Tuesday, March 15, 2022

"Meanwhile In China, All Hell Is Breaking Loose"

Full screen recommended.
"Meanwhile In China, All Hell Is Breaking Loose"
by Epic Economist

"The entire planet is closely watching the latest developments of the worst global conflict of the modern era. Meanwhile, in China, all hell is breaking loose as a new wave of virus cases continues to rise and trigger mass business shutdowns, financial markets have started crashing, and the economy is slumping at an alarming pace, sparking fears that the world may be headed to a horrifying global recession. China is currently facing the biggest virus outbreak since Wuhan. According to local reports, a fresh wave of infections sent cases soaring in the past few weeks, with 16 provinces reporting new vírus infections as megacities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing seeing the biggest surge in over two years.

As a result, the Chinese government ordered businesses to halt all operations and shut down amid its zero-tolerance health crisis policy. According to Bloomberg, All businesses with the exception of those that supply food, fuel, and other necessities were ordered to close or work from home. Authorities have restricted access to Shanghai by suspending bus services, and also locked down the city of Shenzhen, home to over 17.5 million people and known as China's Silicon Valley. Given that the port of Shenzhen is one of the busiest container ports in the world, and the entire city is in lockdown, we should start bracing for a new round of cascading chaos on global supply chains, which will come on top of the disruptions caused by the Ukraine crisis and the sanctions imposed on Russia.

At the same time, a spectacular stock market crash is plunging Chinese stocks to all-time lows, with the Hang Seng tech index collapsing 61% from its peak, and the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index of U.S.-traded stocks doing even worse, down 68%. Analysts say that within a couple of days the crash could surpass the 72% mark it previously hit during the 2008 global financial crisis. The Chinese bond market is also melting down. Cracks are also showing up in every corner of China’s government bond market, with yields on the 10-year sovereign note rising to 2.86%, the highest this year, as investors moved towards capital outflows. Credit stress is reaching new extremes in the country’s offshore and dollar-backed markets, where average junk yields jumped above 25%, which means that the primary market won't function properly anytime soon.

China’s housing market crash is still taking place, as its biggest developers continue to see home sales cratering month after month amid a market that is effectively frozen. To make things worse, the country is also facing a credit crunch, with mortgage lending falling for the first time in 15 years. The situation is becoming so critical that foreign investors are dumping Chinese bonds in record amounts. Last month, they reduced their holdings of Chinese government bonds at the fastest pace ever, selling off a net 35 billion yuan of Chinese government bonds, marking the largest monthly cut on record according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Even more worryingly, analysts are arguing that the only alternative to boost the Chinese economy and prevent it from falling into a roaring recession is more central bank liquidity. On the other hand, the U.S. is taking the exact opposite approach, with the Federal Reserve ready to hike interest rates to fight rampant inflation. But, as ZeroHedge analysts recently asked, “how long can US and China monetary policy diverge, with the former hiking and the latter cutting, before something terminally breaks?” On each side of the globe, conditions are still deteriorating very quickly, and without the support of the two largest economies on the planet, the world is going to collapse into chaos. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve reached a turning point and things will never be the same."

"Costco Sold Out Of Emergency Food; Markets Up; Economy On Life Support; Rate Hike; Gas Price Shock"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 3/15/22:
"Costco Sold Out Of Emergency Food; Markets Up; 
Economy On Life Support; Rate Hike; Gas Price Shock"

"The Ides of March"; "Why the Fed Keeps Getting It Wrong"

"The Ides of March"
by Brian Maher

"Today is March 15 - the ides of the month. “Beware the ides of March,” the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar… presciently. Should investors likewise beware the ides of March?

Today and tomorrow the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee - so-called - huddles at Washington. These are the questions presently hanging in the air: Will Mr. Powell and his mates finally push the federal funds rate up from zero - even as recessionary omens gather? Or will the unpleasantness overseas hand them excuse to stand paws off, to sit idly upon their perspiring hands?

Prior to Mr. Putin’s adventuring, many prognosticators soothsaid a 50-basis-point hike. They reasoned a 0.50% hike would get good water on the inflationary flames currently fanning. These flames are beginning to menace the population… The latest producer’s price index reveals a galloping 10% annual rate of increase. And consumer price inflation blisters at 40-year highs.

Little relief is in prospect. Explains Oxford Economics: "Inflation in the pipeline is showing few signs of decelerating in the near term, especially as the Russia-Ukraine war wreaks havoc in energy and other commodity markets. Higher input costs will keep producer prices frustratingly elevated and continue to squeeze profit margins, likely feeding higher consumer prices in the coming months until war tensions unwind and goods demand moderates."

