Before we get into it, a short story about firefighting because it sets the table for this morning’s outlooks.
Back when he was still alive, I asked my dad “When you go to a fire, when do you make the call for back-up. Like calling a second response to a house fire?”
His explanation was simple: “If you’re not 100% confident your crew can knock it out, you call a 2-11 right then and there. It’s important thing to remember in life: Call for back-up first, then get your hands dirty.”
What the economy is doing is like that.
It’s on fire and few people have a good handle on how “serious this fire is.”
The “seat of the fire” is Deutsche Bank. Its stock was down more than 7% yesterday alone. Fact is, July 17th, the stock was trading as high as $8.04 and closing yesterday at $6.69, that’s a 16.79% drop in less than a month. No telling where it will end.
“ George, this Depression will begin in Europe,” my consigliere reminded me Wednesday. “Yeah, and we’ve been seeing this one coming since the banks “co-CEO” nonsense blew-up a couple of years ago…” I reminded him.
“Ever wonder what a German version of the Lehman debacle would smell like? Well, based on what I’m seeing, seems to me that whatever plans there are been to “massage the Deutsche Bank mess through blew-up on the parties Tuesday. They’ve set aside over a Billion Dollars to cover their derivatives unwinding but that won’t be anywhere near enough.”
Which gets us around to two pie-simple calls we can make.
- Deutsche Bank will have to be bailed by the German government. They simply don’t appear to have enough ready-cash and this is could easily turn into a “Latter Day Herstatt Effect” if global money masters aren’t careful.
For those not remembers, this from Wikipedia will explain:
“(Bankhaus I.D. Herstatt K.G.a.A.) was a privately owned bank in the German city of Cologne. It went bankrupt on 26 June 1974 in a famous incident illustrating settlement risk in international finance. .”
Which gets us to the notion that “saved the day” (and the world from utter economic collapse in 1976: What is continuous settlement and will it always work?
The first answer goes like this: In theory continuous settlement, which was one of the regulatory outcomes of the Herstatt failure in ’76 SHOULD avoid the problem. But, the reality is that it isa plagued by something called “hidden tail risk.”
“According to Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “… it may well be that the managers of these firms [investment funds] have figured out the correlations between the various instruments they hold and believe they are hedged. Yet as Chan and others (2005) point out, the lessons of summer 1998 following the default on Russian government debt is that correlations that are zero or negative in normal times can turn overnight to one – a phenomenon they term “phase lock-in”. A hedged position “can become unhedged at the worst times, inflicting substantial losses on those who mistakenly believe they are protected”.
- Bankers to Attempt a Global Hold-Up. We will recall that when the US Bankster Mafia held-up America in the past with:
- AIG costing $18 billion to bail
- LTCM costing $4.6 billion
- and other global banks…
The US Fed was made ready at the (taxpayer-funded) checkbook to spend (in the AIG case) up to $85-billion to ensure the world didn’t blow up. The bankster class is known for its “never let a good crisis go un-monetized” approach to financial engineering.
Now here are some things to ponder: First, since Deutsche is a global bank, it should be apparent that the clever Krauts will try to “spread the pain” to other countries.,
Interestingly, though, this pending crisis may give the US a way to “go for the gold” in this sense:
In January 2013, the German central bank (Deutsche Bundesbank) announced plans to repatriate 300 tonnes of its 1,500 tons of gold from the US and 374 tonnes from France by 2020, in order to have half (1,695.3 tonnes) of its official gold reserves stored in Frankfurt.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The gold in the U.S. was earned by West Germany through trade surpluses in the 1950s and 1960s and was never moved out of the United States due to fear of invasion by the Soviet Union.[11][12][13] In 2013, a mere 5 tonnes were shipped due to logistical difficulties. However, Germany repatriated 120 t in 2014 (35 tonnes from Paris, 85 t from New York),[14][15][16][17][18] 210 t in 2015 (110.5 t from Paris and 99.5 t from New York)[19] and 200 t in 2016.[20] [21]“
Should the US play “hardball” and not (as banksters are likely scheming) trying to find some way to shift this mess onto U.S. tax chattel shoulders, there may be some gold left to impound. This could be fun because the US carries its gold at something liker $43 an ounce on its books while the market price is creeping up on $1,550.
