Tuesday, March 16, 2021

"The Everything Bubble Burst! Stocks, Housing And Bond Markets Will Collapse Simultaneously"

Full screen recommended.
"The Everything Bubble Burst! Stocks, 
Housing And Bond Markets Will Collapse Simultaneously"
by Epic Economist

"The Everything Bubble never seemed so close to explode. The stock market crash, the housing bubble burst, and the bond price collapse are likely to happen simultaneously, causing an astronomical blowup that will certainly trigger the next financial crisis. Throughout the past year, the Federal Reserve's monetary policies managed to expand multiple bubbles at the same time. Stocks, real estate, bonds, and all sorts of speculative investments have all experienced historic inflations. Now, all of these bubbles are at the brink of deflation, and several experts are sounding the alarm for the monetary disaster the United States is about to face - one, they say, that will lead us to the Great Depression that was kicked off after the deep recession of 2008. That's what we're going to expose in this video.

Over the past year, the flood of liquidity and ultra-accommodative monetary policies has simultaneously inflated several bubbles across the stock, real estate and bond markets. Consequently, the result of cheap debt and an enormous amount of liquidity is the boom of household net worth as a percentage of disposable personal income.

On the other hand, while it may seem that Americans are getting more wealthy, the truth is that only a small portion of the population has benefited from these policies. That is to say, by trying to forge a wealth expansion, the Fed ended up exacerbating the wealth inequality gap, making the top 10% even richer while the majority of the population remained financially vulnerable. And this unbalanced framework is the very foundation that will lead to the deflation of the Everything Bubble.

Once again America has entered into a housing bubble territory as the persistent suppression of borrowing costs, liberal lending policies, and the constant liquidity injections have all contributed to a historical increase in home prices. A lean inventory and a mass migration trend have also made home price appreciation eclipse long-term price trends. But, of course, the current housing rally has been primarily driven by record-low mortgage rates. Therefore, all of that monetary support is about to be reversed by rising interest rates. Considering prices are remarkably up and the demand remains high, very soon there will be a rush to sell to a diminishing group of buyers. The logic of the housing bubble burst is pretty simple: given the unsustainable rise in prices, the market will be forced to a correction, and the resulting price decline will likely be equally as sharp.

When it comes to the bond market, higher interest rates pose an even bigger threat. Since yields represent a function of price, there is an inverse correlation between prices and interest rates. Thus, higher rates are translated into lower bond prices. In this case, bond price deflation will occur as a rapid increase in both rates and defaults is very likely to happen at a greater extent and at a much faster pace than the Federal Reserve can absorb.

Furthermore, it's in the stock market that things get a lot trickier. During a “market frenzy,” as the one we're currently witnessing, investors have to continuously overpay for assets to keep prices climbing higher. Just as in the real estate and the bond market, the problem starts when interest rates start to rise. In view of the fact that the frantic rally in corporate leverage is being supported by weak economic growth, higher rates will severely impact corporate profitability and financing activities.

Countless warnings of an imminent stock market crash are being echoed by veteran investors and financial strategists. Economist and financial analyst Harry Dent has recently alerted that stock prices could face an 80% crash. It could be “the biggest crash ever,” and it will be “the initiation of the next big economic downturn. A huge collapse is coming. This thing will be hell,” Dent predicts.

When asked why this downturn will be so harsh, the analyst stressed that "the only reason the 2008 downturn didn’t turn into a depression was that they turned on the monetary spigots so hard and blew us out of it, which kept the bubble going. They kept printing money and put it off. Now we’ve got a bigger bubble. This downturn is going to be the Great Depression that the deep recession of 2008 was falling into."