Of especial concern is the oil price. When oil spirals at such dizzying rates as presently, recession odds spiral with it. Mr. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, estimates the odds of recession within the following 12–18 months at one in three. “It seems obvious that the odds of recession are now well above average here in the United States,” adds a certain Gerard MacDonell with 22V Research.

How will the Federal Reserve conduct itself? (Go here for Jim Rickards’ answer, and why Jim is starting a “countdown to crisis”). It is unlikely the Federal Reserve will announce a 50-basis-point hosing tomorrow. The Ukraine affair will likely hold them to a 25-basis-point sprinkling. They will likely keep raising interest rates into next year. But enough to douse inflation’s fires? It is… unlikely.

Crane your neck. Glance backward to the wildly inflationary year of 1980… The average inflation rate ran to a punishing 13.5%. Meantime, the average nominal interest rate went at 13.35% - plenty handsome. Thus the inflation rate and the nominal interest rate were closely aligned. The real interest rate – the nominal rate minus the inflation rate — thus went at negative 0.15% (13.35 – 13.5 = -0.15). Paul Volcker was determined to get his hands around inflation’s neck. To strangle fatally he squeezed and squeezed until rates ticked 20%.

Now come home… Consumer price inflation presently speeds at an annualized 7.9% rate. Meantime, the Federal Reserve’s target rate gutters along between 0% and 0.25%. Hence the real interest rate - the nominal rate minus inflation - ranges between negative 7.65% and negative 7.90%.

Recall, Paul Volcker confronted a negative 0.15% real rate. Assume the present inflation maintains its 7.9% gait. The Federal Reserve would have to elevate rates above 10% to cage inflation as Volcker caged inflation. Can you imagine it? Paul Volcker’s economy was but one fraction as indebted as today’s economy.

Today’s economy has been erected upon the beach sand of cheap credit, now piling to levels truly abominable. Neither the stock market nor the economy could endure Volcker’s type of roughhousing. Neither could hold out against the 10%-plus rates the business would require today. For the matter of that, we are unconvinced either can withstand rates much above 2%. Meaningfully higher rates will send them both heaping down, collapsed and wrecked.

Hence the Federal Reserve hangs from the hooks of a mighty dilemma it itself has engineered. Its options are these: Raise rates and push the economy and the stock market over. Or let inflation burn its way clear through the dollar.

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen - you will need it - and then some more.

Below, Jim Rickards shows you why the Federal Reserve keeps bungling over and over again. Read on, if you can take it."
"Why the Fed Keeps Getting It Wrong"
By Jim Rickards

"What we’re seeing now is the very definition of volatility. The market’s in a highly unstable state right now. These violent swings show the inadequacy of the standard models that the Fed and other mainstream analysts use.

The Fed assumes so many things about markets that are simply false, like that markets are always efficient, for example. They’re not. Under volatile conditions like these they gap up and down - they don’t move in rational, predictable increments like the “efficient-market hypothesis” supposes. The problem is that the Fed’s models are empirically false. Studies have proven how faulty their models are. The Fed has the worst forecasting record in the world. It’s basically been wrong every year since 2009.

Equilibrium models like the Fed uses basically say the world runs like a clock and occasionally it gets knocked out of equilibrium. And all you have to do is tweak policy or manipulate some variable to push it back into equilibrium. It’s like resetting a clock. That’s a shorthand way of describing what an equilibrium model is. They treat markets like they’re some kind of machine. It’s a 19th-century, mechanistic approach.

But traditional approaches that rely on static models bear little relationship to reality. Twenty-first-century markets aren’t machines and they don’t work in this clockwork fashion. The Fed uses equilibrium models to understand an economy that is not an equilibrium system; it’s a complex dynamic system. The Fed uses the Phillips curve to understand the relationship between unemployment and inflation when 50 years of data say there is no fixed relationship. The Fed uses what’s called value-at-risk modelling based on normally distributed events when the evidence is clear that the degree distribution of risk events is a power curve, not a normal or bell curve.

As a result of these defective models, the Fed printed trillions of new money beginning in 2008 to ‘stimulate’ the economy, only to produce the weakest recovery in history. Need proof? Every year, the Federal Reserve forecasts economic growth on a one-year forward basis. And it’s been wrong every year for the better part of a decade. When I say ‘wrong’, I mean by orders of magnitude. If the Fed forecast 3.5% growth and actual growth was 3.3%, I would consider that to be awesome. But the Fed would forecast 3.5% growth and it would come in at 2.2%. That’s not even close, considering that growth is confined to plus or minus 4% in the vast majority of years (go here to see why the Fed’s about to make another serious mistake).

