Is there a logical limit to the Fed’s Making Up Money interventions? Briefly – as in flash-in-the-pan Making Up Money under the guise of playing Modern Monetary Theory seems to work. The Fed throws how much? $6-trillion is it? And the price of paper goes up.
But, in the long run, is it viable? We think not. And there’s strong economic reasons why MMT seems to work in the short run, but in the long run, malinvestment and economic distortions not only remain – they also grow.
We will take a high-dive into this end of the pool after some more reasonable stories: The global outbreak of death and the shameless promotion of an injectable solution to all that ails us.
First, however, a few choice (,maybe even prime) headlines, and the ChartPack. As the U.S. Fed continues ice skating with nitro glycerin.
No podcast today. Just too damn busy this week. If you like audio, though, you can right-click on some browsers (like MS Edge) and have the column read to you…
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https://archive.org/stream/RulesForRadicals/RulesForRadicals_djvu.txt
A popular email is going around claiming it came from alinskys book rules for radicals.
“1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people
2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school.
7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.”
It’s good but comes from a modern author not Alinsky..
Alinski basically wrote” keep and use their rules..rules are written for everyone else other than themselves ”
You want to get congress to play straight write a letter not to one but to all of them..daily..
Looking out of the box on May 9, 2020 at 08:25 If you have difficulty visualizing how this works, a simple shortcut will serve to inform you as to how things are developing.
Look up an old broadcast by Paul Harvey titled “If I Were The Devil” and listen to it carefully. All of your questions about “why” will be answered and as a bonus, you can see the future.
Add a #9 Eliminate the Elderly.
How about using a virus that attacks the elderly disproportionately?
The elderly are the foundations of a society’s value system. If they are removed or pushed aside all they support and represent goes with them.
Today, that would be the Boomers and their parents.
Damn, I wish you hadn’t mentioned that lil gotcha… Elaine and I just turned 148 last month…
Number 4 is going to be a problem for them.
“If you have difficulty visualizing how this works, a simple shortcut will serve to inform you as to how things are developing.
Look up an old broadcast by Paul Harvey titled “If I Were The Devil”
Dam I totally forgot about the paul Harvey broadcast…. its a good one.. thanks Ed…
I totally can visualize it though.. Hell like the vast majority of laborers.. I live it…what I totally don’t get.. is why can’t those in the offices of power see it..
Why couldn’t industrialists see that sending the money spent in a community to another country is only supporting their communities and industries..
https://www.addictinggames.com/funny/spank-the-monkey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9NoQHgjM_0
the U.S. getting China to buy our debt begins to look like a very poor investment when the interest the U.S. pays in less than 2-percent on the one hand, while the current annual inflation rate of M1 through April 27th 2020 was 37.2%.
“Remember, who in their right mind would accept buying paper with $1 of face value when the Fed’s version of MMT ensured that it would retain only 62.8-cents of value a year later based on dilution?”
I think.. it was a move on the ches’s game of the world..
What was achieved through this move..
Everything is a business model..what was it tha Sun Tsu said…
Know your enemy..
Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. #
They control our supply lines by using the greed of those in power..we were dumbing down our people while they were pushing intelegence and expanding education . We took they gave.
Now they hold the controlling interest in a broken currency.. the control over a military with equipment that they constructed.
Vital pharmaceuticals they produce.. food supplies equipment we even sold our ports and toll roads..
All that had to be done is give them their greed.
A few years ago now.. there was a time when every monitor camera and remote microphones was turned on at once..I said then..that’s just a show of force..last year there was a similar show of force with security systems. Then the cloud. Every tacit of our life is on the cloud all of it editable. Our society is dependent on a complex communication system that is built and designed by who..
Just think about it…
Year Zero
G – U dont need to lay in any supplies, no need to prep.
All u really need – will be provided to U by the “state” – Relax, ease Ure mind , load your Purina Sheep pellets into feedbag, and strap that badboy on..easypeasylemonsquezzy like.
Pay no heed to your Ancestors life lessons learned, and please referring to Parents and Grandparents is simply ridiculous.
They understood Life,Liberty and the COST of Freedom – Article 18, Section 242 ??????
They fought and WON Wars – well at least thats what were supposed to believe, never mind Germany/Britain “elites” control “DeepState”. .meet the new boss, same as the old boss –
Dont fight the FED
Dont fight the GLOBALIST
U will SUBMIT, U will COMPLY, U will ASSIMILATE and U will Thank in us for using Gestapo tactics to LOCK U DOWN in Ure “animal pens”.