- Prediction 3: Gold Will Rise – Eventually. But maybe not yet.
This one takes a little understanding, but goes something like this: When paper assets globally are being set on fire via losses, the most reasonable thing to invest in would be hard assets like precious metals. By this kind of thinking, gold should already be a new highs.
Since it’s not, what gives? Simply: Big Banks play the gold market and since they’re in free-fall (as an asset class, leading stocks down) they are having to unload at any price in order to bulk-up their cash positions. That means a lot of gold is coming in from the hedged players and we’ve never trusted ANY GOLD REPORTS about what’s in whose vault in NYC.
It’s just too easy, when the gold sits in a vault, to have layers and layers of physical abstractions (contracts) piled on top of one-another. This is ludicrous, because it opens the door to the “same gold” being owned by multiple parties. And yet, there’s only “promises” that this isn’t the case.
Imagine, for example, that you owned a house, but there was no deed registration. Ownership was by possession alone. So, what would keep an “ethically-challenged” person (better: a bankster) from selling the singular asset multiple times over?
Cleverly done, the asset could be sold as a “long position” and simultaneously as a “short position.” The Bankster would look at all parties and claim “No harm, since the positions cancel each other out and the underlying asset is still valid.”
Well, yes, and no. Which is exactly how the ethics of financial engineering work. They’re wrapped up in a thin veneer of honesty. And then folks feel their ankles.
This morning, the Germany DAXI was down 1.2% but in the early pre-open slog, the US decline seemed to be slowing as WalMart did better than expected taking on Amazon in the eCommerce realm. Bentonville versus the Starbucks crowd, we’re thinking. A concilliatory headline in China helped.
- More Downside is likely Ahead, regardless .
Several reasons for this outlook, but let’s begin with our 1929 replay comparison chart:
I need to mention that red double-headed arrow in the middle of the chart shows the odd line-up between the 12/13/1928 market low and the 12/24/2018 lows, a/k/a/ the Christmas Eve slaughter.
We won’t make any predictions on which way this will turn out, but a serious bounce as a II (after a 1 down after the high at V) would be an interesting play to be sure.
Mr. Cowardly has been in cash so we haven’t been hurt by taking the popcorn and beer approach, so far.
Retail Sales
Just out from Census:
“Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for July 2019, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $523.5 billion, an increase of 0.7 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and 3.4 percent (±0.7 percent) above July 2018. Total sales for the May 2019 through July 2019 period were up 3.3 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The May 2019 to June 2019 percent change was revised from up 0.4 percent (±0.5 percent)* to up 0.3 percent (±0.1 percent).
Retail trade sales were up 0.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from June 2019, and 3.4 percent (±0.7 percent) above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 16.0 percent (±1.4 percent) from July 2018, miscellaneous stores were up 6.0 percent (±4.6 percent) from last year…”
Which is what flipped the Dow positive.
Worth Knowing About
Border War is coming? As “San Antonio ICE office: Shots fired at ERO field office in Texas.” So far, this is being blamed (by lefties) on Trump and by the right on Idiot Cortext and the Squad. We see the other shootings Like the one last month up in Tacoma, WA where a “Man Attacking ICE Detention Center Is Fatally Shot by the Police.” And the “domestic” case outside the Houston ICE offices in June.
Hand-wringing continues with stories like ICE raids devastate families in Mississippi. Another hand to wring? Advocates say “Remain in Mexico” turns migrants into “marketable commodity”.
Want to remind us where the line between gurerilla action and randomness is drawn?
Selling racism? Ibram X. Kendi on the difference between “antiracist” and “not racist”.
Alt.Investments: Sotheby’s is set to auction the world’s first Porsche for $20 million, but it isn’t even a Porsche.
And, like this is a surprise: Autopsy Raises Questions Around Jeffrey Epstein’s Jail Cell Death.
Woo-Woo: Who’s “Keck”?
As you know, I’ve written whole books about how some people (like me) live pretty-interesting “second lives” in our dream worlds and sometimes these bring hints of the future.
So in the one this morning (*waking time 3:11 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep) I was in an office full of lawyers. It was a big firm and I was a kind of journeyman litigator. I wasn’t sure what was going on, exactly, but there were about six other attorneys standing around (to my left) and they were drinking coffee and arguing about some yet-to-be revealed legal action.