The failure to address the collateral effects of ongoing monetary policies, given a decade of experience of mounting debt and deficits obstructing organic growth, is extremely troublesome. The U.S. economy is literally on eternal life support. And the latest events clearly show the whole system is addicted to fiscal and monetary stimulus. And as the economy is facing a relentless collapse, by extension, the stock market is approaching the end-game."
Posted by at No comments:

“An Incredibly Important Turning Point”

“An Incredibly Important Turning Point”
by Brian Maher

"Fact #1: Reams of stocks have been trading at 52-week highs.
Fact #2: Reams of stocks have been trading at 52-week lows.

Not since 1984 - the year not the book - has the stock market manifested such violent schizophrenia. Sentiment Trader: "[We recently saw] the biggest split in almost 40 years. There were so many stocks hitting 52-week highs AND 52-week lows on both the NYSE and Nasdaq that it registered the 2nd most extreme reading since 1984."

Thus we find the stock market a riot of warring signals…A traffic light flashing red and green both. A road sign arrowing in opposing directions. A compass giving north and south indications. In brief, a market convulsed by schizophrenic fevers.

Mr. Larry McDonald, he of "The Bear Traps Report", gulps, "we are sitting on an incredibly important turning point." Which way will its mood swing next? To despair… or rapture?History’s answer, anon. First, a look in on the psychiatric ward…

Anxious Markets: The Dow Jones gave back 127 points today. And so a winning, seven-day run ends… as must all things good. The S&P lost six points while the Nasdaq managed to wring an 11-point gain. Why were markets in heavier spirits today?

The Federal Reserve is currently huddled in conference. Investors fear it might wire the wrong message tomorrow. CNBC: "There’s growing concern among investors that interest rates may continue to climb, snuffing out the comeback for equities. The market fell to its session lows when the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield briefly rose above 1.62% in afternoon trading."

Again, which way will the market mood swing next — to despair — or rapture?

Spiking Interest Rates: Here is the argument for despair, as CNBC suggests: Interest rates are on the jump. The bellwether 10-year Treasury note presently yields 1.62%. A slender offering by history’s standard, it is true. But the same 10-year Treasury note yielded 0.91% to open the year. Thus we have witnessed an increase of 71 basis points in 2.5 months.

As Mr. Louis Gave, CEO of Gavekal Research, reminds us...A 50-basis point increase in interest rates approximates the annual budget of the United States Navy. At $160 billion, the annual budget of the United States Navy is not… insignificant. The added debt service costs from a 71-basis point rise are even less so. Mr. Gave: "They will have to decide whether to let bond yields rise or not. If they let them normalize to pre-Covid levels, 10-year Treasury yields would have to rise to about 2.5%. But if they do that, the funding of the government becomes problematic… The U.S. is already borrowing money to pay its interest today. If rates go up, they’re getting into the cycle where they have to borrow more just to be able to pay interest, which is not a good position."

An Earthquake: Jim Rickards labels the alarming rate spike an “earthquake:” “If you think that the move from 0.91% to 1.6% is small, it’s not. In the bond market, that’s an earthquake.” Yet the true earthquake — the “big one” — remains a future catastrophe.

The stock market and the economy have risen upon a San Andreas Fault of artificially low interest rates. Tectonic energies, potential energies and kinetic energies presently meet in savage collision… tremendous masses... pushing… shifting... groaning. Markets sense that inflationary forces, long dormant, are mounting. They have the dynamism of $1.9 trillion in “stimulus” in back of them. Further spending later this year will load additional inflation pressures. These forces are shouldering interest rates higher.

The Trigger: If rates rise much above 2%, some believe the plates will slip… and fantastic seismic energies will unleash the “big one.” The market would go rolling into the ocean. And the economy likely with it. Others believe rates must rise to 3% or higher before the plates give way. No one knows the precise figure, of course. But beyond all questioning: Artificially low rates keep the $85 trillion edifice of public and private debt standing.

No Foundation:This architectural atrocity stretches thousands of feet into the sky — but only inches into the earth. That is, it is all high-rise and no foundation. It is all height and no depth. The thing would come heaping down if rates rise markedly... as the earth shakes ferociously beneath it. Thus is the peril of building upon a deeply unstable fault line. But the Federal Reserve keeps piling one story upon the other… Chief architect Jerome Powell insists the foundations are secure. Inflation is no menace because unemployment remains elevated, and the economy runs at diminished capacity.