Never mind that in ALL of modern Human History have we EVER QUARANTINED the HEALTHY. NEVER!
U QUARANTINE the INFECTED/SICK.
Masks? what is a mucus membrane? FEARFEARFEARFEARFEARFEARFEAR!
U Sheep need to be in a state of CONSTANT FEAR .
When we talk about Farm Animals = FOOD
– Sure quarantine the whole herd INSIDE with NO SUNSHINE
– F-ing sheep dont need no Vitamin D! Why do U think its called “the great culling”?
Harvest Time!
“When They kick in Ure front door
How U gonna come?
With Ure hands on Ure head
or on the trigger of Ure gun.
-the Clash
The more difficult problem is “Which gun?”
The one right next to you? Since there is one at arms length basically, everywhere. Hidden in plain sight. Blessings
George,
A year ago this month I moved my savings out of the market and went to cash. At 77 years of old and with enough savings to “see me out to at least 94” I figured that return of capital was more important than return on capital. My advisor told me that was missing a great opportunity in the market. At the time, the Dow was just over 26,000. I missed the opportunity to get to 29,000 and back down to current level just over 24,000. My GICs have delivered me a paltry 2% for the year.
My wife of 56 years decided last year to leave her savings with the advisor and to take advantage of the great opportunity. As she approaches her 75th birthday, I suggested last week we look at her portfolio performance for the past year. It is down 9.5%. Good news is the 3 year performance is only negative 1.75 % annualized. Really good news is the advisor made 1% in fees each year.
So this past week we brought her portfolio to cash and will put in GICs next week. I know we will be missing another great opportunity but for now we are both cowards when it comes to the market.
Go long the market next week George. We are probably wrong again.
One of the reasons I never became an “investment advisor” (*other than the fact that stifle free and honest speech, a whole other matter) is that I believe in a simple concept called “Risk Sharing.”
The way I figure it, if someone brought me a batch of money and wanted me to “invest” it, then I should ONLY be paid on the money I actually make someone…and then a modest 10%.
So, if someone brought such an investment advisor $1-million and the return was 5% ($50,000) then the “advisor” ought to make 10% or $5000. If the $1-million grew to $10-million, and 7% were reached, then the client would make $700,000 less $70,000 for the advisor.
But, if the account made zero – or lost money – so did the advisor.
To my way of figuring, this is how real risk sharing works. Client brings the money, advisor brings the brains and that ought to reward both very well.
Instead, a choose to be a writer – continuing on in the reporting wheel ruts I’ve been in for (gulp!) over 50-years!
Long next week? Sure…until Pence or Trump gets a dry cough… and with the (not very) Secret Service reporting cases, seems to me like being long is a bet I just don’t have the stomach to make. Cash or short until we better the February highs and the WH is all clean.
The 40 bucks a year I spend on Peoplenomics is a bargain. It was your column a year ago that convinced me to get out of the market.
You may also remember, it was your column back in January that helped convince me to cancel our annual vacation to Jamaica. I was early on that one too. Read some stories later about people that contracted the virus going through Toronto International airport about the same time we would have been.
Risk/Reward is key at this stage of my life.
At ANY stage…Ure right! Thing is, you need to make a fair number of errors to get to the point of recognizing when another one is sneaking up on you… thank you!
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2020/05/08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YIlwxBuvM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper/updates/
I like Kristi Noem, a lot, but she needs to compromise with the Sioux on this (as do they, with she.) They have every right to be as draconian WRT Tribe members and Reservation residents (and visitors) as they choose to be. They do not have a right to examine or interrogate those who’re just passing through Tribal lands — as long as travelers don’t stop anywhere on the Reservation. {I have no problem with the Reservation cops going completely Billy Jack on their asses, if they do…}
__________
Beyond Gallup, New Mexico’s statewide stay-at-home order and restrictions on nonessential businesses expire May 15 with uncertainty about what comes next.
“I’m so confused. What is going to really work, if this doesn’t?” said state Sen. George Munoz of Gallup of the community lockdown.
The Gallup residents shouldn’t have a b!tch about the Navajo. Unless the Nation has its own International airport, CV-19 went from Gallup to the Reservation, not the other way around.