While this was going on, I noticed a woman (paralegal or lawyer) who was to the middle right foreground and she sat down at a desk and was going to call a pal who was one of the attorneys general under William Barr. Might have been a classmate of Barr’s that went on to a judgship, of something.
Anyway, as she dialed, I remember thinking she would either be talking to William Barr, or this “judgely fellow” who I expected her to address as “Your Honor” or some other prestigious title.
“ Hi Keck, it’s me. Anything new on it yet?”
No idea where this snip was coming from, other than it was a dream. But whoever “Keck” is, the name should show up around lawyers shortly, if this was a dream with any precognitive value.
One other oddity: As I woke and thought about it for a few minutes while laying in bed, there was a very clear sense that I’d come back to the “waking state” have left the door open to go back into the dream. Which I did, but there wasn’t anything else going on, so I decided to stay on this side (the waking state) so I got up at 4:15, or so, made coffee and fed the cat…
One other Woo-Woo note: I forget if it was on Urban or Peoplenomics, but I reported on a dream not too far back about an upcoming casino robbery. Well, what do you know, that horse came in!
“Florida Casino Robbed of More than $5 Million.” If you happen to remember when I posted that, could you post a comment, since I can’t remember this early in the day, thanks.
OK, off to putter and putz...moron the morrow…
george@ure.net
I am still going with the theory that this is just a correction creating buying opportunities down the road. Cash is king unless you have the nerve to seriously play the downside, which nerve I don’t have. I am trying to develop it, but at 71, it is hard to change anything & I am not that diligent..
Roll on over to Gab.com
KEK is everywhere
A quick search also reveals Kek is the Egyptian god of chaos and darkness, typically shown as a frog-headed man. The white nationalists use Kek in its philosophy and Pepe the frog in its symbolism. Another conspiracy rabbit hole…
FYI..this comment isn’t Trump bashing, it’s Trump Reporting… this is from a Vanity Fair article about three weeks ago. Imagine if Deutche were to go down…what would happen with Trumps debt? Is this the lever to exact his own retribution? Is this legal to use a Presidency to settle personal debt?
Extend and Pretend”: Are Deutsche Bank and Trump Playing Chicken Over a $340 Million Loan?
If Trump defaulted and Deutsche Bank did nothing, that might be viewed as a big gift to a sitting president of the United States. On the other hand, if Deutsche moved to collect the loan, Trump might have various levers to exact his own retribution. Who’ll blink?
The rest of the article below…
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/are-deutsche-bank-and-trump-playing-chicken-over-a-dollar340-million-loan/amp
Also…in the woo-woo department, I may have been dreaming about The person Keck as well. I don’t often take much time analyzing my dreams, but when I saw the word Keck, it triggered something in My memory…now it’s driving me crazy…did I dream it or hear it somewhere?
Several things: It’s not “Trump’s Debt” – it’s those pricks and sqids in the hose of reprersent5ative so yes, it’s Trump Bashing which I let through to maker the point if it’s an Vainly Faire it’s anti trump bashing because they pull obnoxious bullshit like failing to remind people where the debt came from (congress).
Third-rate Urinalism.
Now, on Keck…yeah, that’s a weird one, Mark…
It is Trumps own personal debt George. It’s the money they lent to the Trump organization. Why is this the House’s issue. I am confused. Please explain.
Come on Mark! Any “news story” that begins with the word “IF” is full of crap.
This is typical Urinalism of the Left: Begin with a patently false assumption and then pretend it’s true.
You’re a real estate guy. If you have a couple of billion in literally hundreds of contracts, would you want to renegotiate ALL of your r.e. deals in order to hold office?
To say Deutsche Bank “might” move this way or that is merely the left parroting the House fishing expeditions. So now it will be “bought off by the krauts? The House meantime, hasn’t done a GD thing for America on critical issues like term limits, border funding, and on an on….
So the false premise being set up is “IF” the made-up is ‘SOLD” as true, then any outcome of Grmany will be tied to Trump as collusion…see how this works? When DB does down, it will be because of Trump. When DB holds up Germany for a bailout, it will be because of Trump.