Right now the economy faces severe headwinds in the form of geopolitical instability, inflation and supply chain disruptions. The chances of recession are high. The Fed needs interest rates to be between 4% and 5% to fight recession. That’s how much “dry powder” the Fed needs going into a recession. In September 2007, the fed funds rate was at 4.75%, toward the high end of the range. That gave the Fed plenty of room to cut, which it certainly did. Between 2008 and 2015, rates were essentially at zero.

The current fed funds target rate is between 0% and 0.25%. If we have a recession this year the Fed doesn’t have anywhere near the room to cut as it did to fight the Great Recession.

During its hiking cycle that ended in December 2018, the Fed was trying to get rates closer to 5% so they could cut them as much as needed in a new recession. But, they failed. Interest rates only topped out at 2.5%. The market reaction and a slowing economy caused the Fed to reverse course and engage in easing.

Can the Fed even get to 2% in its upcoming tightening cycle before it reverses course again? Here’s the deeper problem with all the Fed’s manipulations… The problem with any kind of market manipulation (what central bankers call “policy”) is that there’s no way to end it without unintended and usually negative consequences. Once you start down the path of manipulation, it requires more and more manipulation to keep the game going. Finally it no longer becomes possible to turn back without crashing the system.

Of course, manipulation by government agencies and central banks always starts out with good intentions. They are trying to “save” the banks or “save” the market from extreme outcomes or crashes. But this desire to save something ignores the fact that bank failures and market crashes are sometimes necessary and healthy to clear out prior excesses and dysfunctions. A crash can clean out the rot, put losses where they belong and allow the system to start over with a clean balance sheet and a strong lesson in prudence.

Instead, the central bankers ride to the rescue of corrupt or mismanaged banks. This saves the wrong people (incompetent and corrupt bank managers and investors) and hurts the everyday investor or worker who watches his portfolio implode while the incompetent bank managers get to keep their jobs and big bonuses. All it does is set the stage for a bigger crisis down the road. It certainly hasn’t helped the economy.

In my 2014 book, "The Death of Money," I wrote, “The United States is Japan on a larger scale.” That was eight years ago. Japan started its “lost decade” in the 1990s. Now their lost decade has dragged into over three lost decades. The U.S. began its first lost decade in 2009 and is now in its second lost decade with no end in sight.

The economic damage from the lockdowns certainly didn’t help.

What I referred to in 2014 is that central bank policy in both countries has been completely ineffective at restoring long-term trend growth or solving the steady accumulation of unsustainable debt. In Japan this problem began in the 1990s, and in the U.S. the problem began in 2009, but it’s the same problem with no clear solution. The irony is that in the early 2000s, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke routinely criticized the Japanese for their inability to escape from recession, deflation and slow growth.

When the U.S. recession began during the global financial crisis of 2008, Bernanke promised that he would not make the same mistakes the Japanese made in the 1990s. Instead, he made every mistake the Japanese made, and the U.S. is stuck in the same place and will remain there until the Fed wakes up to its problems.

Bernanke thought that low interest rates and massive money printing would lead to lending and spending that would restore trend growth to 3.2% or higher. But he ignored the role of velocity (speed of money turnover) and the unwillingness of banks to lend or individuals to borrow. When that happens, the Fed is pushing on a string - printing money with no result except asset bubbles. That’s where we are today."

Musical Interlude: Herb Ernst, "Awakening Stars"

Herb Ernst, "Awakening Stars"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Two stars within our own Milky Way galaxy anchor the foreground of this cosmic snapshot. Beyond them lie the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster. In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are over 100 million light-years away.
Three large galaxies near the cluster center, two yellow ellipticals (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and one prominent blue spiral (NGC 3312), are the dominant galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years in diameter. An intriguing overlapping galaxy pair cataloged as NGC 3314 is just above and left of NGC 3312. Also known as Abell 1060, the Hydra galaxy cluster is one of three large galaxy clusters within 200 million light-years of the Milky Way. In the nearby universe, galaxies are gravitationally bound into clusters which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters that in turn are seen to align over even larger scales. At a distance of 100 million light-years this picture would be about 1.3 million light-years across.”

"Compared To What?"

"Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow,
though it breaks every bone in our bodies."
- Edward Abbey
"When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard,"
I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney Harris

“‘Bloom’: A Touching Animated Short Film About Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being”

“‘Bloom’: A Touching Animated Short Film About
Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being”
by Maria Popova

“Sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands,” the poet May Sarton wrote as she contemplated the cure for despair amid a dark season of the spirit. But what does it take to perch that precarious if in the direction of the light? When we are in that dark and hollow place, that place of leaden loneliness and isolation, when “the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain,” as William Styron wrote in his classic account of the malady – an indiscriminate malady that savaged Keats and savaged Nietzsche and savaged Hansberry – what does it take to live through the horror and the hollowness to the other side, to look back and gasp disbelievingly, with the poet Jane Kenyon: “What hurt me so terribly… until this moment?”

