bled into parts of the alternative economic movement, with some analysts hoping that the Trump Administration will somehow reverse several decades of central bank sabotage in only four to eight years. However, this thinking requires a person to completely ignore the prevailing trend.

Years before there was ever an inkling of a trade war, multiple nations were establishing bilateral agreements that would cut the dollar out of trade. China has been a leader in this effort, despite it being one of the largest buyers of U.S. Treasury debt and dollar reserves since the 2008 crash. In the past few years, these bilateral deals have been growing in scope, starting small and then expanding into massive agreements on raw commodities. China and Russia are a perfect example of the de-dollarization trend, with the two nations forming a trade alliance on natural gas as far back as 2014. That agreement, which is expected to start boosting imports to China this year, removes the need for dollars as a reserve mechanism for international purchases. Read More

10.04.18- The Tyranny of the U.S. Dollar
Peter Coy

The incumbent international currency has been American for decades. Is it time for regime change?

There’s a paradox at the heart of global finance. The U.S. share of the world economy has drifted lower for decades, and now President Trump is retreating from the American chief executive’s traditional role as Leader of the Free World. Yet the U.S. dollar remains, as the saying goes, almighty. “American exceptionalism has never been this stark,” Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets and chief global strategist for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said at a Council on Foreign Relations symposium on Sept. 24.

By the latest tally of the European Central Bank, America’s currency makes up two-thirds of international debt and a like share of global reserve holdings. Oil and gold are priced in dollars, not euros or yen. When Somali pirates hold up ships at sea, it’s dollars they demand. And threats to be cut off from the dollar-based global payments system strike terror into the likes of Iran, North Korea, and Russia. It’s no exaggeration to say that the dollar’s primacy is at least as valuable to the U.S. as a couple of aircraft carrier strike groups.  Read More

10.03.18- How America Can Free Itself From Wall Street
Ellen Brown

Wall Street owns the country. That was the opening line of a fiery speech that populist leader Mary Ellen Lease delivered around 1890. Franklin Roosevelt said it again in a letter to Colonel House in 1933, and Sen. Dick Durbin was still saying it in 2009. “The banks—hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created—are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill,” Durbin said in an interview. “And they frankly own the place.”

Wall Street banks triggered a credit crisis in 2008-09 that wiped out over $19 trillion in household wealth, turned some 10 million families out of their homes and cost almost 9 million jobs in the U.S. alone. Yet the banks were bailed out without penalty, while defrauded home buyers were left without recourse or compensation. The banks made a killing on interest rate swaps with cities and states across the country, after a compliant and accommodating Federal Reserve dropped interest rates nearly to zero. Attempts to renegotiate these deals have failed.

In Los Angeles, the City Council was forced to reduce the city’s budget by 19 percent following the banking crisis, slashing essential services, while Wall Street has not budged on the $4.9 million it claims annually from the city on its swaps. Wall Street banks are now collecting more from Los Angeles just in fees than it has available to fix its ailing roads. Read More

10.02.18- Imaginary Monsters and the Uses of Chaos
James Howard Kunstler

The Kavanaugh hearing underscored another eerie condition in contemporaryUSA life that offers clues about the combined social, economic, and political collapse that I call the long emergency: the destruction of all remaining categorical boundaries for understanding behavior: truth and untruth, innocent and guilty, childhood and adulthood, public and private. The destination of all this confusion is a society that can’t process any quarrel coherently, leaving everyone unsatisfied and adrift, and no actual problems resolved.

One element of the story is clear, though. The Democratic party, in the absence of real monsters to slay, has become the party devoted to sowing chaos, mainly by inventing new, imaginary monsters using the machinery of politics, the way the Catholic Church manufactured monsters of heresy during the Spanish Inquisition in its attempt to regulate “belief.”

“I believe her” is the new totalitarian rallying cry, conveniently disposing of any obligation to establish the facts of any ambiguous matter. It was stealthily inserted in our national life during the Obama years, when Title IX “guidelines” originally written to correct imbalances in college sports funding for men and women were extended to adjudicate sexual encounters on campus. The result was the setting up of officially sanctioned kangaroo courts where due process was thrown out the window — by people who have should have known better: college presidents, deans, and faculty. That experiment produced not a few spectacular injustices, such as the Duke Lacrosse team fake rape fiasco, the University of Virginia fake rape fraternity incident, and the Columbia University “Mattress Girl” saga — all cases eventuating in punishing lawsuits against the institutions that allowed them to spin out of control. Read More

19.01.18- Empire of Lies: Are ‘We the People’ Useful Idiots in the Digital Age?
John W. Whitehead

“Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was “useful idiots” and it applied to a good many people who should have known better. I now propose a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites. That’s you and me, folks, and it’s how the masters of the digital universe see us. And they have pretty good reasons for seeing us that way. They hear us whingeing about privacy, security, surveillance, etc., but notice that despite our complaints and suspicions, we appear to do nothing about it. In other words, we say one thing and do another, which is as good a working definition of hypocrisy as one could hope for.”—John Naughton, The Guardian

“Who needs direct repression,” asked philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?”

In an Orwellian age where war equals peace, surveillance equals safety, and tolerance equals intolerance of uncomfortable truths and politically incorrect ideas, “we the people” have gotten very good at walking freely into the slaughterhouse, all the while convincing ourselves that the prison walls enclosing us within the American police state are there for our protection. Read More

09.29.18- Gold Investors: It Is Time for a Logic Lesson
 Michael J. Ballanger 

Here is a question for any and all of you that have ever purchased a lottery ticket or played the slots or bet on a horse: If you had proof that the outcomes were all rigged, would you still play? If someone showed you a video of pit bosses stacking decks or tampering with dice, would you ever enter that establishment again? If your wife or mother or employer knew that you would constantly blow your paychecks in a rigged casino, would you ever be able to face them? The answer to all of the above-mentioned scenarios is a resounding "NO!" Yet millions of people (albeit that figure is rapidly shrinking) are still committing many hundreds of millions of dollars every week to the Crimex Casino, which has now proven that every single input into determining prices for gold and silver (Bitcoin, too) is completely controlled by the bullion banks, the Crimex bosses and the regulators.

The Transitive Quality of Equality states that "if a = b and b = c, then a = c." The Transitive Quality of Gold Pricing is "if I buy gold based upon demand and supply, and demand and supply have no bearing upon price, then I am buying gold with no concern for price," which is total insanity. We have seen in the past 30 years how the Crimex banks are able to use the paper markets to influence not only near-term demand but also long-term supply. By suppressing price, they are now influencing supply with no better confirmation than the paucity of new BIG gold discoveries since the 1990s. Read More

09.28.29- Investors Have Fallen Into a False Sense of Security
Jim Rickards

25In January 2018, two significant market events occurred nearly simultaneously. Major U.S. stock market indexes peaked and volatility indexes extended one of their longest streaks of low volatility in history. Investors were happy, complacency ruled the day and all was right with the world.

Then markets were turned upside down in a matter of days. Major stock market indexes fell over 11%, a technical correction, from Feb. 2–8, 2018, just five trading days. The CBOE Volatility Index, commonly known as the “VIX,” surged from 14.51 to 49.21 in an even shorter period from Feb. 2–6.

The last time the VIX has been at those levels was late August 2015 in the aftermath of the Chinese shock devaluation of the yuan when U.S. stocks also fell 11% in two weeks.

Investors were suddenly frightened and there was nowhere to hide from the storm. Read More

09.27.18- The Real Reason the Government Won’t Hold Big Tech Accountable
Joe Jarvis

The villagers are marching with their torches and pitchforks. Big tech companies are in trouble.

The government is coming to regulate them.

Someone leaked a draft of an executive order from President Trump. It calls on various agencies to use all current laws to look into possible anticompetitive practices by Facebook and Google.

In fact, the EU already fined Google $5 billion in July for “abusing the market dominance of Android.” And now they’ve set their sights on how Amazon uses customer and seller data.

Elizabeth Warren wants to force Amazon to choose between providing a platform for sellers and selling goods. Echoing European Union regulators, she says Amazon has an unfair advantage by competing against the same sellers it collects information from on its platform. Read More

09.26.18- Insider Selling Soars: Fastest Pace Of September Sales
In Past Decade
Tyler Durden

One month ago, we reported that insider selling reached $450 million daily in August, the highest level this year; on a monthly basis, insiders sold more than $10 billion of their stock, the most of any month this year and near the most on record.

"As corporate buying is at least taking a breather, corporate insiders are ramping up share selling as the major U.S. stock market averages are at or near record highs," TrimTabs wrote in a note.

One month later, TrimTabs is out with a follow up monthly report which finds even more of the same: according to the investment research company, the "best-informed market participants" are selling their own stocks at the fastest pace in September in the past decade, even as stock buyback announcements have hit record levels. Read More

09.25.18- TECH ALERT: Big Bucks From “Blood Valley”
Patrick Stout

The Montreux Casino was going up in flames.

And along with it went the recording studio which a famous rock band had booked for a free session the next day.

The members of the band watched in horror as the flames leapt into the night sky.

It was 1971 and the fire in the sky and the smoke that hung over the waters of a nearby lake would soon inspire the band’s most famous song.

As some of you might have already guessed, the band was Deep Purple and the song was Smoke on the Water.

That song’s iconic bass riff motivated me into picking up the guitar, and even made me harbor thoughts of a career on stage…

My rock star aspirations were short-lived.

However, thanks to scientists from the University of Washington, Microsoft and Twist Bioscience, that song could soon live on forever… Literally. Read More

09.24.18- These Three Items Will Be Hit The Hardest Thanks To Trump’s Tariffs
Mac Slavo

The Trump administration’s insistence on a trade war will affect three items the most. Americans will be footing the bill for president Donald Trump’s trade war and tariffs, and vacuums, tires, and computer parts will be the items hit the hardest.