What will REALLY work is masks, disinfectant, and stayin’ outta other people’s bubbles — done universally, but voluntarily. Politicians always look for a centralized, generic means of managing a problem by controlling the population. Societies can be generic, or at least homogeneous, but none of the people in a society are.
I believe if I were a merchant selling essentials in Gallup, I’d buy or rent a bigassed tent, set it up somewhere around Yah-Ta-Hey, and stock it in such a manner that it could be aerosol-disinfected daily, then require masks and temperature scans for entry. I’d let the Indians know the rules, and that I was open for business…
“I like Kristi Noem, a lot”
I think shes a decent woman but personally i wouldn’t ever vote for her.. or John.. he sold out to the dark side and she did to and it took less than a week after she took office..then again.. I probably would sell out to.. if people want to toss bags of money and gifts at me.. I’d be feeling obliged to vote for whatever they wanted to..
In the house her predecessor was voted out basically because she wouldn’t vote for a popular bill.i would vote for her she at least read the dam bill. the reason she voted against a popular bill was because she read the bill before it came up to a vote.. and she came right out and said if you read it you wouldn’t vote for it either..
I think the tribes are right in stopping anyone from entering before they have been checked. Covid19 would go through the reservation like a wild fire..
Those are just my thoughts on the issue of the reservations..
Lots of tax dollars come out of the casinos..
SD is a huge open space with a few small pop-centers. It is not the only State like that, but she’s the only Governor with balls enough to not issue a Statewide SiP for an issue which would likely significantly affect less than 2% of its land mass…
While I can fault her for doing what every other politician does, I can’t fault her, in this case, for doing what none of them have done.
Notice how the vernacular has slid from “lockdown” to “quarantine?” “Quarantine” is compulsory isolation WRT a person or place that’s infected with a pathogen. “Lockdown” is something which alienates us without legal justification from our First, Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Amendment Rights. You’ve played in the medical arena for a while. Doesn’t the relabeling of this as a “quarantine” grate on you?
IMO it is against the Law in the United States to “lockdown” anyone who’s not guilty of a crime, and deprive them of their God-given and Constitutionally affirmed Rights, except under an order of Martial Law. To my knowledge, neither da Prez, nor any Governor has so-declared. Therefore, a “lockdown” declared by a local or State Official has the legal standing of a “recommendation.” A locality can ban entry, it may be able to ban egress, but it can’t arbitrarily lock down its guests or residents. ALSO, an Executive can not assume dictatorial power and make an “imperial decree” which temporarily (or permanently) abridges these Rights. It needs to be a Law, which means it needs to pass through a State Legislature, which means it would eventually go to the USSC and be declared unconstitutional.
I may get to test this, since I have a mandatory trip next week which is going to require I drive through several hundred miles of Frau Whitmer’s Herrschaftsgebiet (but I hope not…)
“A single news story – like president Trump getting CV symptoms now that a few White House aids have CV symptoms, for example, could throw global markets for a loop. Watch that one like a hawk.”
A-Men, brotha! Trump & Pence have gone to daily testing and masks whenever outside their safety zones. Mike’s not that old, but CV-19 can kill anybody…
“Mike’s not that old, but CV-19 can kill anybody…”
Amen to that.. my friends mom was dying from it… he went to see her.. had on all the safety gear.. six days later hes on a vent fighting for his life..
“Strangely, with the paucity of good research into knock-on effects, one can wonder how socialist politicians (AOC, for example) can pursue MMT as a “magic bullet.” ”
She’s an indoctrinated, not educated, Alinskyite communist.
It doesn’t matter whether a “solution” is possible, only that it is manageable until the end-goal (the communization of the U.S.) is attained, i.e. “any means necessary…”
AOC is not the most-fervent Alinskyite-communist on the Hill, just one of the loudest, least-intelligent, and most-irritating…
Keynes doesn’t work. MMT doesn’t work. In theory, we should be able to figure out how to make them work. Unfortunately, IMO either requires a degree of micromanagement we cannot attain and the juggling of our (and everyone else’s) economy as a live experiment is much more likely to put Earth’s entire population in cardboard boxes eating sparrow stew, than it is to put us all in McMansions eating Porterhouse…
…Or, or, or we COULD get the damn’ gummint out of the money business and return to Adam Smith which, actually DOES work, until the big players start buying politicians, so as to repeat the corporatist cycle which has screwed us so thoroughly since “robber baron” became plural…
“Hell of a note when you realize at age 71 “I don’t have a very good compost pile…” ”
Well crap… you should fix that!