During a recent dark season of the spirit, a dear friend buoyed me with the most wonderful, hope-giving, rehumanizing story: Some years earlier, when a colleague of hers – another physicist – was going through such a season of his own, she gave him an amaryllis bulb in a small pot; the effect it had on him was unexpected and profound, as the effect of uncalculated kindnesses always is – profound and far-reaching, the way a pebble of kindness ripples out widening circles of radiance. As the light slowly returned to his life, he decided to teach a class on the physics of animation. And so it is that one of his students, Emily Johnstone, came to make ‘Bloom’ – a touching animated short film, drawing from the small personal gesture a universal metaphor for how we survive our densest private darknesses, consonant with Neil Gaiman’s insistence that “sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place… to make us warm in the coldest season.”
Complement with Tim Ferriss on how he survived suicidal depression and Tchaikovsky on depression and finding beauty amid the wreckage of the soul, then revisit “Having It Out with Melancholy” – Jane Kenyon’s stunning poem about life with and after depression.”

"Mencken, Where Are You Now That We Need You?"

"Mencken, Where Are You Now That We Need You?"

"Henry Louis Mencken, The “Sage of Baltimore”, (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial," also gained him attention."
'The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.'

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre."

"When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money."

"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."

"The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought."

"I have little belief in human progress. The human race is incurably idiotic. It will never be happy."
- H. L. Mencken

"Comparing the 1930s and Today"

"Comparing the 1930s and Today"
by Doug Casey

"You've heard the axiom "History repeats itself." It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present. During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war - but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.

Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.

Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the "impenetrable" Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn't attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.

The generals don't prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don't know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.

Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn't real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means '30s-style conditions, and since they don't see that, they can't imagine a depression. That's because they know what the last depression was like, but they don't know what one is. It's hard to visualize something you don't understand.

Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but - al­though they're going to be a lot better off than most - they're probably looking for this depression to be like the last one. Although nobody can predict with absolute certainty what this depression will be like, you can be fairly well-assured it won't be an instant replay of the last one. But just because things will be different doesn't mean you have to be taken by surprise. To define the likely differences between this depres­sion and the last one, it's helpful to compare the situa­tion today to that in the early 1930s. The results aren't very reassuring.

Corporate Bankruptcy 1930s: Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.

Today: The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.

Unemployment 1930s: If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.

Today: The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.

Welfare 1930s: If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.

Today: It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.

Regulations 1930s: Most economies have been fairly heavily regulated since the early 1900s, and those regulations caused distortions that added to the severity of the last depression. Rather than allow the economy to liquidate, in the case of the U.S., the Roosevelt regime added many, many more regulations - fixing prices, wages, and the manner of doing business in a static form. It was largely because of these regulations that the depression lingered on until the end of World War II, which "saved" the economy only through its massive reinflation of the currency. Had the government abolished most controls then in existence, instead of creating new ones, the depression would have been less severe and much shorter.

Today: The scores of new agencies set up since the last depression have created far more severe distortions in the ways people relate than those of 90 years ago; the potential adjustment needed is proportionately greater. Unless government restrictions and controls on wages, working conditions, energy consumption, safety, and such are removed, a dramatic economic turnaround during the Greater Depression will be impossible.

Taxes 1930s: The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure - an increase of 1,100%.

Today: Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.

Prices 1930s: Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.

Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume - as a result of that experience - that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.

Today: Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 90 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the financial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you find men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.

Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.

The Society 1930s: The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.

Today: The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited. A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.

The Way People Work 1930s: Relatively slow transportation and communication localized economic conditions. The U.S. itself was somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, and parts of the U.S. were fairly self-contained. Workers were mostly involved in basic agriculture and industry, creating widgets and other tangible items. There wasn't a great deal of specialization, and that made it easier for someone to move laterally from one occupation into the next, without extensive retraining, since people were more able to produce the basics of life on their own. Most women never joined the workforce, and the wife in a marriage acted as a "backup" system should the husband lose his job.