By now, hopefully, Americans have put two and two together and figured out that it isn’t the Chinese government that will pay for Trump’s tariffs, but the Chinese consumer. Much like the American government will not pay for China’s tariffs, it will be the American consumer. Those costs are passed on directly to the public in the form of higher cost of goods. And if you’re looking for a new vacuum or tires, or maybe you’d like to upgrade your computer, expect much higher prices immediately. Read More

09.22.18- "The News Just Ain't The News No More"
Ilargi Meijer

Two thirds of Americans get at least some of their news on social media. Google and Facebook receive well over 70% of US digital advertising revenues. The average daily time spent on social media is 2 hours. Just a few factoids that have at least one thing in common: nothing like them was around 10 years ago, let alone 20. And they depict a change, or set of changes, in our world that will take a long time yet to understand and absorb. Some things just move too fast for us to keep track of, let alone process.

Those of us who were alive before the meteoric rise of the hardware and software of ‘social’ media may be able to relate a little more and better than those who were not, but even that is not a given. There are plenty people over 20, over 30, that make one think: what did you do before you had that magic machine? When you walk down the street talking to some friend, or looking at what your friends wrote on Facebook, do you ever think about what you did in such situations before the machine came into your life? Read More

09.21.18- There’s a New Crash Coming
Bill Bonner

Skyrocketing debt, Wall Street deregulation, a fraying social safety net, and a diminished dollar could soon leave the United States looking like Greece.

Donald Trump is the epitome of irrational exuberance.

You might remember that phrase from the 1990s. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve at the time, was describing how the tech boom was creating a bubble by generating enthusiasm way out of proportion to the actual value of the new companies.

Such an unwarranted economic boom was hardly something new, so it was easy to predict what would happen next. Periods of irrational exuberance — whether the dot-com expansion, Dutch tulipmania in the 17th century, or the housing bubble in America of the 2000s — have always led to a sudden crash and a serious hangover.

And now, here we go again. Read More

09.20.18- The Donald in Wonderland
Nomi Prins

Down the Financial Rabbit Hole With President Trump

Once upon a time, there was a little-known energy company called Enron. In its 16-year life, it went from being dubbed America’s most innovative company by Fortune Magazine to being the poster child of American corporate deceit. Using a classic recipe for book-cooking, Enron ended up in bankruptcy with jail time for those involved. Its shareholders lost $74 billionin the four years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2001.

A decade ago, the flameout of my former employer, Lehman Brothers, the global financial firm, proved far more devastating, contributing as it did to a series of events that ignited a global financial meltdown. Americans lost an estimated $12.8 trillion in the havoc.

Despite the differing scales of those disasters, there was a common thread: both companies used financial tricks to make themselves appear so much healthier than they actually were. They both faked the numbers, thanks to off-the-books or offshore mechanisms and eluded investigations... until they collapsed. Read More

09.19.18- Leave Home
Jeff Thomas

As an increasing number of people realise that their home country is becoming a liability to them, the most common question I hear from them is, “What do I have to do to remain where I am and still be assured that I’ll be able to retain both my wealth and my freedom?”

The simple (and tragic) answer to this question is that there is no such solution. The two objectives are mutually exclusive.

Throughout the ages, whenever an empire has begun its inevitable collapse, no country has ever woken up and reversed the process. In every case, the government rides the decline to the bottom. And, along the way, a series of policies is invariably undertaken to save those in government in the downward rush. These policies are always at the expense of the populace.

Invariably, as the decline worsens, governments drag out the same policies that all other failing empires have implemented before them: Devaluation of currency, default on debt, increased warfare, creation of a police state and, finally, the looting of all those citizens who have even a modicum of wealth.

The question is not whether we like our home country as it presently is, but whether we’re prepared to accept what it’s about to become. Read More

09.18.18- “Lehman - Ten Years Later”
Andy Sutton / Graham Mehl

A Brief Review of Events

2008 had already had more than its share of financial turmoil. In the months leading up to 9/15/2008, Bear Stearns, Fannie/Freddie, and AIG had already had major blowouts. The stock markets were very itchy and everyone was on edge. Most who worked in the industry knew it was just a matter of time until something much more systemic took place. Up until this time, the contagion had been mostly limited to the US, with some minor external collateral damage. We were both heavily involved in the financial/economic landscape at this time. Andy was running his investment advisory and economic consultancy firm and Graham was a strategy analyst for a major G7 central bank. We had already both come to independent conclusions that this was going to be a long emergency as coined by James Kunstler. This was not going to be a 3 or 6-month event and then it would be roses and cherries and cream for the whole world. Read More

09.17.18- What Keeps Them Up at Night
Jim Quinn

“Government has coddled, accepted, and ignored white collar crime for too long. It is time the nation woke up and realized that it’s not the armed robbers or drug dealers who cause the most economic harm, it’s the white collar criminals living in the most expensive homes who have the most impressive resumes who harm us the most. They steal our pensions, bankrupt our companies, and destroy thousands of jobs, ruining countless lives.” – Harry Markopolos, Madoff Whistleblower

The tenth anniversary of the Wall Street created financial catastrophe brought back some bittersweet memories this week. I wrote my first articles during the summer/fall of 2008 for Seeking Alpha. They included: Is The U.S Banking System Safe? (Aug 2008), The Great Consumer Crash of 2009 (Aug 2008), Looming Financial Catastrophe: A Real Inconvenient Truth (Aug 2008), Is Wachovia the Worst Run Bank in America (Sept 2008), The U.S. on the Precipice (Sept 2008), On Board the U.S.S. Titanic (Sept 2008), Our Coming Depression (Oct 2008), among others. I was pumping out 5,000 word articles every 2 or 3 days. Read More

09.15.18- California’s War on the U.S. Dollar
Greg Wilson

You may have heard the saying, “As goes California, so goes the nation.”

Californians have historically been on the cutting edge of social and political change.

Whether it was protesting the Vietnam War or advocating for free speech or civil rights, California has always been among the first states to get involved.

And it’s on the front lines once again.

Its opponent: the federal government.

The latest battle is over fuel efficiency rules for cars.

The Trump administration wants to strip California of its right to set its own air quality rules. California isn’t backing down, though.

It says the proposal “is contrary to the facts and the law.” And it’s looking to change its rules to make any federal changes null and void.

California attorney general Xavier Becerra said, “We’re going to do everything we must do to continue to move forward rather than backslide.”

In fact, California has already threatened to sue the federal government.

There’s a lot at stake. Read More

09.14.18- America’s False History
Paul Craig Roberts

David Ray Griffin writes books faster than I can read them. Therefore, I am going to borrow Edward Curtin’s review of Griffin’s history of the United States: The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? which Curtin suggests should have been titled: A Diabolic False Flag Empire.  

Griffin’s book is a humdinger and will certainly upset brainwashed American super-patriots, but it throughly documents how Washington’s aggression toward other lands is covered up by politicians, media, and court historians with moral verbiage. In my view the hubris, arrogance, and ignorance of “American exceptionism” has the world locked on a trajectory to its extinction in nuclear Armageddon. 

Curtin points out that Griffin makes an extraordinary mistake, unusual for a scholar as careful as Griffin, in his assessment of President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy was the president who tried to move America’s trajectory off of its demonic path and was murdered by his own government for his attempt. But as I have said, none of us knows everything. We often have to rely on others, and others, also, make mistakes. Read More

09.13.18- Pandemic scare brewing as cabal faces doom
Benjamin Fulford

A pandemic scare is looming as airplanes in multiple countries reported to be full of “diseased” people are landing and being put in quarantine.  However, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) sources say the incidents all appear to be fake ones involving crisis actors.

The pandemic scare comes as the execution of U.S. Senator John McCain sent shock waves through Khazarian mafia ranks, who are now activating all their resources in a desperate move to save themselves.  Thus, this pandemic scare may be something like a schoolboy calling in a bomb threat to his school in order to avoid an exam he is going to fail.

However, it is also possible the U.S. military-industrial establishment may be preparing a pandemic scare as a cover to stop all airline flights worldwide in order to prevent Khazarian mafia from escaping, as over 51,000 sealed indictments begin to be acted upon. Read More

09.12.18- The World Is Ganging up Against the Dollar
Jim Rickards

The U.S. has been highly successful at pursuing financial warfare, including sanctions. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

As the U.S. wields the dollar weapon more frequently, the rest of the world works harder to shun the dollar completely.

I’ve been warning for years about efforts of nations like Russia and China to escape what they call “dollar hegemony” and create a new financial system that does not depend on the dollar and helps them get out from under dollar-based economic sanctions.

These efforts are only increasing. Read More

09.11.18- How to Purge the Rot From American Finance
Bill Bonner

CHERBOURG, FRANCE – We’re on the ferry that will take us to Ireland. It is foggy outside. We can see nothing.

This is just the beginning of a long trip that will take us to South America (where we get to see a financial crisis underway in Argentina)… Germany (where we hope to find out more about how Germans are preparing to tighten up at the European Central Bank)… and Bermuda, where we are scheduled to give a speech to a group of dear readers at the Legacy Investment Summit. (If you’d like to be one of those dear readers, go here.)

Whimper and Bang

Last week, we wrote about the Whimper and the Bang. The Whimper – a credit deflation… with falling stock prices and a recession – is inevitable. Every credit-fueled boom eventually runs out of gas… and then turns into a bust. Read More

09.10.18- Why Most Investors Fail to Beat “The Market”
Chris Mayer

Editor’s Note: By some calculations, we’re now living through the longest bull market in U.S. stocks in history. The mainstream media has spilled pages of ink on the topic.

But Chris Mayer, Bill’s ace stock picker, doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. As today’s guest editor, he shows readers how to look past the headlines and aim at the bigger picture.

You probably keep hearing about how this bull market is now the longest on record. To me, it’s an interesting tidbit, but it doesn’t really mean much.

For one thing, we don’t own “the market” – which, in these contexts, usually means the S&P 500 Index. We own individual stocks. As I always like to remind people, the ups and downs of those stocks can be very different from those of “the market.” Read More

09.08.18- The pension crisis is bigger than the world’s
20 largest economies
Simon Black

If your retirement plans consist entirely of that pension you’ve been promised, it’s time to start looking elsewhere.

As you probably know, pensions are giant pools of capital responsible for paying out retirement benefits to workers.

And right now many pension funds around the world simply don’t have enough assets to cover the retirement obligations they owe to millions of workers.