This is like Global Warming. Since we know weather will continue (forever) therefore climate will be changing forever and we can tax and skulk around citing environmental dangers. But the truth is the environment changed and killed-off the Anasazi off at Chaco Canyon before Columbus got here. Fools they were, they didn’t monetize their cultural disaster. We’re monetizing our sociopolitical mess which makes us unique, but no smarter than the ghosts of the kivas.
One can get right with Taiowa and get on to the next world, or one can monetize with much bluster and distraction. Here, we’re going with the former, not the latter.
The House will decide American debt. Including deals with German. Which in turn will impact D Bank. Which in turn still has nothing to do with Trump unless you live in a land of false premises which democrats by and large do.
Would you refi everything you own to your family to hold office if it meant a complete refi of several billion in loans? OMG I hope not.
The loan situation is why federal ethics regulations require officers to divest themselves of assets that may create conflicts of interest in carrying out the duties of the office. It is also related to the emoluments issue which prohibit officers from profiting from federal office such as deliberately roiling stock markets or focusing on reducing interest rates to create better financing opportunities. It might be useful to study tax returns to see if there are any parallels between federal policy initiatives and personal financial strategies… Federal regulations and laws should be clear and absolute, not situationally applied. Anyway, others are fighting these battles.
I believe the bigger story is the status of Deutsch Bank. It is huge, it has a variety of customers, and it is in trouble. Will it’s failure trigger the Great Collapse? Time will tell.
I keep reading about the Crash of 1929 which occurred in October. Little is said about the London Stock Market crash which occurred a month earlier in September (triggered when top British investor Clarence Hatry and many of his associates were jailed for fraud and forgery.) Today, with England out of the equation because of Brexit, but the ECB in place because of the EU, I wonder if an event with a German bank is now the trigger?
The German bank tie-in to Trump is a yawner. I mean, if Trump was in debt to Chase or Wells, would the debt be any cleaner? Did that relationship help VW? Has any German company been cut any slack by Trump? Like the old burger commercial asked, “Where’s the beef ?”.
You can’t shred everything all the time….
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/banks-hand-over-documents-on-russians-possibly-linked-to-trump-2019-08-08-91034419
Leticia James is a democrat left wing stooge and the dbank stuff is nothing but her tuition to join the insiders club.
This post is totally off point and is a politicalization/polarizing post and any more will be trashed.
Stop trolling or be gone. America is sick of 3-years of anti-Trump horseshit while borders are open and China kicks our ass. Get a plan to resolve the real issues of America or get lost.
@ Mark
You reference a ‘wacko left leaning’ publication article written by the same…and YOU consider it a TRUTHFUL source…and yet YOU still do not see…YOUR PROBLEM….”WTFover”
You got your panties in a twist because Trump could not stop the subpoenas, btw, what’s he got to be afraid of anyway??? Obviously a lot, since he tried suing to stop it
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress/trump-sues-to-block-congress-subpoena-for-his-financial-records-idUSKCN1RY0YD
https://www.apnews.com/8e58e7368b0e4e39822a108f199d0176
Too bad, Americans will get to learn the truth anyway…
IF………………………… Controlled by the PTB… come on..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc
dam.. ever heard that song on the radio then have it go through your mind every day….. OTFLMAO….. well all day yesterday I had the if I were a rich man song going through my head.. I even dreamed about that song..
Its one of those classic movies … totally loved the show..
Per Mark, both Bloomberg & Vanity Fair told us exactly what Duesche Bank was thinking about the Trump loans like they were sitting in the DB Boardroom. It is all made up conjecture by guess who…Trump haters…Vanity Fair & Bloomberg. Neither has any true idea what DB was thinking about the Trump loans. It is all lies.
It shows you how gullible, brainwashed, & easily led are Mark & the other dolts by the left. Dolts is a term used for leftist deporables.
Relax man Bernie is the nsxt prez. But he wont take office. There will be an incident.
Uhem elected, prez. His running mate will take the office. And yes, i know who it is.
I’m calling BS on your prez prediction, Andy. There is no f’n way Bernie could take the electoral vote. That means your vice call is equally suspect.
Actual there is. Remember his wife’s run-in with the Feds on managing a school. Is that a “control file” or what?
G – U be tapping into the Q – Anon phenomena..tinfoil hat time, even while sleeping is advised.
Keck relates the green faced frog dude meme..Ure dream-land adventures have gotten U into a massive LARP – run by ..US military Intel ( oxymorons), MOSSAD, SATAN?