Today: The whole world is interdependent, and a war in the Middle East or a revolution in Africa can have a direct and immediate effect on a barber in Chicago or Krakow. Since the whole economy is centrally controlled from Washington, a mistake there can be a national disaster. People generally aren’t in a position to roll with the punches as more than half the people in the country belong to what is known as the "service economy." That means, in most cases, they're better equipped to shuffle papers than make widgets. Even "necessary" services are often terminated when times get hard. Specialization is part of what an advanced industrial economy is all about, but if the economic order changes radically, it can prove a liability.

The Financial Markets 1930s: The last depression is identified with the collapse of the stock market, which lost over 90% of its value from 1929 to 1933. A secure bond was the best possible investment as interest rates dropped radically. Commodities plummeted, reducing millions of farmers to near subsistence levels. Since most real estate was owned outright and taxes were low, a drop in price didn't make a lot of difference unless you had to sell. Land prices plummeted, but since people bought it to use, not unload to a greater fool, they didn't usually have to sell.

Today: This time, stocks - and especially commodities - are likely to explode on the upside as people panic into them to get out of depreciating dollars in general and bonds in particular. Real estate will be - next to bonds - the most devastated single area of the economy because no one will lend money long term. And real estate is built on the mortgage market, which will vanish. Everybody who invests in this depression thinking that it will turn out like the last one will be very unhappy with the results. Being aware of the differences between the last depression and this one makes it a lot easier to position yourself to minimize losses and maximize profits.

So much for the differences. The crucial, obvious, and most important similarity, however, is that most people's standard of living will fall dramatically. The Greater Depression has started. Most people don't know it because they can neither confront the thought nor understand the differences between this one and the last.

As a climax approaches, many of the things that you've built your life around in the past are going to change and change radically. The ability to adjust to new conditions is the sign of a psychologically healthy person. Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols - one for danger and one for opportunity. The rush to inject an unprecedented amount of money into every corner of the economy is a last-ditch effort to keep the stock market casino going for as long as possible - no matter the consequences.

The dangers that society will face in the years ahead are regrettable, but there's no point in allowing anxiety, frustration, or apathy to overcome you. Face the future with courage, curiosity, and optimism rather than fear. You can be a winner, and if you plan carefully, you will be. The great period of change will give you a chance to regain control of your destiny, and that in itself is the single most important thing in life, as an individual and society as a whole."

Paulo Coelho, "The Bird And The Cage"

"The Bird And The Cage"
by Paulo Coelho

"Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird.

And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”

However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”

The Daily "Near You?"

Overland Park, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Must Watch "BREAKING: End of the US Petrodollar? What Next?"

Full screen recommended.
Mike Maloney, Adam Taggart, 3/15/22:
"BREAKING: End of the US Petrodollar? What Next?"
"Some massive news broke in the last couple of hours in regards to the US dollar. Join Mike Maloney and Adam Taggart in today’s video update as they discuss what happened, what it means, and where we could be headed next."

Gregory Mannarino, "With The Economy Cratering Will The FED Raise Rates Tomorrow? Rent SKYROCKETS!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/15/22:
"With The Economy Cratering Will The FED 
Raise Rates Tomorrow? Rent SKYROCKETS!"

"Climbing the Escalation Ladder in the Economic War With Russia... Here's the Nuclear Option"

"Climbing the Escalation Ladder in the Economic
 War With Russia... Here's the Nuclear Option"
by Nick Giambruno

"The escalation ladder is a concept to describe how the severity of a military conflict can increase. At the very top of the escalation ladder is all-out nuclear war. While there are numerous countries with nuclear weapons, Russia and China are the only ones with sophisticated enough arsenals to go toe-to-toe with the US up to the top of the escalation ladder. In other words, the US can’t obtain escalation dominance against Russia or China because they can match each escalation up to all-out nuclear war - the very top of the ladder.

For this reason, these countries are deterred from getting into a kinetic conflict with one another. It's also why the US military doesn’t hesitate to bomb countries like Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. It has little to fear because it knows these countries can’t climb very high in the escalation ladder.

This concept is well-understood in military conflicts. However, the same dynamic exists in an economic war, and it's far less understood by governments (and investors). That’s why neither the US nor Russia are not deterred and are climbing up the economic escalation ladder and hurdling towards an increasingly imminent catastrophe.

The Economic War Escalates: In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government and EU have launched an unprecedented economic war… with seeming little thought on how it all ends. Russia is not a tiny, feeble country that can't punch back. Even though many people don't realize it, Russia can escalate to the top of the economic escalation ladder. Here’s why…

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, lumber, wheat, fertilizer, and palladium (a crucial component in cars). It is the second-largest exporter of oil and aluminum and the third-largest exporter of nickel and coal. Russia is a major producer and processor of uranium for nuclear power plants. Enriched uranium from Russia and its allies provides electricity to 20% of the homes in the US. Aside from China, Russia produces more gold than any other country, accounting for more than 10% of global production.