In the US alone, federal, state, and local governments, pensions are about $7 TRILLION short of the funding they need to pay out all the benefits they’ve promised.

(** And that doesn’t include another $49 trillion in unfunded Social Security obligations…) Read More

09.07.18- The 10 most important lessons in finance
from a legend in the field
Simon Black

[Editor’s note: Tuesday, we published a podcast we recorded with the legendary financial commentator, Jim Grant.

Jim is the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer – one of the most-respected and followed financial publications in the world. In his 35 years writing Grant’s, Jim has seen a financial cycle or two.

And he’s amassed a network of many of the most important people on Wall Street (who often share their insights in his publication).

We’re excited to share a special piece from Jim in Notes today about the 10 most important lessons he’s learned in his 35 years in financial markets.

It’s a bit long, so we’ll publish the first half today and the rest tomorrow. Read More

09.06.18- Amazon is Far More Dangerous and Powerful Than You Want to Admit
Michael Krieger

The sneaky thing about Amazon’s increased dominance in so many key aspects of our lives is that much of the perniciousness is hidden. No one’s going to tell you about all the retailers who have gotten pressured or destroyed via its tactics while you’re happily clicking “add to cart” and smiling about 2-day free shipping. In this sense, it can be best compared to the evils of factory farming. Most people just simply have no idea about the immense damage going on behind the scenes as they indulge in incredible convenience and what looks like a good deal.

– From my November 15, 2017 post: Amazon Poses a Serious Threat to Freedom and Free Markets

Today’s post should be seen as an update to last year’s article referenced above. In the months that have followed, I’ve been consistently frustrated by the lack of interest when it comes to the dangers presented by Amazon and its richest man in the world ($165 billion as of last count) CEO Jeff Bezos. The following Twitter exchange is a good example of what I mean: Read More

09.05.18- How People Become Easily Controlled By Tyrants
Brandon Smith

The question often arises in liberty movement circles as to how we get to the point of full blown tyranny within a society.  There are numerous factors that determine this outcome, but through all the various totalitarian systems in history there are common denominators – elements that must be there for tyrants to prevail.  When we can identify these common elements in an objective manner, we make it far more difficult for despotic structures to stand.

This is a very complex issue, but I’ll break it down as best as I’m able…

The Psychology Of The Tyrant

To come to terms with how tyrants control society, we must first examine how the mind of a tyrant operates, because these people do not in most cases think the way average human beings think.  It is one of the few cases in which I would encourage people to “otherize” another group. Tyrants are psychologically abnormal to such an extreme that is is difficult to classify them as human. Read More

09.04.18- The Terrifying Paintings by ArtificiaI Intelligence
Peter De Boer

Witness the Birth of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Art, art produced by algorithm.

And its one hell of a mutilated abortion. Words that spring to mind: monstrous, from hell, distorted, terrifying, soulless…

Its like self-portraits of a family of aristocrats if they were each and every one of them a soul-sucking demon.

If this is what Artificial Intelligence has to offer in terms of art, if these images are the seeds of that future, count me out. A French art collective, selling these little monsters at Christie’s for beaucoup bucks, fine.

But I can’t tell.This collection is called Obvious. Obviously what? Obviously a horror show? Read More

09.03.18- Progressives: The Real World vs. Neverland
David C. Stolinsky

• 

  Many of these children in adult bodies were told, and actually believed, that better health care for everyone, including an unlimited number of illegal immigrants, would be attainable at a low cost, if only the government were to run it.

• Many children in adult bodies also seem not to know that Socialism failed in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba, and is now failing in Venezuela. The irrational wish is evidently stronger than rational arithmetic.

• These victims of arrested emotional development seem to confuse good motives with good results. They want better health care for a greater number of people at a lesser cost; so they fantasize that they can achieve it without denying care to those who are too old, too sick or too expensive to receive it. They kind-heartedly want a "more equal distribution of wealth"; so they fantasize that they can maneuver it without penalizing and discouraging the productive members of society, while rewarding and encouraging the unproductive ones. Read More

09.01.18- Forget who takes the mid-terms: Here’s how to personally repeal Obamacare
Simon Black

If the US government doesn’t act quickly, Americans may be stuck with years more of deteriorating healthcare and skyrocketing medical bills.

Back in 2010, Congress and President Obama completely overhauled the US healthcare system with the “Affordable” Care Act (aka Obamacare). Their intention was to provide all US citizens with access to healthcare.

But, the result of government interference in markets was – surprise – rising costs and lower quality service.

Over the past several years, politicians have paid lip service to abolishing Obamacare. Even with a Republican-controlled House and Senate in 2017 and 2018, Congress couldn’t issue a repeal.

And now, US midterms elections are looming. Read More

08.31.18- Economic Doom Returns: Emerging Market Currencies Collapse To Record Lows As Global Financial Chaos Accelerates
Michael Snyder

After a little bit of a lull, the international currency crisis is back with a vengeance.  Currencies are collapsing in Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey and other emerging markets, and central banks are springing into action.  It is being hoped that the financial chaos can be confined to emerging markets so that it will not spread to the United States and Europe.  But of course the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, and a massive wave of debt defaults in emerging markets would inevitably have extremely serious consequences all over the planet.  It would be difficult to overstate the potential danger that this new crisis poses for all of us.  Emerging market economies went on an unprecedented debt binge over the past decade, and a high percentage of those debts were denominated in U.S. dollars.  As emerging market currencies collapse, it is going to become nearly impossible to service any debts denominated in U.S. dollars, and that could ultimately mean absolutely enormous losses for international lenders.  Our system tends to do fairly well as long as everybody is paying their debts, but once the dominoes begin to tumble things can get messy really quickly. Read More

08.30.18- Making It in the United States:
The Harsh Realities Americans Face
Frank Lukacovic

Forget the porn star scandals and possible Russian collusion in an election over fifteen months ago. Most Americans don’t give a damn about either but from turning on cable news, you would think that’s all that is happening in the world. Cable news is out for ratings and those kind of things sell. What you won’t see much of are some of the harsh realities facing Americans and preventing us from becoming truly great.

Only a handful of politicians and media members are talking about issues affecting the day-to-day lives of people. Americans care about things such as obtaining health insurance, earning a decent wage, buying a home, and sending their kids to college.

On the surface, it seems like the United States has turned the corner. Unemployment has now fallen to 4.1% which is actually below what economists call the “natural rate of unemployment”. But beyond this number, Americans still face many challenges. The truth is that we are in for a world of hurt if another recession hits us and we could be due for one soon after almost nine years without one. The recent bipartisan deregulation of banks, Donald Trump’s trade war threats, increasing debt loads, and declining savings by households all point to a potential recession soon. Read More

08.29.19- Evade Market Weakness in the Summer by
Shifting Your Perspective
Dimitri Speck

Alternating Seasonal Patterns 

In the last issue of Seasonal Insights we have talked to you about biotech and pharmaceutical companies as industries that withstand the traditional summer weakness in stock markets. Six weeks ago, we have shown that gold is an asset one can purchase in the summer months to offset this phenomenon.

Warning: don’t let the media mesmerize you in the summer months – the stocks of media companies are a veritable seasonal minefield in August to October. [PT]

Naturally, investors also have the option to use traditional patterns in a different way. In this issue we will show you how a distinct seasonal pattern which generates recurring losses represents an opportunity to profit by going short. Let us take a closer look at the media sector, which is traditionally performing very poorly in the month of August. Read More

08.28.18- How the Socialism of Imperial Rome Ushered in Feudalism
Will Durant

In years of peace, Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic decay. To overcome depression and prevent revolution, he substituted a managed economy for the law of supply and demand. He established a sound currency by guaranteeing to the gold coinage a fixed weight and purity which it retained in the Eastern Empire till 1453. He distributed food to the poor at half the market price or free, and undertook extensive public works to appease the unemployed. To ensure the supply of necessaries for the cities and the armies, he brought many branches of industry under complete state control, beginning with the import of grain; he persuaded the shipowners, merchants, and crews engaged in this trade to accept such control in return for governmental guarantee of security in employment and returns. 

The state had long since owned most quarries, salt deposits, and mines; now it forbade the export of salt, iron, gold, wine, grain, or oil from Italy, and strictly regulated the importation of these articles. It went on to control establishments producing for the army, the bureaucracy, or the court. In munition factories, textile mills, and bakeries the government required a minimum product, bought this at its own price, and made the associations of manufacturers responsible for carrying out orders and specifications. If this procedure proved inadequate, it completely nationalized these factories and manned them with labor bound to the job. Read More

08.27.18- Most Americans Don’t Understand This Problem…
Here’s Why You Should
Jim Sinclair

My rich dad used to enjoy working in his garden.

Though he was wealthy and didn’t need to, he said he liked the work because it reminded him that no matter how rich you are, you’re never too good to get your hands dirty.

He also liked gardening because it was a metaphor for how he saw the world.

“Building something beautiful takes much toil and patience,” he said. “You cannot rush gardening. You must plant well, understand what you’re doing, and pull all weeds up by their root.”

Explaining further he said, “Many people want to quickly identify problems in their life and then cut them down. The problem is that, like a weed, they never dig up the root. So, later the same problem comes up. In life and in money, you must understand the root of your problems.”

Several years ago, I read a great article by Barbara Kiviat entitled “The Case Against Home Ownership,” published in TIME magazine.

In that article, Ms. Kiviat rightly identifies, in so many words, that the myth of your house being an asset has contributed greatly to our current financial crisis. Read More

08.25.18- Services Rendered
Jeff Thomas

Here we have a standard credit card receipt from a coffee shop.

The diner understands that he’s not obligated to order anything that he doesn’t want to receive, but that, for whatever he does order, he must pay the price on the menu.

The subtotal is printed in large type on the charge slip. He may then decide whether or not the service he received was of particular value to him. Diners typically choose to pay somewhere between 10% and 20%, depending on the value they feel they’ve received.

But the receipt above differs from the norm. After the “Tip” line, another line exists for “Voluntary Tax.”