What, don’t believe in SATAN ? She/He believes in U!
Deutsch Bank was designed-set up as “lynch pin” in cascading CRASH arriving soonly..our current central bank chairman was personally involved in organizing DB Derivatives “book”.
Always remember – if you cant touch it with your OWN hands – it does not exist.
In what form will CASH take after all the worlds FIAT CURRENCIES race to the “bottom” ends ? seashells, smoked fish, hard tack, salted meat, diesel, silver/gold, Bitcoin/$h!tcoin, sticky puna buds, magic mushrooms..
Its only August 15th – thought it was supposed to get HOT this month! WTF!over?
Crash cash? Batteries, bullets and beer (paired with a good whisky).
WH…grinder,corn, yeast, sugar and a good still…. LOL LOL LOL…. then your set for the long haul LOL LOL LOL…
Well, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii springs to mind. Not sure what that would have to do with lawyers, though I do recall a few weeks back protests in Hawaii about new observatory type construction being protested because it was a sacred mountain to the indigenous people. Quick search of the web found a Keck School of Medicine at USC that appointed a Dr. Blumenthal as head of social justice.
CJ…that’s it…Keck Observatory…That’s where I have heard the word…Huge protests that it was being expanded over sacred land. This gets more coverage in the news on the west coast since Hawaii is the vacation of choice here…because it’s closer than most alternative tropical places. Never mind George…it wasn’t a woo-woo dream. But…will something be discovered at Keck???
The Keck Observatory is in the news this week because it is the world’s largest optical and infrared facility. A black hole in the center of the galaxy just lit up unexpectedly and without explanation and the observatory is being used to study the phenomena.
There is certainly the sacred land aspect of Keck in Hawaii, but I’m going deep on the woo woo with this one, thinking that the lawyer types could be state or federal elected officials or their office staffers. Such folks often want to talk to the Attorney General’s office. Could they be discussing legal/constitutional actions with regard to responding to some potential extra-planetary danger identified and/or tracked by the Keck Observatory? For instance, the Perseids are active until Aug 24th. The Southern delta Aquariids meteor shower is currently ongoing in the S. Tropics areas until Aug 23rd. The Taurids will be Oct 9 & 10. The Orionids are occuring Oct 21 & 22. Or, maye it’s in response to some other currently unknown or undisclosed threat from beyond? For instance, Hawaii’s ATLAS and Pan-STARRS survey telescopes identified asteroid 2019 MO just before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere on 22 June of this year; https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/30/world/international-asteroid-day-trnd-scn/index.html
BOTTOM LINE: dark, smaller orbital bodies are very hard to see and warning of potential impact may be minimal to negligible.
Well, great. Back on the 8th, Andy found an old prediction he did of a quake in the San Diego area for Oct 13th. A nice bolide impact would do just as well.
Fun times in Oklahoma.
Carpenter v. Murphy
The gist;
“The Supreme Court of the United States has decided to have the case of Carpenter v. Murphy re-argued in its next session. This is one of the most important Supreme Court cases on tribal sovereignty in the 21st century. If the the justices uphold the United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit’s ruling, it could lead to the most extensive land restoration in U.S. history.
The original basis of the case was the conviction of Patrick Murphy for the 1999 murder of a man named George Jacobs in Henryetta, Okla. Murphy was convicted in Oklahoma state court and sentenced to death, but he argues he should have been tried in federal court because the crime occurred on land that was initially reservation land of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Both Murphy and Jacobs were enrolled citizens of Muscogee Creek Nation.”
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/carpenter-v-murphy-supreme-court-case-could-restore-reservation-lands-re-draw-oklahoma/
George, I do not know if this is just me or if it is universal but when I click on the site you posted “Autopsy Raises Questions Around Jeffrey Epstein’s Jail Cell Death.” A message pops up saying “Something has gone wrong” and I can not get to the site. I find that curious.
The link been Arkancided?
