"Economic Market Snapshot AM 4/9/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 4/9/21"

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/9/21:

"The FReaKShoW Continues! 

(But You Are Not Supposed To Know About It)"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

April 7th to 9th, Updated Daily 

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

"This Economic Depression Has Left Very Deep Economic Scars All Over America"

Full screen recommended.

"This Economic Depression Has Left 

Very Deep Economic Scars All Over America"

by Epic Economist

"The extreme events we have witnessed over the past twelve months have pushed America to an economic depression that opened very deep economic scars in several groups all across the nation. However, the promise of a successful reopening and a rapid economic rebound seems to be disguising just how deep such scars actually go. Even though our leaders insist everything will be fine, evidences point to a very different outlook. The reopening doesn’t mean that things will come back to where they were before the health crisis and government-mandated shutdowns ravaged our economy. In fact, we’re about to see a completely changed environment, as over 4 million businesses were completely wiped out throughout the downturn, and workers have been facing increased challenges to get back to the labor market. Recently graduated and first-time workers will have to deal with an even gloomier reality - they will become part of a generation of unemployed who will inevitably fall behind in making important life decisions, such as starting a career, leaving their parents home, and building their own wealth. The future doesn’t look as promising as it once did for most Americans. And a loopsided reopening is about to increase economic vulnerabilities, widen the inequality gap and compromise the growth of entire generations, putting us in a dark age of continuous recessions and steep financial setbacks. That’s what we’re going to in this video.

The past year has been incredibly distressful for the United States. Never in history we have seen so many businesses disappearing in such a short span. From the bust of the crisis up until now, we have lost 4 million businesses. As a result, we have watched a tsunami of unemployment crash our economy, with more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits being filed during the early months of the collapse. To this day, the number of weekly claims continues at alarming levels that are about three times as high as those registered during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although the reopening of the economy is scheduled to occur all across the country until June, that doesn’t mean a real recovery will actually follow, especially considering some groups will be completely left out of the rebound. The Economic Policy Institute recently informed that approximately “25 million American workers are either unemployed, underemployed or have pulled out of the workforce entirely”.

The current economic depression has pushed millions of formerly middle-class workers straight into poverty, and for many of them, life will never be the same. All groups that were already struggling with financial strains before the downturn were hit particularly hard when the jobs vanished. In the short-term, federal stimulus money provided a safety net for many households and small businesses, but now, even with extended benefits, several families don’t qualify to collect them anymore. Some ascribe the exponentially higher unemployment rates among city residents and low-and-middle-income residents to the collapse of the retail and hospitality industry. Those jobs were once fueled by customers who are now working from their suburban homes, and given the staggering number of permanent store closures and business bankruptcy filings, they might never come back. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a whopping 2.4 million Americans have been unemployed for 52 weeks or longer, which represents 24% of all unemployed.

We’re now at a dangerous period for households from a financial perspective. For first-time workers and college graduates, this period will also be particularly distressing. The job opportunities that they were promised will not be materialized in the foreseeable future. The unemployment rate for those aged 16-24 is even higher than the national rate, at 11.1% in March. Pew Research Center analysis has disclosed that the share of 18-to-29-year-olds living with a parent has hit its highest level since the Great Depression. By the end of 2020, the share of young adults living at home stood at 52%.

Failing to land that dream first job, whether in high school or college, can end up derailing a lifetime's worth of career experience, economist Gould says. The next generation will, unfortunately, stay unemployed for much longer than anyone could have imagined, and that will compromise the growth and the future of this group, because it will take much longer for them to pay off student loans, to start a family, to invest and buy a house. But even in face of all that, our leaders insist that "we're headed to an economic recovery". In reality, it seems that we're approaching even more troubled times, and our long economic nightmare is just beginning."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"4th Stimulus Check and Social Security Stimulus Check Update"

Ron Yates, PM 4/8/21:

"4th stimulus check and Social Security Stimulus Check Update, plus the $2000 4th stimulus check and $1000 monthly stimulus checks, Biden’s $15000 advanceable tax credit for first time home buyers, Amazon Jeff Bezos supports the corporate tax increase and the Facebook hack. All this and a whole lot more in today’s video."