Everything that’s happening is the opposite what you think it’s happening for. Shhhhh don’t tell everyone ,it’s a suprise
Clue- remember all those people who are supposed to be arrested, all those people we’re being threatened initially to follow suit with everything the Deep state did ,now they’re being really threatened as the Deep state is being taken down and those that are really being threatened have to follow the plan.
May all beings be lovingly fulfilled financially fulfilled and readily fulfilled .So Be It.
Good to see you posting.. I was just wondering how expat and you were doing. I haven’t seen you post for a while..
i believe expat is in the middle of superintendence
HAWAII VIRUS STATS FROM HDOH:
Total cases: 631 (3 newly reported)*
Hawai’i County: 75
Honolulu County: 407
Kaua’i County: 21
Maui County: 117†
Pending: 0
Residents diagnosed outside of Hawai‘i: 11
Required Hospitalization: 81‡
Hawaii deaths: 17
Released from Isolation: 551§
Cumulative totals as of 12:00pm, May 9, 2020
*AS A RESULT OF UPDATED INFORMATION AND DATA CLEANING, ONE CASE WAS REMOVED FROM THE COUNTS (FROM HONOLULU), AND ONE CASE COUNTED IN HONOLULU WAS RE-CATEGORIZED TO HAWAII.
One new in Honolulu, One new on Maui, One new ‘out-of-state’ Hawaii resident.
George,
It has been a while …
1929 to 1932 represented the slow deterministic collapse of the US hegemonic 90 year Second Fractal starting in 1843 after the panic of 1837. Without the virus – the collapse of the US 90 year Third Fractal began in the autumn of 2019. The collapse of unrepayable global corporate debt was the precipitant. Global corporate debt is a substantial component of the total worth of the complex system which provides the denominator for all other valuations: real estate, equities, and commodities.
The virus is an added factor that will absolutely exponentiate the collapse – it will be presented as the exact cause of the collapse.
How low in US dollars will commodity prices, bitcoin, gold, and composite equities sink … and … how fast?
… Very very low and very very fast …. December 2018: 11/28/22/14 of 16-17 weeks.
While there are certainly some manipulated short squeezes (e.g. TWLO) composite market valuations and commodities are not ‘overbought’; composite valuations are always perfectly priced and follow quantitative fractal patterns. Only fools entertain the relevance of news that those who own the financial system provide.
The asset debt macroeconomic system is deterministic in its valuations and precisely follow quantitative saturation valuation fractal laws.
Expect nonlinear changes in valuations.
I’ve spent a couple of decades working Emergency Management at the small town level — mostly in communications, and in delivering courses in various subjects, like CERT.
I’ve worked more than a few Real Emergencies in all that time — blizzards, hurricanes, Nor’Easters, floods, and long-duration (over a week) power outages. Some pretty big events.
There are a few often-occurring things that happen.
First, “IT” strikes; and we handle whatever we can however we can, with whatever we have. Pretty much, chaos rules.
Then, we begin to recover and organize response and mitigation. Emergency Operations Centers don’t get involved much in rebuilding — just the early response phase and the start of the recovery. Commercial entities take over at that point — construction companies and insurance companies and regulators and such.
During recovery, the lawyers and administrators and bureaucrats and bean-counters rule — and we’re out of it.
But…
When it’s over, it’s not over. Quite often we get to the psychological Relief Point where we say, “Well, that was pretty rough, but we got through it.”
No.
Quite often, as you begin to perceive relief and stand down as just around the corner — it all suddenly gets BAD again as the various consequences and dependencies and cascade failures and run-outs of supplies and fuels and pencils hit and grab hold.
Depressing. Very depressing.
Tempers get short, people get crabby, and wear out. They get tired and burned out — and then “IT,” the event, gets worse still.
As all sorts of unanticipated, unimagined things kick in, and it all gets very fatiguing. No emergency plan ever really works. Too many wild cards and unanticipatables. But, any plan is a starting point and a base, so you work it as it makes sense, and improvise and chuck the rest.
So?
Well, I think we’re just now at the “seeing light at the end of the tunnel” early phase. But, as Great Guru Yogi said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
It’s gonna get worse, and it’s gonna get ugly, and the recriminations and the search for the guilty will begin any minute, and muddle the waters and slow things down to no good benefit. Jerks.