Wait a week Jay and all references to him and his questionable death will either be diminished by the alphabet groups or swayed to look like it was the presidents fault by the puppeteers
A month before the New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, the British Stock Exchange crashed due to U.S. investor flight when a high-profile British investor and his cronies were caught performing fraud and forgery. I wonder if the Deutsch Bank is taking the BSE’s place this time around, but with banks drying up rather than the exchanges?
http://lepo.it.da.ut.ee/~yana/kaubad/case_keck.html
Case study on Keck and Mithouard – the free movement of goods with EU
Yes, the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea here on the Big Island first comes to mind. Astronomers want to build the ‘Thirty Meter Telescope’ (aka TMT) on the summit near where the Keck double-domes are located. The native Hawaiian ‘Protectors’ of the mountain (aka ‘protesters’) have effectively blockaded the mountain access road as construction on TMT was due to start a few weeks ago. Situation was so severe and volatile that the Governor issued an order closing off access to ALL the mountain. This effectively cut off maintenance access to ALL the telescopes on the mountain for weeks. Sensitive instruments need cryo-cooling, and it all shut down. Only in recent days have the ‘protectors’ allowed limited maintenance access to the summit for the other telescopes, and it will take days or weeks to bring some of the telescopes online. It has already impacted some astronomical observations of worldwide importance.
Yes… there is a legal morass between the native Hawaiians and the State that approved the TMT construction. The natives are determined to not let another telescope be built on their sacred ground.
Our question for our retired TVF engineer on site is this:
In your view, are these really indigenous people (as in Hoo-nah/ Huna) or are these just more left-wing crazies who will do anything to raise stink and obstruct anything not their idea?
Our fond respects and best wishes to the local kah hunas…
These are genuine native Hawaiians, and local born sympathizers who may not have Hawaiian blood. The natives are still upset about the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and annexation by the US back in the 1800s. Various native groups still claim sovereignty and confront the State and County authorities. There are native Hawaiian immersion schools that teach their culture and language, and seem to actively encourage sovereignty confrontations. Protesters and spokesman for these groups work right out of the Saul Alinsky handbook for Rebels… so they sound exactly like the mainland Left-wingers.
Although polls indicate that the majority of the population at large here support the construction of the TMT telescope and the jobs it would provide, most TMT supporters are quiet to avoid conflicts with vocal friends and relatives and family who are very vocal about their opposition. They are well organized. A local volunteer group set up a food tent and feeds the mass of ‘protectors’ on the mountain with local food donations. There are some high-profile people lending their support. Actor Jason Momoa (‘Aquaman’) has been among the group on the mountain. Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is local born of African/Samoan heritage (not indigenous Hawaiian) but raised $2 million that he donated to the group feeding the ‘protectors’.
It is a rally-point for 150 years of perceived wrongs to the natives. There are a lot of TV ads now paid by TMT to show supporters for the telescope… many are native Hawaiians… who believe that “Culture and Science can Co-exist on the mountain. There are about 13 large telescopes on the mountain now. The state has agreed to remove five of them that are old technology and no longer needed. The mountain is presently administered by the University of Hawaii who holds the long term State lease on the land. The state ‘Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ is a semi-autonomous organization that administers native Hawaiian homelands is jockeying to wrest control of the mountain from the UH and State. Interestingly, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs presently receives rent payments from the UH and telescopes that is used to finance Hawaiian education and construction of homes on native lands.
It’s a very convoluted mess, and native Hawaiians have not even received a native-peoples recognition from the USA that was afforded to the native ‘indian’ tribes of the mainland. They are determined not to forget, and take every opportunity to ‘play the victim’ and club everyone with their ‘cultural differences’. Hence the Alinsky tactics. Yes… this is a blue state with a Democratic machine single-party politics, also.
The purpose of stock market volatility — to scare you, to make you afraid, until you give up. That’s been the standard M.O. on Wall Street for 100 years. This is an old-fashioned panic, driven by fear.
The German banking collapse meme has had airplay in some circles for a number of years.
I will agree with the doomsayers on one point; any event severe enough to flatline the German banking system will likely take down the Fed as well. General economic collapse scenario proponents are usually basing their case on something other than economic analysis, but if such a scenario occurs in your lifetime, it won’t be something you can hide from, and where it starts is probably irrelevant to your personal response or preparation. Otherwise, cut the Germans some slack. They live in a tough neighborhood.
“the most reasonable thing to invest in would be hard assets like precious metals. By this kind of thinking, gold should already be a new highs.
Since it’s not, what gives? ”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/shutdown-highlights-that-4-in-5-us-workers-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html
That’s the 78 % of the average american laborers…
Theres 12% that are off the laborer charts..