Inflation Can Run “Hot”: Only when unemployment returns to pre-pandemic depths... and inflation runs persistently at 2%... will he turn his attentions to the ground beneath him. After all, the fellow reasons, inflation has been dormant for decades. Interest rates have dropped across the same space. The trendlines remain fixed in a solid position.

What if he does attain his 2% inflation? He believes he can allow inflation to run “hot” for a stretch. He can dial down the temperature again if sweat begins to drip. But can he? Have another guess, argues Michael Hartnett — Bank of America's chief investment strategist.

Is the 40-Year Cycle Ending? The cycle is reversing, he claims. Both inflation and interest rates are heading the other way: "The lower inflation of the last 40 years that sent interest rates down and stock market valuations higher has reached a turning point. We believe we are at a secular turning point for both inflation and interest rates."

But why? "We believe 2020 likely marked a secular low point for inflation and interest rates due to a reversal of deflationary secular factors, fiscal excess, and an explosive cyclical reopening of the global economy creating excess demand for goods, services and labor."

Market history has witnessed eight major cycles dating to 1871. Investors grabbed the greatest gains — nearly all of them — in four cycles of the eight.Investors handed over their gains in the others, robbed by the silent thief of inflation.

Importantly: The bulking majority of market gains across these cycles were harvested during disinflationary cycles — not inflationary cycles.

A Decade of Losses: What if Mr. Hartnett is correct? What if the 40-year cycle of declining inflation and declining interest rates is ending? What if both are streaking higher? It would suggest rough going for stocks during the coming years... as the cycle swings from disinflation… to inflation. At present valuations, stocks could shed 50% or more of last decade’s gains. By some estimates, your odds of losing money in the stock market approach 100% — odds that make the bravest fellow quail.

This time is different, say Wall Street’s drummers. Of course. It always is. But if a hangover exists in direct proportion to the binge that produced it… investors may be down for the next decade..."
Posted by at No comments:

The Daily "Near You?"

Savannah, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
Posted by at No comments:

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 3/16/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 3/16/21"
○
"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
○
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/16/21

"TOMORROW The Fed. Will Make Or Break The Stock Market"

- https://traderschoice.net/
○
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
○
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
○
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
March 16th to 17th, Updated Daily 
○
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."
○
Daily Job Cuts
Posted by at No comments:

"The Great Thing..."

"The great thing about the internet is that you get to meet people you
would otherwise only meet if you were committed to the same asylum."
- Robert Brault
Posted by at No comments:

"An Alternative History

"An Alternative History
by Bill Bonner

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”
– James Madison

"YOUGHAL, IRELAND – “We need to remember,” says Joe Biden, “that the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. No, it’s all of us. All of us.” We don’t recall ever making any decision for the government… nor ever having the slightest influence over any decision the government ever made. Nobody ever asked our opinion, and our vote was inconsequential. Apparently, “all of us” does not include us. Instead, decisions are made by others – lobbyists, legislative aides, bureaucrats, hacks, and cronies. They are the ones, for example, who wrote the latest 600-page American Rescue Plan.

How could you expect them to neglect rescuing the people most important to them – themselves? Every penny of that $1.9 trillion will go into somebody’s pocket. Ordinary taxpayers will get some. But so will the scientists at the National Science Foundation, the artistes at the National Endowment for the Arts… the people (whoever they are) who take care of environmental problems in poor areas… the folks who run Amtrak… the people at the Bureau for Indian Affairs… firefighters… minority farmers… the Corporation for Public Broadcasting… and so on.

A billion here. A billion there. And pretty soon, you’ve taken care of most everyone who matters to the government. For all the coins tossed to the hapless mob, the real money still goes to the insiders. In the American Rescue Plan, for example, $520 billion goes to the 90% of the eligible public. The rest – $1.4 trillion – is shared about among those with good lobbyists.