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Dolmen Ridge"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Dolmen Ridge"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Connecting the Pipe Nebula to the colorful region near bright star Antares is a dark cloud dubbed the Dark River, flowing from the picture's left edge. Murky looking, the Dark River's appearance is caused by dust obscuring background starlight, although the dark nebula contains mostly hydrogen and molecular gas.

Surrounded by dust, Antares, a red supergiant star, creates an unusual bright yellowish reflection nebula. Above it, bright blue double star Rho Ophiuchi is embedded in one of the more typical bluish reflection nebulae, while red emission nebulae are also scattered around the region. Globular star cluster M4 is just seen above and right of Antares, though it lies far behind the colorful clouds, at a distance of some 7,000 light-years. The Dark River itself is about 500 light years away. The colorful skyscape is a mosaic of telescopic images spanning nearly 10 degrees (20 Full Moons) across the sky in the constellation Scorpius.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090708.html

"What Can We Know?"

"What can we know? What are we all?

Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite,

with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts."

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Forgiveness..."

"It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."

- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"

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"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"If I have harmed anyone in any way

either knowingly or unknowingly

through my own confusions

I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way

either knowingly or unknowingly

through their own confusions

I forgive them.

And if there is a situation

I am not yet ready to forgive

I forgive myself for that.

For all the ways that I harm myself,

negate, doubt, belittle myself,

judge or be unkind to myself

through my own confusions

I forgive myself."

"The Heart of Humanity"

"The Heart of Humanity"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and we will come out the other side. The last thing most of us want to hear or think about when we are dealing with profound feelings of sadness is that deep learning can be found in this place. In the midst of our pain, we often feel picked on by life, or overwhelmed by the enormity of some loss, or simply too exhausted to try and examine the situation. We may feel far too disappointed and angry to look for anything resembling a bright side to our suffering. Still, somewhere in our hearts, we know that we will eventually emerge from the depths into the light of greater awareness. Remembering this truth, no matter how elusive it seems, can help.

The other thing we often would rather not hear when we are dealing with intense sadness is that the only way out of it is through it. Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and the faith that we will come out the other side. With courage, we can allow ourselves to cycle through the grieving process with full inner permission to experience it. This is a powerful teaching that sadness has to offer us - the ability to surrender and the acceptance of change go hand in hand.

Another teaching of sadness is compassion for others who are in pain, because it is only in feeling our own pain that we can really understand and allow for someone else’s. Sadness is something we all go through, and we all learn from it and are deepened by its presence in our lives. While our own individual experiences of sadness carry with them unique lessons, the implications of what we learn are universal. The wisdom we gain from going through the process of feeling loss, heartbreak, or deep disappointment gives us access to the heart of humanity."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Sunbury, Ohio, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Tragedy of Modern War..."

"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting 

each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."

- Edward Abbey

“Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a ‘real’ war? Are we to spend the rest of our lives in this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other’s heads and fingers trembling on the trigger?” - Arundhati Roy

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Updates:

APR 8, AT 6:40 PM: "US Delivers Military Cargo To Ukraine As It Hypes Russian Military Movements"

APR 8, AT 5:00 PM: "Iran To 'Without A Doubt' Respond Against US & Israel For Red Sea Mine Attack"

APR 8, AT 3:40 PM: "Taiwan Warns It Will Shoot Down Chinese Drones Deemed A Threat"

APR 8, AT 1:40 PM: "US Mulls Sending Warships Into Black Sea To Be "Ready To Respond" To Ukraine Crisis"

APR 8, AT 7:10 AM: "Merkel Demands Putin Reduce Russian Troops Near Ukraine In Phone Call"

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“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”

- Winston Churchill 

Gregory Mannarino, "Important Update! Here Come Capital Injections And Yield Curve Control"

Gregory Mannarino,

"Important Update! 

Here Come Capital Injections And Yield Curve Control"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Gerald Celente, “COVID Ramping Up - Will It Crash Markets?”

Gerald Celente, PM 4/8/21:

“COVID Ramping Up - Will It Crash Markets?”

- https://trendsresearch.com/

"Advice For Holders of Government Bonds"

"Advice For Holders of Government Bonds"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "U.S. Treasury bond prices got a lift on Tuesday, with the 10-year yield falling below 1.7%. (Remember, when yields go down, bond prices go up.) In August of last year, the yield on the 10-year was only 0.51%. But since then, it has been heading up. Now, even after the recent dip, it’s still more than three times that. And the quarter just ended was the worst for Treasuries in almost 40 years. Not since the 1980s have yields risen by so much, so fast. That move – before investors took former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker seriously – proved to be the last gasp of the last bear market in bonds, that had begun three decades earlier.