One in two now I believe depend on federal programs to survive ..
You’ll hear the cry by politicians on the campaign trail sayon raise minimum wages.. but let’s be realistic. Minimum wage at poverty level in san fran is a quarter million just shy.. around here its 25 grand middle of the road 50 to 80..
I am not sure if it was princeton or Harvard that did a study that shows the only reason politicians use that as a campaign issue was to gain sentiment in reality the only ones to gain is big business.
Rarely do you see a thing good come out of yale..my guess is it’s mostly a preppy hang out . If you we t according to published studies you would think the diplomas would be written in crayon.. not that it’s not a good school just that they very rarely show anything worthy to read
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HwcHRyvrNCE
That’s a short video .. I cant locate the studies right now..
What isn’t brought up in that short video.. is the cut in jobs because of increases in base expenses…
Around here there was a modest increase in energy costs.. this affected every single employee plus the employer the company. the companies that sold products the whole pyramid down.. the increase in energy expenses should have resulted in a four cent an hour increase in wages..
the solution.. the company couldn’t just increase the products prices by a penny or two.. the consumers wouldn’t stand for that. why does a bottle of pop cost more at rays grocery.. so instead they cut hours..
the place we depend on for our survival.. they cut hours eliminated jobs etc.. to keep up with rising base expenses.. the state walked in to do a survey.. what did they find.. not enough manpower for the work that needed to be done.. So now in order for that company to stay solvent they have to either hire more people raise base costs for those in need of their services to cover the rising base expenses.. or sell out close the doors and take your losses..
Just like everything there is a fine line.. there isn’t any blue sky there is a ceiling when we reach that ceiling and put to much on top of it that is when I believe is when the roof will collapse.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/research/weimar.pdf
Now does any of that look familiar to today……
I think we are at the point of no return.. the interest on the national deficit .. cutting taxes reduction of social program spending..
The food stamp program.. Heating assistance, ( the average person has this false thought.. oh these are people using the system.. no I think the big companies use these programs as ways to gain more profits for higher bonuses for the very top.. placing the burden of these expenses in federal programs onto the smaller companies and the community and blue collar workers. I interviewed for a position for a large corporation once when the interviewer off offhandedly said.. you know you can qualify for food stamps. I laughed and said you do realize that isn’t a benefit )
The industrialists of old realized this and worked hard. they took smaller profits and grew slower.. an old business owner I worked for said to his son the ceo of that company now.. never drive anything more expensive than the highest paid employee can afford to drive.. I would have walked through fire for him.. he was dad.. everyone in his employ was family.. my father worked for a huge company.. the ceo knew all of us kids my parents etc.. he wasn’t shy about taking his coat off and lending a hand.. great guy.. my dad was a delivery person.. ceo’s today rarely have any real idea about anyone at the bottom rungs of their companies.. and its no longer considered family.. instead its all about Me.. I need the fast buck.. not grow slower.. it will and is the downfall of our country.. how soon will it all collapse.. well if we let in a million illegals trying to climb over our border walls.. it won’t take time as long as employers will hire them.. a million here means a million more blue collar workers go without an income.. company a moves manufacturing over to china the only economy that will benefit is china.. sure the product costs less.. but…then there is less money to spend.. a little in a little out.
Anyway..the point I was trying to make about gold sales is..its a collectible.. unless uh our collecting it it holds no value.you cant walk into a restaurant and pay with gold.. the same with bit coin.. in a down turn historically gold was traded for goods. Once upon a time I had a picture from the weimar depression that showed someone with a basket filled with gold and silver walking to trade for vegitables.. during the depression of the early 1800’s a glass of water cost an ounce of gold.. the same with coffee etc.
With the vast majority of laborers living paycheck to paycheck and one in two reliant on federal programs to exist very few would even consider gold.
Very few even consider a food stock..big business has stopped considering local communities healthy existence against profits. We bail out big business to big to fail yet set up the economy and laborers to fail. A complete turn around from the past in.my honest opinion.
“during the depression of the early 1800’s a glass of water cost an ounce of gold.. the same with coffee etc.”
Your assertion about the cost of a glass of water is either hyperbole or absurd. Please provide data or news reports to support this.