This is a very special coffee shop. In this shop, the owners and servers pay no involuntary tax and therefore, no tax is passed on to the diner. In this coffee shop, the diner decides what level of tax he feels he should pay his government, in accordance with what he feels his government’s contribution has been to his meal. Read More

08.24.18- Why Do People Assign Value to Paper Money?
Frank Shostak

Demand for a good arises because of its perceived benefit. For instance, people demand food because of the nourishment it offers them. This is however not so, with regard to the pieces of paper we call money — why do we accept them?

Following the view of Plato and Aristotle, economists regard the acceptance of money as an historical fact introduced by the government decree.1 It is government decree, so it is argued, that makes a particular thing accepted as the general medium of the exchange, i.e., money.

In his writings, Carl Menger raised doubts about the soundness of the view that the origin of money is a government proclamation. Read More

08.23.18- Why You Should Forget School and Let Kids Play
Joe Jarvis

Breaking news: kids need to play, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Seriously, it took the American Academy of Pediatrics to let us know that?

Better yet, the doctors now recommend that parents even get involved in playing with their children, especially before they turn two.

“This may seem old-fashioned, but there are skills to be learned when kids aren’t told what to do,” said Dr. Michael Yogman, a Harvard Medical School pediatrician who led the drafting of the call to arms. Whether it’s rough-and-tumble physical play, outdoor play or social or pretend play, kids derive important lessons from the chance to make things up as they go, he said.

It is great that they are getting this right, but it really shouldn’t take an Academy of doctors to know this. It should be pretty intuitive. Kids automatically run around, play, and make up games when left alone. So I suppose the only surprising part to some people should be that sometimes, you should leave your kid alone. Read More

08.22.18- Most People Struggle Financially Because
They Don’t Know This…
Robert Kiyosaki

Money. It’s what makes the world go ‘round.

Yet we hear countless stories about the multi-million dollar athlete who is homeless 10 years later. Or the guy who won the lottery only to soon find himself penniless.

It’s not how much money you make. But how much money you keep.

I cringe whenever I hear people ask me how to get rich quicker, or where they should start. I often hear, “I need to make more money.”

I hate hearing any of that, because more money will often not solve the problem.

In fact, it may compound the problem.

Money often puts a spotlight on what we don’t know. That is why, all too often, a person who comes into a sudden windfall of cash—an inheritance, a pay raise, or lottery winnings—soon returns to the same financial mess, if not worse, than the mess they were in before. Read More

08.21.18- How to Protect Your Money from Financial Warfare
Jim Rickards

There are many bad actors out there who are preparing to inflict as much damage as possible to the power grid and other critical infrastructure, including the stock market.

I would put Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and a few others at the top of the list. Russia and China at the top of the list but Iran certainly has good cyber-warfare capability.

They’re employing what they call Cyber Brigades that spend all their time basically hacking into the critical infrastructure systems I described above. It’s a good bet that all of these systems have already been penetrated.

No one can beat the U.S. in a conventional war right now. China, especially, is catching up, but it’s not ready at this time. That’s why they’re focusing on attacking America’s critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. Read More

08.20.18- The Telltale Signs of Imperial Decline
Charles Hugh Smith

Nothing is as permanent as we imagine--especially super-complex, super-costly, super-asymmetric and super-debt-dependent systems. 

Check which signs of Imperial decline you see around you: The hubris of an increasingly incestuous and out-of-touch leadership; dismaying extremes of wealth inequality; self-serving, avaricious Elites; rising dependency of the lower classes on free Bread and Circuses provided by a government careening toward insolvency due to stagnating tax revenues and vast over-reach--let's stop there to catch our breath. Check, check, check and check.

Sir John Glubb listed a few others in his seminal essay on the end of empiresThe Fate of Empires, what might be called the dynamics of decadence: Read More

08.18.18- The West Continues to Rot at the Core as it Obsesses Over the Short-term
Nathan McDonald

The stock market, by and large, is a farce.

This is not to say that it does not have a purpose, because undoubtedly it does. This cannot and will not be denied, except by those who identify themselves as having anarchist traits.

Yet, it is still a farce. It is corrupt, it is short-sighted and it is riddled with problems. But in our “semi” capitalistic system, it is what we have. And we have to make the best of it.

This, however, does not stop us from striving to improve it. In fact, I believe this should be a major goal of Western society as a whole. The stock market, in tandem with the free market, has led to the most powerful economic engine this world has ever seen. Even if it is now riddled with disease, it is and will be for the foreseeable future a juggernaut in the economic landscape.

We should constantly strive to weed out corruption within the system and work towards improving the function of the markets as a whole. However, one issue that has once again been pushed to the forefront is the fact that Western markets are incredibly short sighted. Read More

08.17.18- Turkey: A Glimpse of America’s Future
Bill Bonner

POITOU, FRANCE – Coming into focus is a fuller picture of the worldwide financial crisis.

This week, we began looking at Turkey, but only because Donald Trump sent an extraordinary tweet last Friday.

In it, the president broke with tradition and common sense in a remarkable way. He used a crash in the Turkish lira to justify a new attack in the trade war.

Instead of soothing words that might have calmed the crisis situation, his tweet made it worse. And instead of coming to the aid of an ally in difficulty, he piled on.

We had never previously spent even two minutes thinking about Turkey or its finances. But then, after the president roused our curiosity, we saw what we think was a glimpse of the future. Read More

08.16.18- A traditional plant native to Thailand effectively manages obesity, according to new study
Michelle Simmons

Broken bones tree (Oroxylum indicum), a traditional plant native to Thailand, can potentially be used to manage obesity, according to a study published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

For the study, researchers from Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand derived the extract of broken bones from the fruit pods of the plant. They looked at the effects of broken bones plant extract on the adipogenic and biomolecular change in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. They used the cell line 3T3-L1 to establish the potential toxic effects of broken bones plantextract during adipogenesis, the differentiation of pre-adipocytes into adipocytes.

In addition, the researchers analyzed the inhibitory effect of broken bones plantextract on lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells. They also assessed the chemical components of broken bones plantextract derived from the fruit pods of the plant.  Read More

08.15.18- Generation Z: The Intolerant Ones
Ben Cohen

The post-millennials have arrived. As the oldest millennials turn 37, demographers have designated a new generation for those born after 1996, Generation Z. The oldest members of this cohort just graduated from college and had their first (legal) alcoholic beverages. As they wind their way through college, post-millennials will change higher education, just as previous generations did. 

Generation Z is racially diverse, increasingly secular, and very much online. Non-Hispanic whites make up just over half of this cohort, compared with 72 percent of Baby Boomers. In religious terms, 13 percent of Generation Z identifies as atheist, compared with only 7 percent of millennials. And according to a 2015 Pew report, 92 percent of teens access the internet daily and 73 percent have access to a smartphone.

Born in 1997 or later, Generation Z was too young to form a coherent memory of the September 11th terror attacks. They have no memory of a pre-9/11 world or a time when the U.S. didn’t have a military presence in Afghanistan. Many are too young to remember a time before smartphones. Apple released the iPhone in 2007, and by 2012, more than half of all Americans owned a smartphone. Read More

08.14.18- The Law As Weapon
Paul Craig Roberts

Robert Mueller is supposed to be investigating Russiagate, which has been shown to be a hoax concocted by former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey, and current deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. As Russiagate is a hoax, Mueller has not been able to produce a shred of evidence of the alleged Trump/Putin plot to hack Hillary’s emails and influence the last presidential election.

With his investigation unable to produce any evidence of the alleged Russiagate, Mueller concluded that he had to direct attention away from the failed hoax by bringing some sort of case against someone, knowing that the incompetent and corrupt US media and insouciant public would assume that the case had something to do with Russiagate.  Read More

08.13.18- Pater Familias
Larry LaBorde

Pater Familias is Latin for “father of the family or eldest male in a family or owner of the family estate”.  This past week having just turned 60 I am reminded of my role as head of my little family.  My own father, partner and friend died a little over 6 years ago but somehow turning 60 has reminded me of the responsibility I have for my family as well as my extended family.  As my regular readers know I just returned from Tartas France a couple of months ago where I traced my family back 9 generations.  For some reason the older I get the more important family history becomes.  A lot of responsibility goes with the being the pater familias.

In the award wining series, Downton Abby, the pater familias of that family, Lord Grantham, loses a great deal of money on a single investment and is horrified that he will be the one to lose the family estate and bring shame to generations that came before him.  The oldest family business in the world was Kongo Gumi in Japan. They built and repaired temples since 578 and went bankrupt in 2006 after 1428 years of continuous operation due to excess debt.  While I do not know the details of the bankruptcy I would have not have wanted to be the pater familias at the time of that bankruptcy – especially in a society that so greatly values family honor.  Read More

08.11.18- Experts Warn That The “Scariest”
Stock Market Signals Are Flashing Red
Michael Snyder

So many top professionals in the financial industry are sounding the alarm about a coming stock market crash right now.  And there certainly have been rumblings in 2018 – not too long ago we had a three day stretch that was called “the tech bloodbath”, and during that time Facebook had the worst day for a single company in stock market history.  But we haven’t seen the really big “crash” yet.  Many have been waiting for it to happen for several years, and some people out there are convinced that it is never going to come at all.  Of course the truth is that we are in perhaps the largest stock market bubble that our nation has ever seen, and all other large stock market bubbles have always ended with a major price collapse.  So whether it happens immediately or it takes a little while longer, it is inevitable that stock prices will eventually return to their long-term averages.

Doug Ramsey, the chief investment officer at Leuthold Group, is one of those that is sounding the alarm.  Unlike price to earnings ratios, price to sales ratios are very hard to manipulate, and he has pointed out that price to sales ratios are higher than we have ever witnessed before. Read More

08.10.18- This Time Is Different — No, Really
Brian Maher

“Experience keeps a dear school,” said Ben Franklin, “but fools will learn in no other.”

The wise man remembers. The fool forgets.

The wise man listens. The fool talks.

He ignores both the living and the dead… the immemorial dead, whose whispers carry the distilled wisdom of history.

No — this time is different, comes the fool’s eternal cry.

The past is of no use to me.

Rising economic interdependence had rendered war obsolete, argued the foolish author of The Great Illusion in 1909. Read More

08.09.18- Students Say 'Young Democratic Socialists Of America'
Not Socialist Enough
Zachary Petrizzo

A student at Virginia Commonwealth University is running for Co-Chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America on the platform that the organization is not socialist enough.