Not that we know anything you don’t know. But this latest move over the last quarter looks like the first gasp of the next one. And investors will soon learn that their faith in current Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is a mistake.

A Bird in the Hand: U.S. Treasury bonds trade on the full faith and credit of the issuer – the United States of America. We’ve been exploring the decline of the U.S. empire this week. If we’re wrong about that, we may be wrong about this, too. Perhaps faith in the credit of the U.S. will increase. But to make a long story short, our guess is that Treasury bonds have a lot more bad quarters coming. After all, a U.S. Treasury bond is a promise to pay the lender back with a stream of U.S. dollars. Currently, that stream is enhanced by a yield of the aforementioned 1.7%… more or less. But it is reduced by the uncertainties of the future… and by consumer price inflation.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” is the old expression. The ones in the bush might fly away before you get your hands on them. And if you get hit by a runaway Amazon delivery van, you might not enjoy a single penny of the money you invested in U.S. Treasury bonds.

The yield (the money you receive in interest) is supposed to offset those risks. That is, it is supposed to close the gap between the birds, making those in the bush at least as valuable as the one in hand. But currently, the yield on the U.S. 10-Year Treasury note is almost exactly even with consumer price inflation (as of February 2021, CPI stood at 1.7%)… which makes those bush birds look like they are not worth chasing.

In other words, you have the risk of Amazon trucks, COVID-19 infections, war, depression, and all the other curveballs the future may throw at you… but no reward for taking a swing at them. Why that is a bad deal scarcely needs elaboration. Why it might be an even worse deal than you think is today’s subject.

Rising Prices, Falling Supply: To make the short version of the long version a little longer, our guess is that the primary trend for U.S. bonds is down (rising yields)… that this trend is likely to last for five… 10… or 15 years… and that it will be clearer in June than it is now.

First, after 40 years of disinflation… lo!… we’re beginning to see a turnaround. Soybeans are up about 66% since this time last year. Copper is up some 82%. Of course, oil prices are up. Last year, at this time, oil had a negative value. Today, a barrel of West Texas goo sells for $59. And lumber has tripled over the last 12 months. Rare metals? Not-so-rare metals? Food? Finished goods? Almost everything is becoming more expensive. And as reported in this space last month, merchants are trying to cut down the sizes of their products to disguise higher prices.

Intentional Inflation: Some of this inflation is blamed on “supply chain problems.” Or COVID-19 repercussions. Or an expanding economy (cyclical inflation). But however much these things have caused prices to rise, a more ominous cause of inflation is structural. (Our colleague and coauthor Dan Denning explains this more fully in our most recent Bonner-Denning Letter. Paid-up subscribers can catch up here.) That is, the feds are causing inflation intentionally, by passing out too much money.

It’s good politics, from their point of view – it buys votes. They say it is good economics, too; they claim it stimulates the economy. And it’s good monetary policy, too… at least in the perverted terms of federal finance. While U.S. Treasury bonds are considered an asset by those who own them, they are a liability for those who issue them. And the higher the real value of those bonds, the greater the feds’ real debt burden.

The U.S. government is the biggest single debtor in the world. The U.S. government now owes $28 trillion. And it must have occurred to the geniuses at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that – at some point – inflation is like a no-fault debt jubilee, erasing trillions’ worth of federal obligations. The feds will keep paying the coupons, as required by law. But the dollars will steadily lose value. And creditors – big companies, little companies, savers, foreign governments, retirees – won’t know whom to blame.

But it hardly matters what they think. The feds have fallen into a debt trap. It’s “inflate or die.” Looking ahead, there is almost zero chance that they could back off from their big-spending, big-borrowing, big-printing boondoggles – even if they wanted to. And since this fake-money-spending will increase demand and decrease supply – by absorbing resources… misleading investors… and reducing capital investment – you should expect higher rates of consumer price inflation.

Falling Fast: Second, bond yields (and prices) are not determined by the feds directly, but are discovered in the bond market. That market has been relatively quiet for the last year or so, because the federal government hasn’t borrowed much money. It went on a borrowing spree last spring, when the Trump administration added $3 trillion to U.S. debt in just a couple months.