During the 1940s 1 lb of coffee sold for about 0.43 (http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/40sfood.html). With gold at $38, an once of gold would have bought 88lb of coffee. So, while I don’t have stats on cost of water in 1940s, your assertions are way off.
And no, I don’t believe there are pictures of someone trying to trade a basket of gold and silver for vegitables. Gold and silver were VERY valuable in the Weimar republic. In less than 5 years it went from 170 to 87,000,000,000,000. What you remember seeing was probably a basket of currency to be traded for food.
When the price of gold goes up, it will be because the value of the dollar has gone down. The only increase that will be seen for those holding gold in the USA will be another zero added to the price of gold. The buying power of metal will never go up because the increase in the price of gold will be more than matched by the increase in price of everything priced in dollars.
This is when the nightmare begins for those living in the USA. This is difficult to grasp unless you understand the effect foreign exchange rates have on prices. This escapes most Americans because they have no experience with foreign currencies.
When the dollar devalues by 30% the price of all imported goods goes up by at minimum that much, and everything that contains imported components goes up as well. If you want to know what this looks like, walk through your home and note every imported item. Now picture this costing you 30% more than you paid for it. It’s instant poverty. If it has the value of one ounce of silver today, it will still have the value of one ounce of silver then. When the dollar devalues, your wages or your pension check or retirement fund will not go up by 30%. And your taxes will not decrease by 30%either.
For a chinese, holding gold, when the Chinese currency devalues the purchasing power of their metal goes up when buying chinese products. The problem is that there just aren’t any made in America products any more, except those made by prison labor.
Your logic would work, IF gold and silver were properly priced now. However, their price has been suppressed for a long time. When a currency has been artificially over-valued, gold and silver are under-priced.
When the bankers lose control, gold and silver will first go back to their real, market-driven prices. We don’t know what that is, but probably several times more than what it is now. So, considering the situation with the dollar and precious metals price suppression, they will do much more than preserve purchasing power when the dollar collapses.
And by the way, I have first hand experience with currency collapse and its aftermath in the former Soviet Union.
Gene – please take time sometime to revel us with some stories of the Soviet currency collapse. How long was it before people began to determine what was a good medium of exchange? I think the Soviet citizens were pretty adept at skirting the official price controls of all items already weren’t they? Wasn’t their black market an open secret for quite some time?
Here-here!
D.C. and NYC beginning to look like Arkansas when Hill and Bill were running things down there. Hope the FBI lets a bunch of people in on the evidence from Jeffrey. They surely wont try to kill them all.
“Hope the FBI lets a bunch of people in on the evidence from Jeffrey.”
Hmm or get rid of it..
Back in mid-January I dreamed I walked down a hallway inside a corporate HQ on a high floor of skyscraper in some big city. The hall was lined with spacious meeting rooms. Each one featured an oval table surrounded by chairs. Most of the rooms were occupied with teams surrounded by stacks of paper. Sleeves rolled up, empty coffee cups, and an overall sense of crisis and urgency.
One room drew my attention. A brass plaque on the door read “Law.” There was less of sense of urgency to the folks in this room. More like they were resigned and knew there was nothing left to be done. I watched one person in particular and became aware this person was an alternate version of myself who’d gone to law school instead of working in radio.
The next thing I knew, this room (and all the other rooms along the hallway) were empty. I walked inside the law room to figure out where they’d gone. When I came around the end of the big table, I looked down and saw a large hole in the floor. Instead of seeing what I should see–the floor below–the opening revealed nothing but empty space and the countryside far below. In the middle of the hole was a silver fireman’s pole that extended all the way to the ground.
The bodies of many of the corporate types were splattered on the ground. A few of them had had enough presence of mind to grab onto the pole and made it down in one piece.
A voice (I recognized in the dream) told me I had to go down. Everyone did. No way around it. Then I discovered I was holding a ticket in my hand. It was my way down–one that didn’t involve going splat or requiring the pole.
***not sure what to make of this, but there it is.
Was it a “Golden Ticket”?
Corporate America is going down and their executives, and YOU have a way out of the SPLAT ! Be mindful of the ticket/opportunity to walk away without harm.
pg 324 Ibn Seerin’s Dictionary of Dreams(available on Amazon):
“A metal pole in a dream could mean impeachment from office”
George, Kek is an Egyptian God…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kek_(mythology)