These are just a handful of examples. There are many strategic commodities that Russia dominates. In short, Russia is not just an oil and gas powerhouse but a commodity powerhouse. Europe cannot survive without Russian commodities.

Taking Russian commodities off of global markets would cause an across-the-board price shock that would decimate financial markets, banks, and practically every industry. Moreover, Russia also has an economic nuclear option that could blow up the Western financial system overnight. In short, Russia has powerful cards to play.

Just like in a kinetic war, Russia can match US moves to escalate an economic war to the top of the escalation ladder. But unlike a kinetic war, neither side is deterred. On the contrary, it seems all but inevitable that things will escalate from here, which makes the situation incredibly dangerous.

Where Are We Now? The US has sanctioned the Russian central bank, making it illegal for any American to engage with it, the finance ministry, or the national wealth fund. The US and European governments froze the US dollar and euro reserves of Russia - the accumulated savings of the nation - worth around $300 billion. Certain Russian banks have been kicked out of SWIFT, the system to send international wire transfers. A stampede of Western companies have left Russia and are banning average Russian citizens from using their platforms.

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express have cut off Russia from their networks. The US government banned all imports of Russian oil.

In return, Russia has matched these moves with defensive maneuvers and escalations of its own. Moscow has banned the export of rocket engines to the US, with an official saying, "In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks."

Russia and China have live alternatives to SWIFT to facilitate international financial transactions, which limits the effect of being kicked out of SWIFT. Russian banks started issuing credit and debit cards linked to China’s global payment processing network UnionPay. Russia has announced, or already is, doing business with China, India, Iran, Turkey, and other countries in local currencies instead of the US dollar, neutralizing much of the effect of sanctions.

In perhaps the most significant escalatory move, the Russian government has allowed all external debt obtained from unfriendly countries - estimated to be over $400 billion - to be redenominated in rubles. As a result, instead of paying back creditors in the US and Europe in dollars and euros at Western banks, Russian companies can now repay their external debts by depositing rubles on their creditor's behalf in Russian banks, which are inaccessible to them because of sanctions. This move forces the US and EU to either ease sanctions so that the estimated $400 billion in external debt can be repaid or give massive losses to Western banks and other creditors.

So, that’s where things stand now. It's worth noting that Europe is still paying for Russian energy, and Moscow is still delivering it. Nonetheless, Russia and the US are climbing the economic escalation ladder, with neither side showing any sign of slowing down. However, we are still several destructive steps away from the top.

What Comes Next: Putin recently announced a forthcoming ban on exports of certain commodities to certain unfriendly countries, with details coming soon. Given Russia’s dominance in the commodity markets, such a move will be significant. A logical next step Russia could take if the US and EU increase their sanctions would be to force Europe to pay for its energy imports in rubles.

European buyers would have to first buy rubles with their euros and use them to pay for Russian gas, oil, and other exports. Such a move would neutralize the entire sanctions regime because it would force Europeans to deal with the sanctioned Russian central bank or get cut off from crucial commodities. The Europeans have no alternative to Russian energy and would have no choice but to comply.

Moscow could implement its economic nuclear option if the US really pushes Russia to the point where it has nothing left to lose. That would be demanding payment for oil and other commodities in gold. Since Russia is such a dominant player in the commodity markets, it could dictate this. Such a move would send gold skyrocketing and blow up the entire Western financial system overnight. Moreover, the dollar and euro would likely suffer an enormous loss in purchasing power as commodities would be repriced in gold.

That's Russia’s financial nuclear option, and if the US continues up the escalation ladder, this is where it will ultimately lead. With neither side backing down, escalation appears inevitable. That means we are likely on the cusp of a historic financial earthquake… one that could alter the direction of the US forever and mark the biggest economic event of our lifetimes."

"Credit Markets are Cracking - Is the Dollar Safe?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/15/22:
"Credit Markets are Cracking - Is the Dollar Safe?"
Producer Price Index just jumped above 10%. The stock market is celebrating this by giving a massive runner. When does this nonsense come to an end? Oil drops to $100 a barrel and everybody starts to celebrate. Collateral loan obligations are defaulting around the world. When will this catch up to the economy?"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Next to Nothing"

"Next to Nothing"
by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina -  "Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed heads are hunkered down for their big meeting today and tomorrow. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Fed has to decide. Consumer prices are rising at a politically uncomfortable rate – almost 8% per year. But the stock market is wobbly… and threatens to crash.