By July of last year, the Treasury General Account (TGA) was flush with $1.8 trillion. And it hasn’t needed to raise major funds since. But that account is falling fast. The TGA is down some $607 billion in the last two months and has only about $1 trillion left. It will soon be depleted.

Some Advice: Meanwhile, the feds passed Biden’s Big Bailout for $1.9 trillion… And now, they’re looking at $2.3 trillion more in “infrastructure” spending. So, it’s back to the debt markets… probably in June.

We are not making a prediction. And we are certainly not offering a recommendation. But if we owned any U.S. bonds – which we don’t – we’d sell them now."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

Full screen recommended.

Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

"Hell..."

“'Why did people call it Hell?' I wondered. No place was Hell, no place could be Hell. It’s the people calling it Hell, that’s the only thing that made it so. People just sticking names on places, so that no one could see those places properly anymore. No, Hell wasn’t anything to do with place, Hell was all to do with people. Maybe Hell was people.”

- John Marsden

“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”

“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”

by Marc Chernoff

“Today, I’m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts removed. But in a strange way I feel like the lucky one. Up until now I have had no health problems. I’m a 69-year-old woman in the last room at the end of the hall before the pediatric division of the hospital begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these patients could be a day older than 17.”

That’s an entry from my grandmother’s journal, dated 9/16/1977. I photocopied it and pinned it to my bulletin board about a decade ago. It’s still there today, and it continues to remind me that there is always, always, always something to be thankful for. And that no matter how good or bad I have it, I must wake up each day thankful for my life, because someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.

Truth be told, happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Imagine all the wondrous things your mind might embrace if it weren’t wrapped so tightly around your struggles. Always look at what you have, instead of what you have lost. Because it’s not what the world takes away from you that counts; it’s what you do with what you have left.

Here are a few reminders to help motivate you when you need it most:

1. Pain is part of growing. Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward. And that’s a good thing because we often won’t move unless circumstances force us to. When times are tough, remind yourself that no pain comes without a purpose. Move on from what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you. Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there. Good things take time. Stay patient and stay positive. Everything is going to come together; maybe not immediately, but eventually.

Remember that there are two kinds of pain: pain that hurts and pain that changes you. When you roll with life, instead of resisting it, both kinds help you grow.

2. Everything in life is temporary. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you get hurt, you heal. After darkness there is always light – you are reminded of this every morning, but still you often forget, and instead choose to believe that the night will last forever. It won’t. Nothing lasts forever.

So if things are good right now, enjoy it. It won’t last forever. If things are bad, don’t worry because it won’t last forever either. Just because life isn’t easy at the moment, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Just because something is bothering you, doesn’t mean you can’t smile. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a second chance, every second. You just have to take it and make the best of it.  

3. Worrying and complaining changes nothing. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least. It’s always better to attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed. It’s not over if you’ve lost; it’s over when you do nothing but complain about it. If you believe in something, keep trying. Don’t let the shadows of the past darken the doorstep of your future. Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any brighter. Take action instead. Let what you’ve learned improve how you live. Make a change and never look back.

And regardless of what happens in the long run, remember that true happiness begins to arrive only when you stop complaining about your problems and you start being grateful for all the problems you don’t have.

4. Your scars are symbols of your strength. Don’t ever be ashamed of the scars life has left you with. A scar means the hurt is over and the wound is closed. It means you conquered the pain, learned a lesson, grew stronger, and moved forward.   scar is the tattoo of a triumph to be proud of. Don’t allow your scars to hold you hostage. Don’t allow them to make you live your life in fear. You can’t make the scars in your life disappear, but you can change the way you see them. You can start seeing your scars as a sign of strength and not pain.

Rumi once said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most powerful characters in this great world are seared with scars. See your scars as a sign of “YES! I MADE IT! I survived and I have my scars to prove it! And now I have a chance to grow even stronger.”

5. Every little struggle is a step forward. In life, patience is not about waiting; it’s the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard on your dreams, knowing that the work is worth it. So if you’re going to try, put in the time and go all the way. Otherwise, there’s no point in starting. This could mean losing stability and comfort for a while, and maybe even your mind on occasion. It could mean not eating what, or sleeping where, you’re used to, for weeks on end. It could mean stretching your comfort zone so thin it gives you a nonstop case of the chills. It could mean sacrificing relationships and all that’s familiar. It could mean accepting ridicule from your peers. It could mean lots of time alone in solitude. Solitude, though, is the gift that makes great things possible. It gives you the space you need. Everything else is a test of your determination, of how much you really want it.