Wealth and Privileges: Government has one major purpose and one only – to help the elite keep its wealth and privileges. Everyone else is a pawn… a statistic… or a useful idiot. Fortunately for the feds, there are millions of them. And in this Bubble Epoch, Americans are ready to believe that they can all live at someone else’s expense.

Some 70% of the American public is said to approve of the latest something-for-everyone giveaway, perhaps not realizing that the something must also come from someone – most often, themselves. There is no other source. Even printing-press money must be reckoned with some day. What the government giveth, in other words, it must taketh, too… and in larger amounts (in order to have a fat margin for those who control it).

This is not to say that a government cannot perform useful functions. But all that it does, all the time, is subservient to its major role: to keep the rich and powerful becoming richer and more powerful. That is the secret to understanding the last 20 years. The feds did foolish things… But they were not foolish for “all of us.” Only most of us All of us? Not by a long shot. And here, Dear Reader, is the lowdown.

Alternative History: Herewith an alternative history… Imagine that America enjoyed three especially wise and courageous leaders… who looked the American people in the eye at critical moments and leveled with them. Three simple, short presidential speeches might have changed the course of history.

George W. Bush: "Some bad guys blew up a couple buildings in New York… and struck the Pentagon, too. We have joined with the police from countries all over the world to bring the people behind this to justice. Don’t worry. We’ll get them. And by the way, we’re withdrawing all our troops from the Mideast. That was a mistake from the get-go."

No War on Terror. No invasion of Iraq. No chaos in the Levant. No $7 trillion bill. No 800,000 dead. No 37 million displaced. No “warrior culture.” No “see something, say something.” Just old-fashioned gumshoe work… at trivial cost.

Barack Obama: "Yes, we are seeing a shakeout on Wall Street. But no way am I going to ask Americans making an average of $40,000 per year to bail out guys who have been taking in million-dollar bonuses. Wall Street can take care of itself."

No need for former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke’s ersatz “courage to act.” No TARP. No TAF. No TALF. No TSLF. No GM rescue. No AIG, Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, Chase, Goldman Sachs bailouts. No quantitative easing. No $3.6 trillion in additional money-printing and $4.6 trillion in extra expenditures. No suppression of interest rates. No big bounce in the stock market. No new bubble.

Donald Trump: "We face a potential health crisis. At risk are old people and those with compromised immune systems. We’re going to make every effort to protect them, using every resource available to our medical care industries. Approximately 5% of the population is in danger of dying from the disease – the old and weak, who are vulnerable to COVID- 19, just as they would be to any new flu strain. The risk to the rest is not enough to make a federal case of it. Of those who get the virus, outside of the most vulnerable groups, apparently, 99.7% survive. So, let’s keep our wits about us… and do our best to protect those who need it. But let’s not panic and make this thing worse."

No lockdowns. No mass unemployment. No supplemental employment benefits. No $733 billion Payroll Protection Program. No $2.2 CARES Act. No Response and Relief Act for almost $1 trillion more. And no American Rescue Plan for nearly $2 trillion on top of that.

No bankrupt restaurants, hotels, gyms, or movie theaters. No millions of people, unemployed, waiting for their stimmy checks.

No hordes of young traders bidding up prices for companies that have never made a dime and are probably worthless. No zero interest rates.

No borrowing spree by families, businesses, and the government – bringing total U.S. debt to $80 trillion… where it can’t possibly survive normal, market-set rates.

Money Spared: Imagine that. No big words. No bold new programs. No promises. No fantasies. No claims. No lies. And $15 trillion spared. But how then would the rich have gotten so rich? What would have driven up stock prices? Who would have paid all the Pentagon suppliers? And what about the big banks… What would have happened to the million-dollar paydays? And poor Dr. Fauci would be a nobody!