What to do? Nothing! Or as close to nothing as it can get away with. Later tomorrow, the Fed will almost certainly announce a tiny 0.25% increase in its key lending rate… bringing it (adjusted for inflation) to MINUS 7.4%.

To get our bearings, we note that if you’re going to stop price increases you have to lend money at a rate that is higher than the inflation rate, not below it. An inflation-killing move equivalent to what Paul Volker did in 1980 would put the Fed rate at PLUS 10% – or 1,740 basis points higher than it is today. And if the Fed continues its baby steps to nowhere approach, raising the key rate by a quarter point per trimester, it will take 17 years to get there… or until 2039. By that time, the dollar and the world’s US dominated money system will be long forgotten.

“Inflate or Die?” On a scale of 10, we rate the chances that the Fed will mount a serious fight against inflation at 1. Fed chief Jerome Powell says he is just being cautious. What with a war going on and all… he didn’t want to introduce more “uncertainty.” What to make of it? Sarcasm offers the only relief.

Gladiators, Fight! Elon Musk has proposed what must be the best solution to the Russo-Ukraine war. He challenged Putin to a ‘single combat’ to settle the issue:
It is absurd, of course. But it would be a great way to end the war. Imagine the box office! Billions could be raised from selling tickets to the event or on-line viewing. The money then could be used to repair the damage. And if Putin wins, he gets what he wants without more bloodshed. If Musk wins, whatever he wants… well, who knows? But it’s not likely to be worse than what is happening now.

So far, no word from the Kremlin about whether the challenge has been accepted. So, the bombing, shelling, killing, sanctioning and spending goes on… in the Ukraine, in Yemen, in Afghanistan… and all over the world. But why? Why is money taken from Americans to be used to kill Russians, Yemenis or Afghanis? Why is money taken from Russian civilians without due process? (What kind of kangaroo court would condone taking money away from people who had done nothing wrong?)

Here at BPR money is our beat. Money is made by producing goods or delivering services – such as providing gas to Europeans – and thereby satisfying customers. But politics intrudes… and money vanishes. “You’re either with us or against us,” George W. Bush said of the War on Terror. There was no middle-ground… no room for compromise… no other side to the story. You’re either vaccinated… or you’re causing the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said Joseph Biden, even though vaccinated people – such as your editor – got the COVID too.

And now… even suggesting that there is another side to the story marks you as a “Russian asset.” Yesterday, the Financial Times cited the case of India. The fact that it has not come out four-square in favor of the ‘western allies,’ could “imperil relations with the US.”

Holy Fantasies: This train is bound for glory; everyone is meant to get onboard. But getting on-board with the sanctions war against Russia means getting off-board with other fads and fashions of the elite. Until a few weeks ago, for example, fossil fuels were the devil’s work and investors were proudly displaying their contempt for weapons manufacturers.

‘A nasty business… with nasty clients… and nasty results,’ we put words in their mouths. In the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) world, investing in energy or weapons was a no-no. Making the world a better place was the goal, even if it meant lower profits. But now they’ve all signed on to the ‘Ukraine-as-Holy Land’ fantasy, and suited up for battle. Suddenly, the war on CO2 has disappeared from the headlines and ‘defense’ is no longer a bad word.

“Ukraine is one of the most important ESG issues we’ve ever had,” said Philippe Zaouati, chief executive of Mirova, the $30 billion sustainable-investing unit affiliated with Natixis Investment Managers. “It’s a vital issue for energy and human rights, and questions whether we still want to live in a democracy or not.”

Really? Is that what it’s all about? Is that what we’re fightin’ for? Is democracy at stake? Is that the reason to switch from saving the planet to saving the Ukraine?

But Mr. Putin has shown no sign of wanting to end the Ukrainian democracy; instead, he seems to want to increase it, by allowing the Eastern provinces to elect their own leaders. As for the rest of it, he insists only that it remains neutral. Thinking strategically, he doesn’t want any NATO missiles hard against his southern flank. How this poses a risk to democracy, we don’t know. Were Mexico to announce that it was allowing China or Russia to put their missiles on the south side of the Rio Grande…how long would it take the US to launch an invasion? Mexico’s democracy be damned!

But that’s the nice thing about politics. Nothing is ever marked to market. You can believe anything you want. And since you can fool most of the people most of the time, you’re almost always able to get the yahoos behind you. Alas, fooling people causes foolish people to do foolish things. Tune in tomorrow for more on the foolishness surrounding us all."