“YDSA’s silence on lynchings has not gone unnoticed. National’s inability to provide local chapters with meaningful resources is not ok. Our exclusive ‘in’ culture cannot continue,” VCU student Ulysses Carter declared in a tweet last week, adding that “This is why I’ve decided to run for National co-chair.”

The YDSA National Coordinating Committee has two “Co-Chairs” and four “at -large” members, all of whom are elected annually at the organization’s Summer Convention. The Committee oversees “activities, fundraising, publications, education, general political direction, and coalition work” of YDSA chapters nationwide. Read More

08.08.18- Even Lefties Get it… Today’s Housing Bubble
About To Burst
James Anderson

Many of you likely enjoyed The Young Turks’ meltdown the night of President Trump’s victory in late 2016.

We are too some of those 3.5 million views.

Of course not many of us also enjoyed that same day’s obvious record high volume, $100 gold market intervention swing. But we digress, to the reflated, now larger housing bubble ongoing.

Unlike the previous housing bubble of yore (the 2007 version).

These now humbled, left ideologues can also see the writing clear on the wall. Read More

08.07.18- Welcome to Bad Faith
James Howard Kunstler

Surely last week this foundering nation finally reached Peak Social Justice Warrior Bullshit with The New York Times hiring of genocide-for-white-people advocate Sarah Jeong, 30, as an op-ed writer on tech matters. Apparently, one angle of the tech world Sarah Jeong overlooked was the mile-wide Twitter trail of messages she left over the past ten years declaring that white people should be “canceled out,” “made to live underground like groveling goblins,” or this pungent one from the Reinhard Heydrich playbook: “Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.”

When this big glob of shit hit the Internet fan, The Times’s HR department cranked out the pathetically lame explanation that Ms. Jeong was merely “mirroring” or “counter-trolling” malicious tweets she had received over the years, “imitating the rhetoric of her harassers.” That left the old newspaper and its readers gratified for a day or too… until a whole new bale of Sarah Jeong tweets was discovered dissing The New York Times and virtually all of its other op-ed writers in the most opprobrious terms. Read More

08.06.18- Here's Why 3D-Printing Guns Are A Win For World Peace And A Potential Death Blow To Tyranny
Matt Agorist

As the debate continues about whether or not 3D-printed firearm plans should be banned, even the ostensible pro-2nd Amendment folks are worried that shooting rampages will occur as a result of these plans being published online. But the reality is far different.

For generations, advocates of private gun ownership have been fighting exhaustively through political channels to protect their right to keep and bear arms. Gun owners even have one of the strongest lobby groups in Washington, the highly disappointing NRA. Yet over the years, gun rights continue to diminish in America, despite the constant political campaigns by the NRA and politicians that claim to support gun rights.

However, in the past few years, one guy with a good idea has managed to do more to protect gun rights than the NRA has in decades of political involvement. Cody Wilson is the founder of “Defense Distributed” and the “Wikiweapon” project, which allows anyone with a 3D printer to create their own untraceable gun in the privacy of their own home. Read More

08.04.18- Here’s What the “Doom Index” Is Telling Us Now…
Joe Withrow

Note From Bill: Dear readers will be familiar with our “Doom Index.” It’s an early warning system designed to track the health of the Main Street and Wall Street economies… and raise the alarm when cracks are forming.

The index is monitored by the able Joe Withrow. As Joe will show you below, after reaching our “extreme warning” level earlier this year, the Doom Index has cooled off. But that’s only half of the story. Read on…

Today, we check in on our Doom Index reading for the second quarter of 2018.

Regular Diary readers will remember that the Doom Index is made up of 11 key indicators. These indicators track the health of both the Main Street and Wall Street economies. [For a full review of the Doom Index, go here.]

After reviewing all the data from Q2, here are the results…

The Good News

For the second quarter of this year – from the start of April through the end of June – the Doom Index level is at 6. That’s down from 7, where the Doom Index ranked for Q1. Read More

08.03.18- Conservatives Banned From Social Media? Here's What They Can Do About It
Brandon Smith

The past two years have seen a rather aggressive change in corporate policies toward the very customers they used to covet. Not long ago, CEOs tended to keep their political views mostly in the closet. Companies remained publicly neutral because their goal was first and foremost to make money. When they wanted to influence politics or social norms, they bought politicians — you know, the good old-fashioned way. The big banks still do this by funneling cash to both Republicans and Democrats alike

However, in the wake of the social justice cult frenzy some companies have decided that ideology is more important than profit, and most of these companies are deeply involved in various forms of media.

Some people will argue that the media has always been leftist in its orientation and that this trend is nothing new. But, I think it is clear to anyone who has worked in countering mainstream media disinformation that something is very different today. Conservatives are being “cleansed” from participation in these communications platforms, and conservative ideals are being erased or misrepresented on a massive scale. Not long ago, media companies at least pretended to be “fair and balanced” by tolerating a certain level of participation by conservatives. No longer. Read More

08.02.18- FALSE FLAG WARNING: ‘Perfect Storm’
To Stage Deaths To Demonize Conservative Americans
Mike Adams

Mike Adams is issuing an ugent false flag warning for Saturday, August 4th. Here are the details including the most likely place for the event…

(Natural News) Today I’ve posted an urgent warning video, which you can see in full, below. This video — which would have been banned by YouTube and Facebook — is available exclusively on REAL.video.

It explains that Aug. 4 is shaping up to be a “perfect storm” false flag event, where deaths are staged in order to blame conservative Americans and sway public opinion for the upcoming mid-term elections. While we hope no such events ever take place, this weekend is a prime target for anti-America forces to stage precisely such a crisis.

What’s the motivation behind it? If Democrats gain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they promise to impeach President Trump — an act that would likely set off a nationwide civil war. By staging events that allow them to blame Trump supporters for violence or deaths, they hope to sway public opinion against conservatives and “steal” the mid-term elections. Read More

08.01.18- COURT DOCS: SPLC Co-Founder Accused of Trying to Molest Step-Daughter With Sex Toy
Peter D’Abrosca

Editor's Note: It is unusual for "the Bear" to focus on non-financial issues. This story is revelant to your financial survival because of the depth of depravity that, not only Dees, but most, if not all of his associates participate. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a left wing control group that, in 2004, accused yours truely of running the only one man terrorist organization in the United States.

It has now been exposed that the organization is awash in pedophilia. George Clooney and his wife recently contributed $1,000,000 the the SPLC. Please take note of the number of Ashkenazi Jews that control the organization. The SPLC is an enemy of the Republic. - JSB

The SPLC is known for doling out questionable “hate group” labels.

A recently-uncovered court document from the divorce proceedings of a prominent Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) figure alleges horrific conduct on behalf of one of the most influential lawyers in America. Read More

07.31.18- An Illustrated Glossary of Cryptocurrency Slang
Luke Doyle

Read More

07.30.18- Why Americans Are About To Experience
Sharply Higher Prices
Tyler Durden

A few weeks ago, SocGen asked what is arguably the most important question relating to the global trade wars: are tariffs inflationary or deflationary? While there were various nuances, its conclusion was simple: "Inflationary short term, disinflationary medium term."

It appears that the "short-term" part has now arrived, because after several rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs and retaliations between the US and China, American consumers are about to be hit with sharply higher prices as tariffs on industrial metals put pressure on U.S. manufacturers.

In May, President Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, Canada, and Mexico to help preserve America’s manufacturing base. The response: steel and aluminum prices have risen 33% and 11% respectively since the beginning of the year, as manufacturers began to price in the tariffs. Read More

07.28.18- The Treasonous Democratic Party
Paul Craig Roberts

If America had more honest, fact-based journalists with integrity like Tucker Carlson, we would not be, as we are today, dissolving as a country.

In this one TV broadcast - Carlson shows that the Democrats have gone far beyond “lying through their teeth political partisanship” into deranged hatred of President Trump and the American people who elected him. 

The Democrats’ insane hatred of “Trump deplorables” has firmly allied the Democrats with the corrupt military/security complex in a plot to overthrow the elected President of the United States. 

Carlson presents the former heads of US intelligence in the corrupt Obama regime accusing President Trump of treason against the United States for trying to normalize relations with Russia and endangering the United States for trying to make peace. Read More

07.27.18- Valuing Gold In A World Awash With Dollars
Alasdair Macleod

Summary

In this article I point to the pressures on the Fed to moderate monetary policy, but that will only affect the timing of the next cyclical credit crisis. That is going to happen anyway, triggered by the Fed or even a foreign central bank. In the very short term, a tendency to moderate monetary policy might allow the gold price to recover from its recent battering.

Unlike the last credit crisis when the dollar rose sharply in a general panic for safety, on the next crisis, the dollar is likely to fall substantially. The reason is that foreign ownership of dollar investments (typically in US Treasuries) appears greatly overextended, and an additional $4 trillion of liquidity is in the wrong (non-US) hands. This is likely to be unloaded during a general credit crisis, driving the dollar lower. Read More

07.26.18- Get Ready for the “100-Year Flood”
James Rickards

One of the long-standing reasons to own physical gold or invest in gold mining shares is to hedge geopolitical risk or the risk of natural disaster.

From the Black Death in the 14th century to the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century to the world wars of the 20th century, gold has been a reliable store of wealth. There is no reason to believe that such existential events are no longer a danger.

Below is a copy of Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut titled The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1498). That title is a reference to the New Testament Book of Revelation 6:1-8. Conventionally the horsemen are called Conquest, War, Famine and Death, but those names are subject to scholarly debate. The “Famine” passage refers literally to high prices for food, which could also be taken as a reference to financial ruin through inflation. Read More

07.25.18- The Lonely Road of the Free Thinker
Tim Bryant

A Free-Thinker – someone whose mind is not bound by any chain, free to explore the great abyss unhindered by fear, emotion, or ideology. In reality, it is outside the box free-thinkers, who are the engines of social change and ingenuity, often leading society into new directions not yet seen before. They represent a voice of authenticity and uniqueness in a world that is all too filled with conformity and linear thinking. While the achievements are applauded by future generations, in the present they are often looked down upon, feared, laughed at, and even seen as crazy for their unique perspectives on life. It is often a lonely road for that of a truly unleashed free-thinker.