Oh, Dear Reader… it’s just too horrible to imagine. Thank God we found the leaders who could rise to the occasion. These were the men James Madison foresaw. Weaklings, cowards, and nincompoops… They destroyed the country, but they kept the money flowing!

Get With the Program: George W. Bush was ready and willing to go along with the Deep State’s forever war program. Barack Obama kept the wars going, bailed out Wall Street, and twisted the entire economy into a grotesque new shape (but made the rich richer than ever). Donald Trump… unable to stop the wars… unable to stop the financial damage… unable to understand the real threat of the COVID-19 Crisis… but willing and able to take the economic buffoonery up to a whole new level.

And now… what more could the mischievous gods ask? Joe Biden. Fool? Knave? Hack? Ready to bring more big paydays to all of those insiders… the elite who really are “the government”…while pretending to help “all of us.”
○
"Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat."
Latin of "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
Posted by at No comments:

"How It Really Is"

Posted by at No comments:

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! The US Economic FREE-FALL Collapse Is Picking Up Speed"

Gregory Mannarino,
"Alert! The US Economic FREE-FALL Collapse Is Picking Up Speed"
○
Related:
Posted by at No comments:

"Here And Now..."

"That we can never know," answered the wolf angrily. "That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything."
- David Clement Davies
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, March 15, 2021

"If You Are..."

"If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
 Come in!"

- Shel Silverstein
Posted by at No comments:

"Commercial Real Estate Catastrophe: Retail And Office Bankruptcies Triggering Major Meltdown In 2021"

Full screen recommended.
"Commercial Real Estate Catastrophe: 
Retail And Office Bankruptcies Triggering Major Meltdown In 2021"
by Epic Economist

"The commercial real estate collapse is worsening! Recent reports are alerting that investors could face a bloodbath of loan defaults in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars. Even the Fed has sounded the alarm saying potential business bankruptcies could lead to sharp declines in commercial property values due to high insolvency rates. Ever since the government-mandated shutdowns were put into place last year, numerous big cities were transformed into ghost towns, with lots of skyscrapers going dark, shopping centers almost completely empty, and countless closed restaurants ravaging America's economic landscape.

The $16 trillion sector was impacted in ways not seen since the Great Recession of 2008. And now, one year later, after several waves of business bankruptcies, many shopping mall owners remain unable to pay off their loans, which could trigger a crisis that would end up in the foreclosure of such properties, affecting banks, pension funds, investors, and bondholders that have invested in mall Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities, and resulting in major losses.

Moreover, dormant offices and deserted commercial buildings are also a fiscal time bomb for municipal budgets that are highly reliant on property taxes and have been registering real estate revenue losses of as much as 10 percent in 2021. That is to say, it seems evident that a major financial disaster is approaching, and the commercial real estate collapse will be the trigger to an unprecedented domino effect that will cause long-term damages to both the economy and markets in the months ahead. That's what we're going to analyze in this video.

The commercial real estate collapse has two main losers: retail and office space. After the introduction of restrictions in foot traffic and social distancing regulations, the widespread closure of brick-and-mortar stores, and the shift to remote work have caused the value of retail and office properties to plummet, plunging development projects underwater, which means the values of the properties are lower than the amount the owners owe.

On one hand, the retail apocalypse is putting malls at risk of major loan defaults, which could pose a serious problem for the financial sector. And on the other hand, empty office space is weighting upon city budgets that rely on property tax raises to fund public services, which could lead to another round of mass lay-offs as cities need to cut on expenses.

The International Council of Shopping Centers recently warned that, if mall tenants can’t pay rent, the consequent domino effect could cause long-term distress to financial markets. And if shopping mall owners are unable to meet their loans payments, that could result in a flood of mall foreclosures, which will affect investors, bondholders, banks and pension funds have invested in mall Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities

That's why industry experts say that mass loan defaults will cause a bloodbath on investors' earnings in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars. The losses are expected to hit bondholders like banks and pension funds and quickly mount. Then, the liquidity, or ability to sell assets, in the commercial real estate debt market could freeze up. In that way, the commercial real estate collapse can put malls at risk of extinction while also provoking a catastrophic financial crisis.