And if you want it, you’ll do it, despite failure and rejection and the odds. And every step will feel better than anything else you can imagine. You will realize that the struggle is not found on the path, it is the path. And it’s worth it. So if you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no better feeling in the world… there’s no better feeling than knowing what it means to be ALIVE. 

6. Other people’s negativity is not your problem. Be positive when negativity surrounds you. Smile when others try to bring you down. It’s an easy way to maintain your enthusiasm and focus.  When other people treat you poorly, keep being you. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness change the person you are. You can’t take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Rarely do people do things because of you.  hey do things because of them.

Above all, don’t ever change just to impress someone who says you’re not good enough. Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a brighter future. People are going to talk regardless of what you do or how well you do it. So worry about yourself before you worry about what others think. If you believe strongly in something, don’t be afraid to fight for it. Great strength comes from overcoming what others think is impossible.

All jokes aside, your life only comes around once. This is IT. So do what makes you happy and be with whoever makes you smile, often.

7. What’s meant to be will eventually, BE. True strength comes when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead. There are blessings hidden in every struggle you face, but you have to be willing to open your heart and mind to see them. You can’t force things to happen. You can only drive yourself crazy trying. At some point you have to let go and let what’s meant to be, BE.

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, losing and finding happiness, cherishing the memories, and learning through experience. It’s a long-term journey. You have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting every step of the way. Laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and enjoy your life as it unfolds. You might not end up exactly where you intended to go, but you will eventually arrive precisely where you need to be.

8. The best thing you can do is to keep going. Don’t be afraid to get back up – to try again, to love again, to live again, and to dream again. Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart. Life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. There will be times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. And you might feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t. When you feel like quitting, remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right. Sometimes you have to go through the worst, to arrive at your best.

Yes, life is tough, but you are tougher. Find the strength to laugh every day. Find the courage to feel different, yet beautiful. Find it in your heart to make others smile too. Don’t stress over things you can’t change. Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Work diligently. And even if you fall short, keep going. Keep growing. Awake every morning and do your best to follow this daily TO-DO list:

Think positively.

Eat healthy.

Exercise today.

Worry less.

Work hard.

Laugh often.

Sleep well.

Repeat…”

- http://www.marcandangel.com/

"What Could Go Awry?"

"What Could Go Awry?"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"What a remarkable moment in time: every asset is lofting higher, with no limits in sight. The path ahead is already well-scouted: the U.S. economy will add a million jobs a month until the cows come home, Covid will continue fading until it basically disappears as an issue, the dollar and volatility will continue their death-march toward zero (good for risk assets), oil and commodities are entering a new super-cycle of growth, as are stocks, bonds (now that pesky yields are falling), cryptocurrencies and housing-- all are entering super-cycles of high growth and essentially limitless expansion of speculative gains.

It's dreadful having a skeptical default setting, but there you have it: what could go awry? Seemingly nothing. Everything's accounted for and for anything out of the blue, we have the trusty Fed Put, the Federal Reserve's implicit promise to crush any spot of bother with a wall of freshly issued dollars and near-infinite credit. Look on our works, ye Mighty, and despair, for we are the greatest power in the Universe! Resistance is futile, and so on. Indeed.

Since we're in an era in which speculators in any asset can't possibly lose, it's no surprise that punters are borrowing buckets of cash to increase their stake in the casino's can't lose gaming tables. The chart of margin debt offers an instructive history of can't lose speculative borrowing.

Margin debt is money borrowed from brokers against the collateral of stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, etc. The more your portfolio rises, the more money you can borrow on margin because your collateral is rising. Let's start with the sad, pathetic pre-speculative Stone Age of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, dreary decades of rapid economic expansion and higher wages but dismally low levels of margin debt. The poor cave-creatures back then made little use of margin debt because their lives were an unending misery of risk. Back in that Dark Age, stock market participants could actually lose money - oh the horror!