Definition is the opposite of free thought in that it is definite, distinct, or clearly outlined. There is no need to think about it since it is a distinctly defined concept. It is not to say definition and form is a bad thing because form does exist in some way or another, but for society to evolve, transcending definitional thinking is the essential key to growth. The problem is that society often gets fixated in the present paradigm of definition, which has a current set of rules, parameters, and accepted ways of thinking. The truth is always thought of in regard to how it applies to the here and now paradigm of accepted truth, not what truth might have looked like in the past or how it might look in the future. People are very conditioned and afraid to question the currently accepted truths. Going against group-think often leads to social isolation, ridicule and even physical harm on some issues. Accepting the current truths of the current paradigm is a much safer and comfortable existence for any human being. Read More

07.24.18- The Imperial Naivete of the American Public
Charles Hugh Smith

The nation's premier corporate profit engines / social media giants are the ideal platforms for undermining the U.S. via the sowing of disintegration.

Whether it's stated or not, one source of the inchoate outrage triggered by Russian-sourced purchases of adverts on Facebook in 2016 (i.e. "meddling in our election") is the sense that the U.S. is sacrosanct due to our innate moral goodness and our Imperial Project: never mind that the intelligence agencies of all great powers (including the U.S.) meddle in the domestic affairs and elections of other nations, including those of allies as well as geopolitical rivals-- no other great power should ever meddle with U.S. domestic affairs and elections.

In effect, meddling in the domestic affairs and elections of other nations is the raison d'etre of all great power intelligence agencies:

It's Time for a Little Perspective on Russia (Current Affairs) Read More

07.23.18- What Happened To Our Country? These Are Not Our Values, This Isn’t Who We Are
J.D. Pendry

I think I’ve figured it out.  There’s multiple Americas.  I don’t mean North, Central and South.  I mean multiple US of As.  What other explanation could there possibly be.  When I hear a windblown politician, a television yakking head, or the wholly ignorant in the streets making these comments I think:  That’s exactly what should be happening in our country!  That is exactly what I value.  That is exactly who I am.  So, here we rest our weary hearts and minds.  In a standoff across an ever-widening abyss.  An abyss of wayward ideologies, ignorance, directionless baseless hatred, stupidity… multiple Americas.

As they like to declare over there in East Virginia, let me be clear.  There are rational people who consider themselves either liberal or conservative.  There are irrational people who are used as a broad brush to categorize them all.  Not every liberal is a progressive socialist.  Not every conservative is a white supremacist.  There are conservatives more liberal than self-identified liberals.  There are liberals more conservative than self-identified conservatives.  I would say the same about self-identified Democrats and Republicans except with each passing day, that nom de plume is becoming more meaningless. Read More

07.21.18- Four Obvious Areas for Improvement in America
Phil Spencer

“Make America great again!”

That was the slogan used by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and it propelled him to the most powerful and coveted job in the world – commander in chief of the United States. However, since Trump’s inauguration there has been much blustering and many unpopular policies that don’t seem to have been made with the promise of making America great again.

While the United States makes worldwide news for the President’s tweets, other countries are implementing changes that are benefitting their citizens and helping to change the world positively. Read More

07.20.18- Russiagate Is Constructed of Pure Bullshit, No Facts
Paul Craig Roberts

All day today the presstitute scum at NPR went on and on about President Trump, using every kind of guest and issue to set him up for more criticism as an unfit occupant of the Oval Office, because, and only because, he threatens the massive budget of the military/security complex by attempting to normalize relations with Russia. The NPR scum even got an ambassador from Montenegro on the telephone and made every effort to goad the ambassador into denouncing Trump for saying that Montenegro had strong and aggressive people capable of defending themselves and were not in need of sending the sons of American families to defend them. Somehow this respectful compliment about the Monenegro people was supposed to be an insult. The ambassador refused to be put into opposition to Trump. NPR kept trying, but got nowhere. Read More

07.19.18- What the Origins of Money Teaches Us About Spontaneous Order
Luis Pablo De La Horra

Money has been around for most of human history. From Mesopotamia (or even earlier), all civilizations have employed some kind of medium of exchange to facilitate transactions regardless of their geographical locations, legal and economic systems, religious beliefs or political structures. Have you ever wondered why? In a brief essay entitled “On the Origins of Money,” the nineteenth-century Austrian economist Carl Menger provides an answer to this question. Menger argues that money emerged spontaneously in different times and places to overcome the disadvantages of barter and facilitate the expansion of trade. Which disadvantages? 

Imagine Sandy, a farmer in the Midwest, produces wheat, which she expects to exchange for barley. Two problems arise at this point. First, she needs to find a barley producer with whom to barter her products. This problem can be easily overcome if Sandy goes to a market where another farmer (let’s call him Billy) sells barley. Since both products are harvested during the same time of the year, the exchange would easily take place. Read More

07.18.18- Our Rules of the Game: US Constitution
Walter E. Williams

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, leading to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, has thrown progressives, the Democratic Party and the news media into an out-and-out tizzy. The online magazine Slate declared, “Anthony Kennedy Just Destroyed His Legacy as a Gay Rights Hero.” The New York Times’ editorial board said about a second Trump court appointment, “It is a dark moment in the history of the court and the nation, and it’s about to get a lot darker.”

It’s indeed a “dark moment” for those who’ve for decades used the courts to accomplish what would have been impossible through federal and state legislatures — such as same-sex marriage, abortion and preferences with regard to race and sex. With this Supreme Court pick — and possibly another during his term — President Trump can return us to the Framers’ vision of the judiciary — a vision that’s held in contempt by many liberals and conservatives. Read More

07.17.18- The Trade War Is Already Having A Huge Impact On The U.S. Economy
Michael Snyder

The trade war has barely just begun, and yet significant ripple effects are already being felt all across the U.S. economy.  Once thriving businesses are on the verge of failure, workers are being laid off, and some sectors of the economy are witnessing enormous price hikes.  Right now the mainstream media is absolutely fixated on the drama surrounding the recently concluded Trump-Putin summit meeting, but the consequences of this trade war will ultimately be far more important for the lives of most ordinary Americans.  As more tariffs continue to be implemented, this will perhaps be the biggest disruption to the global economic system that we have seen in decades.  Perhaps you have not been affected personally yet, but for many Americans this trade war has changed everything.  For example, just consider the plight of soybean farmer Tim Bardole…

The U.S. is China’s second-biggest source of soybeans at 34% of the imports, after Brazil, which ships 53%. The staple is used to make cooking oil and seasoning, and soybean meal is found in pig feed.

Now the tariffs have taken the bottom out of U.S. soybean prices, delivering a gut punch to farmers like Tim Bardole. He was already $100,000 in the red last year due to a yearslong slump in cereal prices, and the current predicament has driven him into a corner.

“I’m not sure if I can get a loan from the bank to finance our next year’s crop,” said Bardole. Read More

07.16.18- Complete Idiocy Engulfs The U.S.
Dave Kranzler

William Shakespeare at his creative pinnacle could not have written this screenplay:

The first time I watched this I thought it was a joke – product of National Lampoon. Then the reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks. Is this really a productive use of Congressional time? The entire U.S. system is hurling toward a debt-induced financial and economic apocalypse. At the same time the Deep State, using Trump as its hand-puppet, is alienating the U.S. from the EU/NATO, this country’s last remaining allies. 

The “trade war” is nothing more than the Deep State’s set-up for a military war. The dollar is being removed by China as the reserve currency, which will in turn take away the power enjoyed the elitists running the U.S. since Bretton Woods. If you are unsure how this story ends, take another look at history. Read More

07.14.18- Hope and Change Are At Hand
James Howard Kunstler

It seems unfair that the earnest polymath Elon Musk should go broke in the electric car business while Kylie Jenner becomes a billionaire at age 20 hawking lip gloss on Snapchat, but that’s how the American Dream rolls these late days of empire. Perhaps the lesson here, for all you MBA wannabes, is that Mr. Musk could switch his production facilities from cars to lip gloss. Of course, to successfully market his new line of cosmetics on social media, Elon might have to consider sexual “reassignment” surgery — unless he could persuade American men via Facebook and Twitter, that lip enhancement boosts male self-esteem almost as much as the purchase of a Ford F-450 pickup truck at a laughable fraction of the cost.

Which raises an interesting question: if President Donald Trump’s most winning personal feature is that magnificent golden hair-do, why doesn’t he (or his family) get out of the pain-in-the-ass hotel business, with all its construction and maintenance issues and dirty sheets, and just put out shampoo? He is obviously adept at Twitter marketing and surely scores high in global brand recognition. Read More

07.13.18- Public Pensions: The Ultimate Ponzi Scheme
Todd J. Stein

State and local governments are running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history.

They've promised full pensions to their workers. But they aren't putting aside enough money — or generating high enough returns — to fulfill those future obligations. Soon, they'll have to cannibalize current workers' pension contributions to pay retirees. Young and middle-aged government employees will likely never receive the retirement benefits they're counting on.

It's too late to prevent this crisis. But there's still time to mitigate the financial fallout — by trimming benefits, raising contributions, and transitioning younger employees to 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans.

Most importantly, it's time to recognize that government officials are too short-sighted and underqualified to manage public pensions.

For decades, politicians have underfunded public pensions. They've decided to spend tax revenues today, rather than set them aside for future pension liabilities. Read More

07.12.18- The Uncivil Civil War: Economic and Market Implications of Political Transformation
Michael Lebowitz

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Bob Dylan

America’s populace is politically divided in a way that has not been seen in decades. The growing rift is rapidly changing the landscape in Washington D.C. and has major implications for the nation. Amazingly, as voters from different parties espouse views that are worlds apart, they share a strikingly similar message.

This article considers the juxtaposition of colliding worldviews and the unified message that voters across the political spectrum are sending. While many investors are aware of the political change afoot, it seems that very few have considered how said changes might affect the economy and financial markets. In this article, we share some of our thoughts and encourage you to give the topic more consideration going forward.