Moreover, a sharp decline in the value of commercial properties, especially emptied office buildings, is expected to critically compromise city budgets. Although for states, property taxes total less than 1 percent of tax revenue, for cities and towns they can account for up to 30 percent or more of the taxes used to fund local schools, and other public services. In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York alerted that property tax revenues were expected to drop by $2.5 billion this year as the value of hotel, retail, and office properties has already declined by 15.8 percent. The city revealed plans of mass lay-offs to occur by the end of the year and the same is likely to happen across several other cities.

All in all, the commercial real estate collapse is putting both the financial markets and the economy under some serious strains. There's just too much debt to service, and although property managers can try to defer some rents, finance some extensions, and dress up balance sheets, if the overall aspect of the economy doesn't show improvements soon enough, these properties will be bound to face foreclosure and a substantial value losses.

Meanwhile, the economic growth of major urban centers of the country may be impaired for decades as such areas have recorded the highest rates of business bankruptcies and store closings. Evidently, all of those determinants can contribute to push us further into the recession. At this point, everywhere we look there are still many warning signs reminding us another devastating crisis can burst at any moment."
Posted by at No comments:

Musical Interlude: Yanni, "1001"

Full screen recommended.
Yanni, "1001"
Posted by at No comments:

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Composed using 22 different images and over 180 hours of image data, the widefield mosaic spans an impressive 24 degrees across the sky.
Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiant Deneb lies near top center. Crowded with stars and luminous gas clouds Cygnus is also home to the dark, obscuring Northern Coal Sack Nebula, extending from Deneb toward the center of the view. The reddish glow of star forming regions NGC 7000 and IC 5070, the North America Nebula and Pelican Nebulas, are just left of Deneb. The Veil Nebula is a standout below and left of center. A supernova remnant, the Veil is some 1,400 light years away, but many other nebulae and star clusters are identifiable throughout the cosmic scene. Of course, Deneb itself is also known to northern hemisphere skygazers for its place in two asterisms -- marking the top of the Northern Cross and a vertex of the Summer Triangle.
Posted by at No comments:

Chet Raymo, “Time, Person, Year, Way...”

“Time, Person, Year, Way...”
by Chet Raymo

“According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the 25 most used nouns in the English language are: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life, hand, part, child, eye, woman, place, work, week, case, point, government, company, number, group, problem, fact.

All very prosaic. Very workaday. Time leads the way, with year, day and week bucking up the calendar. Hand takes precedence over eye. Man, child, woman in her place. Case in point: government and company. Problem precedes fact. Work is always with us, of course; play is not to be found. Nothing in the list that reflects science or technology or the lofty ruminations of academics. More surprising, nothing that reflects religion. When it comes right down to it, it's as the poet Rilke wrote in the Ninth Duino Elegy: "Perhaps we are here only to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate."

"Praise this world to the Angel," says Rilke. "Do not tell him the untellable...Show him some simple thing, refashioned by age after age, till it lives in our hands and eyes as a part of ourselves. Tell him things. He'll stand more astonished."
Posted by at No comments:

"When We Walk To The Edge..."

“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into
the darkness of unknown, we must believe one of two things will happen.
There will be something solid to stand on, or we will be taught how to fly.”
- Patrick Overton
Posted by at No comments:

"Walmart Big Screens Fly Off Shelves; Don't Be A Fool; Americans Can't Stop Spending; Tax Hike"

Jeremiah Babe,
"Walmart Big Screens Fly Off Shelves; Don't Be A Fool;
 Americans Can't Stop Spending; Tax Hike"
Posted by at No comments:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/15/21: “Critical Updates Plus! Mannarino Loses It Multiple Times”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/15/21:
“Critical Updates Plus! Mannarino Loses It Multiple Times”
Posted by at No comments:

The Daily "Near You?"