Gregory Mannarino, "A Russian Debt Default Is Not A Black Swan; War: Prolong Tactics In Full Swing"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/15/22:
"A Russian Debt Default Is Not A Black Swan; 
War: Prolong Tactics In Full Swing"

"6 Years Of Being Manipulated By Manufactured Waves Of Outrage With No End In Sight"

"6 Years Of Being Manipulated By Manufactured 
Waves Of Outrage With No End In Sight"
by Michael Snyder

"Are you starting to notice a pattern by now? For the past six years, the American people have been emotionally manipulated by what I call “manufactured waves of outrage”. Once the corporate media identifies a trigger, it will obsessively focus on it for weeks or months on end, and the narrative that develops will be echoed and magnified by millions upon millions of social media denizens. Before too long, much of the population is whipped up into an irrational emotional frenzy, and that frenzy is used to move certain agendas forward.

To me, this new era began in 2016. Donald Trump was a political candidate like no other, and the elite absolutely hated the fact that he did not follow their rules and that they could not control him. So when he actually won, it truly was a catastrophic event for them. From that moment forward, most corporate media outlets relentlessly demonized Trump. Never before in U.S. history had a sitting U.S. president been treated in such a fashion, and we may never see anything like it ever again.

The anti-Trump narratives which were being pumped out by the corporate media were constantly fed to social media influencers on both sides of the political spectrum, and that ultimately created extremely deep political divisions in this country which still exist to this day. Many on the left are entirely convinced that Trump is the devil, while many on the right believe that he is the greatest American that ever lived.

Of course the truth is that Trump is not actually on the far end of the political spectrum that currently exists in this country. There is a lot about Trump that liberals should actually like, and there is a lot about Trump that conservatives should actually be criticizing. But that is not how the debate has been framed. If you hate Trump you are on the left, and if you love Trump you are on the right, and that is the end of the story.

In 2020, a couple things happened that caused new manufactured waves of outrage. One was the tragic death of George Floyd. His death sparked the BLM movement, and our country was whipped up into an emotional frenzy. Protests, civil unrest and riots erupted all over the nation, and the level of violence that we witnessed shocked the entire planet.

But if you did not support the protesters, you were suddenly a bad person. Instead, it was the police that were relentlessly demonized by the media, and this greatly upset a lot of us that are very supportive of the police.

Without a doubt, the U.S. has had problems with police brutality. And without a doubt, there is a lot of racism out there. I have been boldly speaking out against racism for many years, and I will continue to speak out against it. I believe that every man, woman and child on the entire planet was created equal, and I believe that every single one of us possesses immense value. But there were millions upon millions of us that did not agree with the political agenda of the BLM movement, and many of the specific political positions that the organization adopted were deeply alarming. Does that make us bad just because we don’t agree with their far left agenda?

2020 also brought us the COVID pandemic. Our societal divisions became deeper than ever before as we endlessly debated about masks, vaccines, mandates and other restrictions. Manufactured waves of outrage about COVID dominated our national discourse for nearly two full years, but we were finally getting to a point where we were almost ready to put it all behind us.

And then the Ukraine war came along, and now everyone has a reason to be outraged again. I think that Elon Musk summed things up very well in one of his latest tweets.

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2022

You may have noticed that hordes of social media lemmings are plastering their profiles with Ukrainian flags these days. Next month, they may have to switch back to COVID again. Then in May, the hot topic may be racial injustice. Of course every June is reserved for the alphabet people.

Social media has become a very clear reflection of society as a whole, and so much of what goes on in our world today is being driven by social media. Last week, I was stunned to learn that the Biden administration had actually conducted a briefing on the war in Ukraine for 30 key TikTok influencers… "To get ahead of misinformation and spread its messaging, the Biden administration on Thursday briefed 30 top TikTok stars on key information regarding the war in Ukraine, The Washington Post reports.

The online influencers received updates about the U.S.’ “strategic goals in the region” while National Security Council staffers and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki “answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO, and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.”

Can you imagine the Reagan administration doing such a thing? Of course not. But the world has changed. Today, the elite need the support of influencers on social media, because those social media influencers can whip up tremendous waves of manufactured outrage.

If you asked random U.S. social media users to tell you what caused the war in Ukraine, the vast majority of them could not give you any sort of a coherent answer. And the vast majority of them would not be able to point out Ukraine on a blank map of the world. But they do know that Russia is really bad and Ukraine is really good, and that is all that the elite really need for them to know.

For years, I have been encouraging my readers to think for themselves. Because if you don’t learn to think for yourself, there are others that will be more than happy to do your thinking for you. That can be a tempting path to follow, but when you let others do your thinking for you it is way too easy for them to manipulate your emotions with the latest wave of manufactured outrage."

Monday, March 14, 2022

"In These Downbeat Times..."

"In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot live in the twenty-first century at each others throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation - and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so."
- Cornel West