Given the importance of the subject, this article will likely be the first of several discussing the intersection of politics and markets. Read More

07.11.18- Globalists Are Telling Us Exactly What Disasters They’re Planning For The Economy
Brandon Smith

Years ago when analysts used the term “globalist, there was an immediate recognition among liberty advocates as to who they were referring to. This was back when the movement for small government, the non-aggression principle and true free markets was small but growing. These days, it’s difficult to gauge how many liberty groups there are or even if they know what small government and the non-aggression principle represent, let alone what makes a “globalist” a globalist.

There are a lot of new and very green members to the push for freedom, and a lot of them seem to think “MAGA” is the pinnacle of the movement’s philosophy. But MAGA doesn’t represent much of anything tangible. Making America great again is not a plan, it’s just a goal. Or even less, just a catch phrase. Without concrete plans, the notion of achieving a goal is laughable.

Make no mistake, the globalists have concrete plans, some of them simple, some of them rather elaborate. But who are the “globalists”? There’s really no secret to it: ANY person or institution that promotes the philosophy of global centralization of economic or political power into the hands of a select few is probably globalist. Read More

07.10.18- America Is Now A 3rd World Nation
Charles Hugh Smith

I know it hurts, but the reality is painfully obvious: the USA is now a 3rd World nation.

Dividing the Earth's nations into 1st, 2nd and 3rd world has fallen out of favor;apparently it offended sensibilities. It has been replaced by the politically correct developed and developing nations, a terminology which suggests all developing nations are on the pathway to developed-nation status.

What's been lost in jettisoning the 1st, 2nd and 3rd world categories is the distinction between developing (2nd world) and dysfunctional states (3rd world), states we now label "failed states."

But 3rd World implied something quite different from "failed state": failed state refers to a failed government of a nation-state, i.e. a government which no longer fulfills the minimum duties of a functional state: basic security, rule of law, etc. Read More

07.09.18- Survival of the Richest
Douglas Rushkoff

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk?—?about half my annual professor’s salary?—?all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys?—?yes, all men?—?from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own. Read More

07.07.18- Summer of Tough Love
James Howard Kunstler

The golden Colossus of Trump looms over the national scene this summer like one of Jeff Koons’s giant, shiny, balloon-puppy sculptures — a monumental expression of semiotic vacancy. At the apogee of Trumpdom, everything’s coming up covfefe. The stock market is 5000 points ahead since 1/20/17. Little Rocket Man is America’s bitch. We’re showing those gibbering Asian hordes and European café layabouts a thing or two about fair trade. Electric cars are almost here to save the day. And soon, American youth will be time-warping around the solar system in the new US Space Corps!

Enjoy it while you can. Events are converging ominously this summer in the direction of unwinding expectations and serial train wrecks of finance and politics. Mr. Trump has made hubris simple by bragging on the supposed triumphs of “his” economy. When it blows up, he’ll own that, too, and the second half of 2018 liable to be a debris-field of shattered national economies, zombie corporations, and floundering institutions. Read More

07.06.18- Here’s a great example of a company using Blockchain to solve a real problem
Simon Black

Today I just wanted to send you a quick note to highlight a great example of a company that’s using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to solve a real-world problem.

I thought this would be important given that most of the noise in the crypto space these days is still almost invariably focused on the Bitcoin price.

A quick Google search for “Bitcoin” reveals headlines from CNBC to Fortune Magazine, all about whether or not Bitcoin can come out of its price slump:

“Wall Street’s Tom Lee cuts his year-end bitcoin price target by about 20%”, and “3 Bullish Signs Return For Bitcoin”

Similarly, “Blockchain” and “DLT” news is generally dominated by reports about various government policies:“Spain’s Securities Regulator Undertakes a Blockchain Pilot” Read More

07.05.18- Would the Founding Fathers Recognize Modern America?
Bill Bonner

The metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one of the most remarkable things in nature. The animal apparently digests itself, using enzymes triggered by hormones. Then, from the pupa, a whole new animal develops – one with wings.

Time and growth produce changes in institutions, too. Sometimes, they merely get bigger and older. Sometimes, they go through a metamorphosis and change into something very different.

We recently moved back to France for the summer. We lived here for nearly 20 years… and still have a house in the country, to which we retire every summer.

Here, we find our old friends and acquaintances… our old clothes and shoes… our tools and workshop… our tractor… and our favorite office.

And what a pleasure… there, on the table next to the bed, was a copy of Michel De Jaeghere’s great book, Les Derniers Jours: La Fin de l’Empire Romain d’Occident (The Last Days: The End of the Roman Empire in the West). Read More

07.04.18- Economic Collapse 101: Food Americans Ate To Stay Alive During The Great Depression
Janine Acero

Here’s some dishes that helped Americans survive and keep their bellies full in hard times. Number 5 is, well, interesting to say the least…

(Natural News) The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and continued until about 1939. It affected North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world. It was the most serious economic tragedy ever experienced by the industrialized Western world in modern history.

The full burden of the economic crisis fell squarely on the shoulders of the nation’s working class. They struggled badly for their survival during this most difficult period, which led them to find a number of ways to put food on the table. The following Great Depression foods helped them live from day to day when nothing else was available. Read More

07.03.18- A Turn for the Worse
James Howard Kunstler

The Democratic Party has steered itself into an exquisitely neurotic predicament at a peculiar moment of history. Senator Bernie Sanders set the tone for the shift to full-throated socialism, and the primary election win of 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a New York congressional district seems to have ratified it. She promised voters free college tuition, single-payer health care, and free housing. Ah, to live in such a utopia!

One can actually understand why New Yorkers especially would fall for that agenda of promises. When I was a child there in the 1950s and 60s, New York was a mostly middle-class city. City College of New York, with a really distinguished faculty, was free. That’s right, stone free. Much of that middle-class was educated there, including most of my high school teachers. In the 1950s and 60s, it cost a few hundred dollars to have a baby in the hospital, and less than that to receive three stitches in the ER. Back then, New York real estate was mostly rental housing and not subject to the deformations of wandering global capital. Read More

07.02.18- How to Create Your Own Personal Gold Standard and Currency Reserve
Tom Kirkman

Did you know that for 99.2% of recorded human history, money was backed by a gold standard?

And only for the last 47 years has the world largely moved away from the gold standard.

It is easy to feel like we are on top of the world in 2018. Technology has never been better or more easily accessible. The standard of living is rapidly rising.

But does that mean we should dispense with 5,000 years of monetary policy which led us to where we are today?

Okay, but how do we get the financial system back on the gold standard? Read More

Libertarian? Conservative? Classic Liberal? Leftivists don’t just believe you’re a bad person — they WANT to believe it
By A Journalist Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous

Editor’s note: The following comes from a longtime journalist who specializes in writing for major media outlets and private companies about robots, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

I’m not a social media person, but a few days ago, I posted my very first comment on Instagram, in response to a woman whose site I had read for years. Enraged by the border story, she had just posted an Instagram ordering those who didn’t see the world her way to take a hike.

It puzzled me at first. Hers is not a political site – far from it. And though she claimed she didn’t care about likes, I know that she has struggled for years with the classic insecurity bloggers often face when confronted with the popularity contest that is the Internet. She was posting in order to vent — and to let others know that she was, unlike half the country, kind, good-hearted and moral. Read More

06.29.18- How to Survive the Civil Unrest That’s Coming to America
Daisy Luther

The rhetoric in the United States is heating up and we’re sounding anything but…well…united. It seems to most media pundits like we are too far down the path to Civil War 2.0 to turn back now. Activists are laying siege to government offices. Threats toward people who disagree are growing in ferocity. It’s ugly and getting uglier. It’s a powder keg that is about to erupt. (Here are some thoughts on what a full-fledged Civil War might look like.)

It is only a matter of time before civil unrest begins to escalate and spread throughout the country. Many people are wondering, how do you keep your family safe during widespread unrest? It’s not about being fearful. It’s about being prepared.

My thoughts on this manipulated division are fodder for another article. (You can find it here.) This article is apolitical (to the best of my ability, anyway) and focuses strictly on what you need to know to survive should the unrest come to your neighborhood.

You need to understand how riots unfold. Read More

06.28.18- Media Creates Caricatures of Political Parties.
And People Believe Them!
The Daily Bell Staff

Political parties help us construct straw men of our opponents. They help us see our fellow Americans as opponents in the first place. They have us joining teams not because we like what they stand for, but because we hate what the other team stands for.

A Pew Research Center poll from last year found that about 40 percent of both Democrats and Republicans belong to their party because they oppose the other party’s values, rather than because they are particularly aligned with their own party.

Or at least, we hate what we think the other team stands for. A poll asked Democrats and Republicans to estimate statistics about the other party. The answers we pure caricatures.

For example, Republicans thought that 38% of Democrats were gay. That’s about twice as many gay people as actually exist in the USA by most estimates. Actually, only about 6% of Democrats are gay. Read More

06.27.18- The Danger Is Real: We Need a New Declaration of Independence for Modern Times
John W. Whitehead

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”—Thomas Paine, December 1776

Imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.

Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal. 

Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Read More

06.26.18- Things Just Went Nuclear In Our Trade War With China, And A Giant Shockwave Is About To Hit The U.S. Economy
Michael Snyder

It is difficult to find the words to describe just how serious America’s trade war with China is becoming.  As you will see below, the two largest economies on the entire planet are on a self-destructive course that almost seems irreversible at this point.  The only way that this trade war is going to come to a rapid conclusion is if one side is willing to totally submit and accept an extremely bitter and humiliating defeat on the global stage, and that is not likely to happen.  So in the short-term, and probably beyond that, we are going to experience a tremendous amount of economic pain.  In fact, if one wanted to create a recipe for economic disaster, it would be hard to beat having the Federal Reserve dramatically raise interest rates at the exact same time that the U.S. government is starting trade wars with all of the other major economic powers simultaneously.  Unless something drastically changes in the very near future, there is no way that the U.S. is going to be able to get through this without experiencing severe pain.

Many had hoped that President Trump would settle down after the initial salvos in this new trade war, but instead on Sunday evening we learned that he has decided to go nuclear.  The following comes from CNBC… Read More

06.25.18- The Entire Western World Lives In Cognitive Dissonance
Paul Craig Roberts

In this column I am going to use three of the current top news stories to illustrate the disconnect that is everywhere in the Western mind. 