Janesville, Wisconsin, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
Posted by at No comments:

"Kool-Aid Time"

"Kool-Aid Time"
by Jeff Thomas

"Recently, the Los Angeles school district introduced a Microsoft-developed COVID tracking app, to allow students to collect data relative to their own COVID testing and that of their fellow students. In addition to the social implication of students judging each other based upon test results, all data will be reported to health authorities, should they wish to take action. The app will generate a QR code for each student and staff member, so that each can be regularly monitored. Superintendent Austin Beutner commented that the code is "Sort of like the golden ticket in ‘Willy Wonka.’ Everyone with this pass can easily get into a school building."

Of course, this makes no sense whatever. Most schools are not even open in California, due to the strength of the Teachers’ Union’s demands, but if and when schools do open, they will do so with a new paradigm: that all those attending the school can be named and shamed, should their COVID passes not be up to scratch.

A mere decade ago, such an autocratic development would have been big news. The very idea of a school district’s interference in the personal lives of students would have stood out dramatically. But the ’20s decade is no ordinary one. 2020 itself was the year of The Great Upset, in which all that seemed safe and predictable was tossed into the air. Police stood by as rioters created destruction in cities across the US. 

A national election was turned by both parties into an utter shambles. And an overactive media convinced entire nations of people that a seasonal virus was a pandemic for which every citizen must take an injection, in spite of the admission that the vaccine will not cure the virus nor even stop the transmission of it. And yet, should people refuse to take the vaccine, they may be deprived of the right to travel, go to work, or even congregate with others. Their punishment may be imprisonment within their own homes, should they refuse to get the unnecessary jab.

2021 will be even more chaotic, but the theme of the chaos will differ from that of 2020. The groundwork of confusion and uncertainty is now well in place and the next phase has begun – that of the removal of reality from the consciousness of the populace. This will be the period in which logic is tossed out on a wholesale basis.

As observed above, dramatic restrictions will be placed on schoolchildren as to whether or not they may attend, even though schools may remain closed. Non-citizens will be encouraged to cross the border into the US in their thousands, yet actual US citizens in Florida will be limited as to whether they are allowed to travel north, into Georgia, as punishment for having largely beaten the virus with minimal restrictions on personal movement.

Full-blown riots in cities across the nation will be tolerated, but the equivalent of a frat party break-in at the Capitol Building will be treated as a terrorist attack.

Children’s books will be banned due to racist content that clearly does not exist.

Children will be taught to respect over one hundred genders, even though the instructors themselves have difficulty making any sense of them all. We’ve already reached the point that any school-age child could accurately say, like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, "Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

What we shall experience in 2021 will be a rolling-out of logic that’s not just skewed but turned on its head. One Mister Orwell warned of this concept in his excellent books, "Animal Farm" and "1984." In the former, the leadership morphed from a state in which the motto was "All animals are equal," into a tyrannical one in which the motto became, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

In the latter book, the Ministry of Truth had three slogans: "War Is Peace," "Freedom Is Slavery," and "Ignorance Is Strength." Additionally, the Ministry created doublethink – the ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs at the same time, yet to believe that both are true. "Truth" was malleable. It was whatever was convenient for the Powers that Be to dictate at any given time. And we are seeing that begin to play out larger in today’s world.

"Conspiracy theory" has now come to mean any explanation that does not entirely agree with the official narrative. "The science" has become a catch phrase that, when attached to any narrative, with or without supporting evidence, is intended to give the narrative a seal of approval as fact.

We are in the early stages of the elimination of Truth as a basis of belief. To many, this Orwellian development may seem unprecedented, but in fact, it’s been used many times in the past. Vladimir Lenin, Chairman Mao, Idi Amin and many other despots made use of it. Adolf Hitler, with the help of Joseph Goebbels, made it an art form.