The Black Death of risk roamed the land unhindered, until the all-mighty Federal Reserve established its impregnable fortress of the Fed Put: every market decline will be crushed, and speculators will be rewarded. And so the glorious age of Speculative Mania began. The rules to guaranteed gain were simple:

1. Buy every dip, as the Fed Put would soon reverse any decline.

2. Borrow as much money as possible and throw it onto the gambling tables because the larger your bets, the greater your gains.

With risk vanquished, everyone who embraced speculation became a winner - a big winner. Only chumps didn't buy GameStop calls and reap a quick $250,000 or more in a few weeks. And so margin debt soared and speculators prospered. All was right with the world. But then inexplicably, some sort of glitch occurred and the dot-com euphoria popped and stocks actually dropped. Punters received the dreaded margin call for cash or they had to liquidate their positions to reduce their margin debt.

Stocks soon recovered, and easy-to-borrow money flooded into housing and stocks, lifting markets to new euphoric heights. Another inexplicable glitch occurred, however, and that bubble popped, too, with extremely awkward consequences - the Global Financial Meltdown. But after the Fed tossed around a few tens of trillions of dollars in backstops, guarantees, mortgage purchases, bond-buying, lines of credit for any bank that faced losses, and so on, that strange interlude ended and margin debt and speculative gains continued their march to new heights of glory and guaranteed gains.

Which brings us to the present unprecedented levels of margin debt and can't lose speculative mania. Everyone is supremely confident that inexplicable glitches are now impossible, and nothing can possibly go awry on the path to new super-cycles of growth and speculative gains.

All of which sounds very pretty indeed, but it does raise a question: can risk really be destroyed, or can it only be transferred? And if it can only be transferred, then what's it been transferred to? The only possible answer appears to be the financial system itself. But never mind skeptical questions, the Fed Put is now the greatest power in the Universe and so speculative gains are guaranteed, forever and ever."

"'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/8/21: "ALERT! The Economic Meltdown Is AGAIN Getting Worse"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/8/21:

"ALERT! The Economic Meltdown Is AGAIN Getting Worse"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Related:

"This Economic Depression Has Left Very Deep 

Economic Scars All Over America" (Excerpt)

By PatriotRising 

"The last 12 months have been pure hell for the U.S. economy. According to Oxxford Information Technology, approximately 4 million U.S. businesses permanently closed their doors in 2020. We have never seen that many businesses wiped out in such a short period of time in the entire history of our country. Meanwhile, we have seen a tsunami of unemployment that has been absolutely unprecedented. More than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed during the pandemic, and the number of new claims each week continues to hover at a level that is about three times as high as we witnessed before the pandemic. Currently, the Economic Policy Institute is telling us that “25 million American workers are either unemployed, underemployed or have pulled out of the workforce entirely”. This economic depression has already been extremely painful, and many experts believe that a whole lot more economic pain is still on the horizon."

Please view this complete article here:

- https://patriotrising.com/

"How It Really Is"

Same as it ever was...

Must Watch! “The Economic Reset Is Happening Now; Ominous Signs Of A Sick Economy; Small Businesses Eaten Alive”

Full screen!

Jeremiah Babe,

“The Economic Reset Is Happening Now; 

Ominous Signs Of A Sick Economy; Small Businesses Eaten Alive”

"Retail Apocalypse: $100 Billion In Losses Trigger New Wave Of Bankruptcies & Mass Store Closures"

Full screen recommended.

"Retail Apocalypse: $100 Billion In Losses Trigger 

New Wave Of Bankruptcies & Mass Store Closures"

by Epic Economist

"The retail apocalypse continues to rip through America in 2021, threatening to shutter thousands of stores and lead to a new wave of bankruptcies. According to recent estimates, the number of store closings this year will rise above the figures seen in 2020, and roughly 1 in 4 U.S. malls might cease to exist as the consumer shift toward e-commerce accelerates the downfall of brick-and-mortar locations. At this point, more than 8,000 stores have permanently closed doors, and at least 1,000 more closures are expected to occur over the next few months. Moreover, as experts forecast that $100 billion in merchandise is going to be returned, the worse is yet to come for the sector, whose revenue has been dramatically and continuously plunging by the day. That's what we're going to expose in this video.