Let us begin with the family separation issue. The separation of children from immigrant/refugee/asylum parents has caused such public outcry that President Trump has backed off his policy and signed an executive order terminating family separation. 

The horror of children locked up in warehouses operated by private businesses making a profit off of US taxpayers, while parents are prosecuted for illegal entry, woke even self-satisfied “exceptional and indispensable” Americans out of their stupor. It is a mystery that the Trump regime chose to discredit its border enforcement policy by separating families. Perhaps the policy was intended to deter illegal immigration by sending the message that if you come to America your children will be taken from you. Read More

06.23.18- Social Security benefits buy 34 percent less than in 2000, study shows
Sarah O'Brien

If you feel like your Social Security check doesn't stretch as far as it once did, there's a likely explanation for it.

Since 2000, the buying power of monthly benefits has fallen by more than a third, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group based in Alexandria, Virginia.

In other words, the cost of goods and services common among retirees have collectively risen faster than the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, that Social Security recipients get every year.

"People who recently retired might have seen only a [small] decrease in buying power," said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst for the league. "But those retired for a long time are feeling the cumulative effect of this."

About 47 million older Americans receive Social Security. Overall, the benefits comprise about a third of income among those age 65 or older, according to the Social Security Administration. Read More

06.22.18- The Dumbing Down of America Is Deliberate and Deadly
Dave Hodges

We hear the mantra quite often: The dumbing down of America. Former senior level education official in the Reagan administration, Charlotte Iserbyt, even wrote a book by a similar name.

Is America getting dumber? Is this presumption even measurable? The answer to both questions is an unqualified yes!

In a related to vein to the purpose of this website, could this happen by design because controlling a population is made infinitely easier if the population is dumbed down. Some would even go as far as to say that the process of dumbing America down is not only real, but it is deadly. Read More

06.21.18- I Remember When America Was A Free Country
Paul Craig Roberts

I remember when America was a free country. You could get on an airliner without an ID. Driving licenses didn’t even have photos. If a friend was coming through your city on a flight and had a few hours layover, you could meet them inside the airport for lunch or dinner. You could meet friends, children, and relatives at the gate or see them off at the gate. Parents could actually put children on the plane and grandparents could take them off.

Your flight ticket was good at any airline. If something happened to your flight or you missed it, you could use the ticket on another airline going to the same place. On international flights you were permitted two free stopovers prior to your destination. If you were going to Athens, Greece, for example, you could first visit Paris and then Rome. It worked both ways, over and back. So one air ticket, six cities.

I can remember when you could enter a Manhatten office building without having to show an ID, be looked up on a list, and cleared in, and when you could check in a hotel without an ID and paid your bill when you checked out, with cash if you preferred. The only evidence of your name was the one you gave when you checked in.

Cars didn’t beep at you and neither did appliances nor construction machinery. The world was a quieter, less noise-disturbed place. Read More

06.20.18- John McAfee Says He's No Longer Pitching ICOs "Due To SEC Threats"
Tyler Durden

The SEC crackdown on ICOs has, apparently, finally extended to one of the industry's most enthusiastic and prolific promoters: former software security pioneer John McAfee, who has earned a reputation for outrageous behavior (including promising in July 2017 to eat his dick on national television if bitcoin doesn't hit $500,000 in three years) in recent years.

McAfee, who hasn't been affiliated with his namesake company since 1994 and lost most of a fortune once worth $100 million in the years since the crisis, was at one point pitching a new ICO every day. And since before last year's boom, McAfee has been a regular on the cryptocurrency conference circuit and is part of what Bloomberg calls "a vast network of social media influences" who have helped ICOs raise billions.

In his characteristic voice, McAfee said the SEC had warned him about recommending ICOs, forcing him to step aside, despite declaring the treatment "unjust." Read More

06.19.18- A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Adam Taggart

Après moi, le déluge

~ King Louis XV of France

A hard rain's a-gonna fall

~ Bob Dylan (the first)

As the Federal Reserve kicked off its second round of quantitative easing in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, hedge fund manager David Tepper predicted that nearly all assets would rise tremendously in response. 

"The Fed just announced: We want economic growth, and we don't care if there's inflation... have they ever said that before?"

He then famously uttered the line "You gotta love a put", referring to the Fed's declared willingness to print $trillions to backstop the economy and financial makets.

Nine years later we see that Tepper was right, likely even more so than he realized at the time. Read More

06.18.18- Americans Need Plain Sight: The IG Report Hides the Truth
Justin O. Smith

The FBI brass must have needed hazmat suits to scrub DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on agency misconduct in the 2016 elections, since the evidence of treason at the highest level of government was abundant. The truth is being hidden, and the result is a fiction representative of something out of Orwell’s ‘1984‘; and so, we must do everything within our power to force the issue in opposition to status quo voices in government and the media, who are not representing the U.S. Constitution and objectives based on our founding virtues, We must hold these criminals, these traitors, in the FBI, the DOJ and elsewhere within the government, accountable for illegally working to prevent Donald Trump from winning the election and afterwards trying to unseat him from power. 

The five-hundred page IG Report was released on June 14th 2018, and it barely scrapes the surface of previous known acts of sedition and espionage, if not treason. It doesn’t really address anything that the American people were not already aware had occurred. I made note of the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page texts in January 2018, just as the IG Report recently did. Read More

06.16.18- 7 Huge Mistakes Real Estate Investors Make
When Running Their Numbers
G. Brian Davis

What's the big advantage of real estate over equities and other investments?

You can predict the returns!

Having said that, your ROI forecasts are only as good as the numbers you start with.

Here are the seven of the most common mistakes real estate investors make when running their numbers  — and how to avoid them for a perfect win record in your investing.

We’ll start with numbers that affect all real estate investors, then narrow our focus to rental investors and cash-flow forecasting. Read More

06.15.18- Currencies – Truth and Confidence
Gary Christenson

In 1967 the Jefferson Airplane sang

“When the truth is found to be lies,

And all the joy within you dies…”

Restate this for global currencies and it becomes:

When the truth is found to be lies,

Confidence in currencies dies.

WHAT LIES? There have been many. Examples specific to the United States:

President Lyndon Johnson: In 1965, after decades of excessive government expenditures which caused rising consumer price inflation and rising gold and silver prices, Johnson removed silver from U.S. coins. He stated,

“If anybody has any idea of hoarding our silver coins, let me say this. Treasury has a lot of silver on hand, and it can be, and it will be used to keep the price of silver in line with its value in our present silver coin. There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation for the value of their silver content.” Read More

06.14.18- Clock is Now “3 Minutes to Midnight” on Social Security and Medicare Benefits
Peter Reagan

A recent 270-page report put out by The Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds is shedding light on an alarming trend.

In it, the financial data indicates that both Medicare and Social Security could start “riding off into the sunset” sometime within the next two decades.

This is mainly due to the addition of millions of retirees aged 65 and older and reducing the average number of taxpayers that support each retiree on Medicare and Social Security.

The financial pressure on the system may bankrupt it in the near future.

When we reported on this in December of 2017, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation revealed the two points of data that illustrated this stark reality: Read More

06.13.18- The most successful investor in modern history is selling… here’s what it means for you
Simon Black

It’s typically pretty hard to find anything exciting to say about drywall.

Yes, drywall… as in, the building material that’s used for interior construction.

Drywall, also known as wallboard, is manufactured from rehydrated gypsum to produce a calcium sulfate plaster, that’s later mixed with mildew-resistant foaming agent. . . hello? Are you still there?

Seriously, though, in this particular case, drywall is a big deal.

I’ll explain.

The largest distributor of wallboard in the United States is a company called USG.

USG is quite large– the company has been around for more than a century and generates billions of dollars in revenue.

(Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol USG.) Read More

06.12.18- Last Exit to the Road Less Traveled
JD Alt

We now stand where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one less traveled by—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.

Rachael Carson, Silent Spring

What’s important to keep in mind in this quote from Rachael Carson’s 56-year-old warning shot over the bow of corporate civilization is that there are two roads being traveled now. We are no longer at a fork. The fork is half-a-century behind us. The goal is not to get the superhighway to somehow re-route itself and follow the path less traveled. It can’t. The superhighway will, and must, continue accelerating in its inevitable direction, simply because the greed and power of the people driving that highway will not allow them to alter course. But if there is any truth to Rachael Carson’s warning (and there seems to be growing evidence of it) the other path—the Road Less Traveled—will become the surviving branch of our evolutionary diagram. The present goal, therefore, should be to create as many exits from the superhighway as possible—and to encourage and enable as many people as possible to take those exits to explore and follow the other path. Read More

06.11.18- The Clock Is Ticking: "Modern Slaves Are Not In Chains, They're In Debt"
John Mauldin

Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt. - Benjamin Franklin

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience? - Adam Smith

There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt. - Dave Ramsey

Modern slaves are not in chains, they are in debt. - Anonymous

Debt isn’t always a form of slavery, but those old sayings didn’t come from nowhere. You can find hundreds of quotes on the Internet discussing the problems of debt. Debt traps borrowers, lenders, and innocent bystanders, too. If debt were a drug, we would demand it be outlawed. Read More

06.09.18- Feeling Isolated?
Adam Taggart

• Does anyone else in your life share your concerns for the future?

• Is there someone you talk with regularly about the unsustainability of our current economic and ecological trajectories?

• Do you have friends and/or family members who support your efforts to develop a more resilient lifestyle?

If you answered "no" to these questions, you're not an outlier. In fact, the #1 most commonly-reported complaint we hear from Peak Prosperity readers is that they feel alone and isolated when it comes to the warnings delivered in The Crash Course.

The end of economic growth. Declining net energy. Accelerating resource depletion. These are MASSIVE existential threats to our way of life -- to our species' survival, even. Most PPers can't comprehend why *everyone* isn't obessively talking about these dangers. Read More

06.08.18- Are You The Fish?
Zach Scheidt

There’s an old saying in poker that if you sit down at a table and you can’t figure out who the fish is, that means YOU’RE the fish!