Watch it happen. Expect it, and pull your belt in a notch, and batten down.
You’re on your own. But you always knew that.
Word.
73
In the blink of a keystroke (MARY) will prevail, A.I. can completely change the emanant.
a.i. does this best while you sleep but george gets his insight from this early morning PROP flying buttress.
The virus season is over, and influenza cases have tanked. H1N1, once the most feared of pandemic strains, is currently not exhibiting pandemic propagation characteristics.
The Covid-19 outbreak is no longer undergoing geometric acceleration in cases. If you go to the John Hopkins case page, and look at the log scale chart, you see the virus geometric growth is tailing off. Linear scale is still drawing a nearly straight line, and that is where the problem lies. While the wild geometric growth phase has stalled, the virus is still spreading. This is the telltale of a true pandemic virus strain: the pandemic virus spreads in what should be the off season.
In the November to December time frame, six months from now, the active virus season will return. Using the analog of the 1918 outbreak, that will be when it will be possible for the geometric growth to rear it’s head again.
In that same late fall time frame, the bankruptcies and foreclosures for individuals should be hitting hard as well.
While everyone wants there to be medical miracles, and the economy to crank up and run like nothing happened, I am thinking that would be a low probability scenario for fourth quarter 2020.
LOOB alluded yesterday to discussions with an acquaintance regarding anticipation of protein shortages. I think that is a reasonable assumption.
With the mandatory lock downs being paused, and the store shelves returning to some semblance of normality, it is time for you to start thinking about getting stocked and equipped for next fall and winter. Hope for the best, but don’t bet your life on it. Each of you has some idea of your personal prospects for the fourth quarter, but you don’t know how the politicos will react in the face of a resurgent pandemic. You do know if that comes to pass, it will be too late to react, just as it was in the first quarter. Think it through, and use the time you have remaining effectively.
It’s the fifth quarter that’s the hardest
That’s why people get tax refunds in the 5th quarter
that last letter told you everything you need to know. Want to make it through this next winter? How about the one after that? Plan in two stages, first is PREPPING, you all KNOW what that entails, energy, food, protection… the second and possibly MORE important change is you must wake up kids, YOU need to plan to FEED YOURSELF, meat rabbit and chickens if you’re urban, meat goats, milk goats and cattle if you’re in the country, FARM LIKE YOUR PANTS ARE ON FIRE, but only if you want to eat… do me a favor, read this twice, now get your ass in GEAR! learned that from GEORGE!
Biased toward action, we call it Ellen, thanks!
– – –
Here it is, 9:35 on Sunday morning, and already 12-tractor loads of sweet gum chips has been spread of cardboard from the chips starting point a quarter mile downhill…by 10:30 AM new mower blades will be one and by Noon -thirty, 2+ acres of yard will be mowed and edged. More veggies will be in starter trays by 2 PM and some bigger plants transplanted. By 3:30 PM the new shaper will be assembled in the shop and the bench cleared by 4 PM
The way I look at it when I roll with 2 doubles about then, I will have earned it.
Sounds like a lot of work – and it is. But, if your personal time isn’t at least 50% more productive in a “pants on fire way” then you’re a dang fool.
(or worse)
I knew I recognized that name…From a dozen years ago and a different website…
“Be all this as it may. I find him to be one of the most fascinating and most interesting minds on the Internet.
Too many of us sound like each other. Gary stands brilliantly apart. Unlike many of our leaders, I am sure recent events have not surprised him.”
https://angrybearblog.com/2008/10/musings-about-economic-fractalist-and.html
PS I, too, have been patiently watching as I had discovered a “terminal fractal” in the Michigan Consumer Confidence Index that has developed it’s final exhaustion rise since it’s 2009 bottom. I had surmised that whatever it was that precipitated the coming decline, with the speed and to the depth indicated, would be on the emotional order of magnitude resulting from San Andreas crumbling and all our west coast ports disappearing overnight. I would never have expected a little flu bug, barely 5%-10% of the Hong Kong flu around on my return from Viet Nam in ’69 to accomplish the move. A lot of that data has been scrubbed from the internet, but worldwide a couple of million people left us ’68-’70… with ZERO SIP BS. Still waiting for the second of 4 shoes to drop over the next 18 months.
The misdirection away from the real criminals/cause/result of this financial reset is mindbogglingly. My 96 year old Dad thinks it could still backfire. I wish.
Regards,
O-anon