According to a recent UBS analysis, the U.S. is on the verge of losing 10,000 more stores this year. So far, retailers have confirmed more than 1000 store closures to occur in the next few months. The estimates for closings in 2021 stand considerably above the 8,000 store shutdowns registered in 2020. The report also outlined that considering the online shopping trend has sharply risen and will continue to do so, approximately one in every 11 stores will close in the next five years. The UBS analysts revealed that in the best-case scenario, the U.S. will lose almost 81,000 retail locations over that span, but in the most dire scenario, it could lose more than twice as many stores - almost 150,000 in total.

According to real estate data firm Green Street, foot traffic at malls has fallen about 30% from a year ago, which means brick-and-mortar revenue will remain compromised, and, more concerningly, according to a study from Coresight Research, approximately one-quarter of American malls will cease to exist in the next three-to-five years. Moody's Analytics anticipates that nearly 135 million square feet of space at regional malls will become available during that time.

Shopping mall owners are having to face a debt mountain as tenants grow increasingly unable to afford rent. That, in turn, is rapidly aggravating the commercial real estate collapse, and the sector now has hundreds of billions in distressed loans. An updated list of store closures scheduled to occur in the next couple of months was just released by Business Insider. The list includes an additional 60 Disney store closures - a move that will affect 20% of Disney's 300 global retail stores and lead to mass lay-offs.

But the company declined to say how many people will be impacted. In January alone, the retail apocalypse has already triggered four more bankruptcies, including women’s clothier Christopher & Banks. However, the main difference between this year and last year is that despite the forecast of higher rates of bankruptcy, store closings rate will be so staggering that will outnumber bankruptcy filings. The firm reported that "36% of retailers plan to eliminate their floor space as a means of cost optimization and 31% intend to reduce their mall-based locations".

On top of all that, many industry specialists have been highlighting that the number of returns experienced by troubled retailers could become their tipping point toward bankruptcy. A survey from the National Retail Federation shows that consumers returned nearly $428 billion in merchandise last year, which accounts for 10.6% of total U.S. retail sales in 2020 as a whole. At this point, retailers anticipate that 13.3% of merchandise sold during the holiday shopping season - representing an estimated cost of $101 billion - will be returned. The profit losses and the recent supply chain disruptions are also expected to hit those that are struggling.

It is clear that the sector isn't out of the woods yet. Instead, the U.S. retail apocalypse continues to be aggravated and to weigh upon the commercial real estate collapse. A new round of widespread closures and bankruptcy filings will also be translated into fewer jobs in an economy that already has 10 million unemployed people. Unfortunately, the long-awaited reopening will not mean a recovery is coming next. The truth is that we're bound to enter an era of endless systemic failures, and you should keep tuned with the turn of events that are leading America to The Everything Collapse, here, on Epic Economist."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/7/21: "Today's Message From The Fed: There Is No End Of Easy Money For the Market"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/7/21:

"Today's Message From The Fed: 

There Is No End Of Easy Money For the Market"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Pink Floyd, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

Pink Floyd, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

"A Look to the Heavens With Chet Raymo, 'The Journey'”

Click image for larger size.

“The Journey”

by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a Sloan Digital Sky Survey map of the universe. This Sloan Digital Sky Survey map of the universe is 2 billion light-years deep. Each point represents a galaxy with a measured redshift. Maps like this have revealed the signature of enormous sound waves rippling through the early universe.

A smoke of galaxies! (2 trillion galaxies according to latest estimates.- CP) A universe cobwebbed with Milky Ways! Each galaxy itself a smoke of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, many or all of them with planets. My book, “Walking Zero,” is about the human journey from the omphalos of our birth into the world of the galaxies, a journey many of us are disinclined to make. Here is how the Prologue to the book begins:

“Each of us is born at the center of the world. For nine months our physical selves are assembled molecule by molecule, cell by cell, in the dark covert of our mother’s womb. A single fertilized egg cell splits into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Ultimately, 50 trillion cells or so. At first, our future self is a mere blob of protoplasm. But slowly, ever so slowly, the blob begins to differentiate under the direction of genes. A symmetry axis develops. A head, a tail, a spine. At this point, the embryo might be that of a human, or a chicken, or a marmoset. Limbs form. Digits, with tiny translucent nails. Eyes, with papery lids. Ears pressed like flowers against the head. Clearly now a human. A nose, nostrils. Downy hair. Genitals.

As the physical self develops, so too a mental self takes shape, not yet conscious, not yet self-aware, knitted together as webs of neurons in the brain, encapsulating in some respects the evolutionary experience of our species. Instincts impressed by the genes. The instinct to suck, for example. Already, in the womb, the fetus presses its tiny fist against its mouth in anticipation of the moment when the mouth will be offered the mother’s breast. The child will not have to be taught to suck. Other inborn behaviors will express themselves later. Laughing. Crying. Striking out in anger. Loving.

What, if anything, goes on in the mind of the developing fetus we may never know. But this much seems certain: To the extent that the emerging self has any awareness of its surroundings, its world is coterminous with itself. We are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the plains of Mars, or the far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are not born with knowledge of Precambrian seas, the supercontinent of Pangea, or the Age of Dinosaurs. We are born into a world scarcely older than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.

A human life is a journey into the grandeur of a universe that may contain more galaxies than there are cells in the human body, a universe in which the whole of a human lifetime is but a single tick of the cosmic clock. The journey can be disorienting; our first instincts are towards coziness, comfort, our mother’s enclosing arms, her breast. The journey, therefore, requires courage – for each individual, and for our species.

Uniquely of all animals, humans have the capacity to let our minds expand into the space and time of the galaxies. No other creatures can number the cells in their bodies, as we can, or count the stars. No other creatures can imagine the explosive birth of the observable universe 14 billion years ago from an infinitely hot, infinitely small seed of energy. That we choose to make this journey – from the all-sustaining womb into the vertiginous spaces and abyss of time – is the glory of our species, and perhaps our most frightening challenge.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “The Journey”

“The Journey”

“One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save.”

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Hanna, Wyoming, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”

by Steve Candidus

“One of the great things about ancient Greek Mythology is that the stories all teach a lesson. They don’t end with – and the moral of the story is – though. They leave it to the reader to figure them out. So in addition to being just plain fun to read they are wonderful teachers about life. Perhaps the best thing about this one is that we still use the expression it contains exactly the same way that the ancient Greeks intended it almost 3,000 years ago. That almost never happens. Language is fluid and the meanings of words and expressions changes from one generation to another, but this one is an exception. The everyday expression it contains is one that we often refer to without really knowing where it came from.

This is one of the tales of Odysseus who was the heroic king of Ithaca and of whose ten-year journey back to Greece after the Trojan War was immortalized in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. There was a point in his journey when his ship had to enter a narrow strait. It was a passage so narrow that it could only be made under special conditions. They had to have both the wind at their backs and the current in their direction. However, once committed it was impossible to turn back.

Unknown to the sailors the strait was guarded by two deadly perils. On the one side, it was guarded by Scylla. Scylla was a six-headed monster that disguised itself as a rock. On the other side, it was guarded by Charybdis, a terrible deadly whirlpool born of the sea god Poseidon.

In olden times, it was common to refer to any place that a ship came to rest on land as being in a hard place. It didn’t matter if it was blown on shore by a storm, grounded on a reef or brought up intentionally for repair. If it was on shore, it was on a hard place as opposed to the soft place – water.

It also applied to a ship that had foundered. A ship that sinks will eventually rest on the bottom. The land at the bottom of the ocean is therefore called a hard place. It used to be a common term, but it has since pretty much fallen out of practice in common language today. A deadly whirlpool such as Charybdis could take a ship and send it straight to the bottom – a hard place.

So, now as we return to the story of Odysseus we see that their ship had entered a narrow strait and that strait was guarded by two evil perils with hardly enough room for a ship to pass between them. They were forced to choose between the six headed monster ‘Scylla’ disguised as a rock or the dreaded whirlpool ‘Charybdis’ that would surely send them to a hard place and they could not turn back.

There is a Latin proverb from this story, “Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim” which translates to, “He runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis.” In modern day English, we simply say, “They were between a rock and a hard place”. And now you know…”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Questioned By Life..."

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual…

There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden…

What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment…

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

- Viktor E. Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”

"I Hope..."

“I hope that my achievements in life shall be these -

that I will have fought for what was right and fair,

that I will have risked for that which mattered,

that I will have given help to those who were in need,

and that I will have left the earth a better place for

what I’ve done and who I’ve been.”

- C. Hoppe

“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world, and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: it’s life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart’s delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.”

- Gottfried Von Strassburg