Yet we need not look to political leaders to see evidence of the elimination of Truth. It’s been around in one form or another for as long as mankind has existed. Although there have been prophets throughout history who have sought to expand the general awareness of truth, most of them have been co-opted over the millennia to create organized religions, which accomplish the exact opposite of Truth. Once religion becomes an institution, it’s the institution itself that becomes sacrosanct. Strict rules are created, with accompanying punishments either in this world or the hereafter.

It may be suggested that the elimination of Truth that we’re being expected to accept at present is of no real consequence, that it’s just a trend that will fizzle out at some point and the world will return to normal. But when entire governments, along with their henchmen in the media, make the elimination of Truth a major campaign, for its own sake, we should take caution.

As to how far this can go once we give in and play along, we can look to Guyana in 1978, where hundreds of people, by complying blindly with their leader, accepted an ongoing cancellation of logic until they willingly drank the Kool-Aid that would kill them. These were otherwise normal people, who had made the one mistake of continuing to go along each time they were told yet another "Truth" that was impossible.

As easy as it is to go along with political correctness, the dumbing down of our children and the general acceptance of "science" that’s clearly not science, it’s risky indeed. It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. As you know, government bureaucrats never let a crisis go to waste. It’s their modus operandi. And those who promote the elimination of Truth should be looked upon as a very real danger."
Posted by at No comments:

"A Refining Process..."

“Life is a refining process. Our response to it determines whether we’ll be ground down or polished up. On a piano, one person sits down and plays sonatas, while another merely bangs away at “Chopsticks.” The piano is not responsible. It’s how you touch the keys that makes the difference. It’s how you play what life gives you that determines your joy and shine.”
- Barbara Johnson
Posted by at No comments:

"Stimulus Addiction Disorder: The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid"

"Stimulus Addiction Disorder: 
The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"For those who suspect the status quo is unsustainable but aren't quite sure why, I've prepared a simple chart that explains the financial precariousness many sense. The chart above depicts the two core elements of a debt-based, consumerist economy: disposable earnings, defined as the earnings left after paying for essentials which can then be used to service debt and debt.

In other words, if all the household earnings are spent on non-discretionary expenses (rent or mortgage, taxes, food, utilities, healthcare, etc.) then there is no money left to pay the interest and principal on a loan. Lenders consider this household uncreditworthy for the simple reason that their earnings cannot support the monthly nut of debt service (interest and principal).

Note the word earnings as opposed to income. Social entitlements such as Social Security are income but they are funded by taxes paid by those with earnings. (All of America's social entitlements are pay as you go - the trust funds are PR fiction.) The investment income (interest) paid to owners of Treasury bonds is also paid by taxes on earnings.

All the interest and principal of debt is ultimately paid out of earnings, either private-sector debt paid directly out of wages or public-sector debt paid out of taxes which are paid out of earnings.

The problem with servicing debt out of income is two-fold: one, earnings of the bottom 95% have been stagnant for decades, which means earnings aren't actually rising in terms of the goods and services they can buy, and two, the cost of non-discretionary expenses (essentials) has been rising, especially the big-ticket costs such as housing, healthcare and higher education.

You see the problem: since earnings are flat and the cost of essentials are steadily rising, there is less disposable earnings left every month to service debt. This is a problem in an economy like America's that depends on debt-funded consumption to fuel "growth." No increase in debt means no increase in consumption which means no "growth."

In response, the status quo - the Federal Reserve and the federal government - have played two financial tricks to maintain the illusion that earnings can support more debt: one, the Fed has lowered interest rates to near-zero, reducing the costs of mortgages (but not the sky-high interest rates charged on student loans or credit cards, of course) so the same stagnant earnings can support a much larger mortgage, and two, the federal government has increased its own borrowing to fund various stimulus programs, most of which are corporate welfare to monopolies and cartels in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, government contracts, etc. But as the consumerist economy weakens, the government is increasing its stimulus to households as well - all with borrowed money that is theoretically serviced by taxes on earnings.

Alas, these tricks are not sustainable. Interest rates can't go lower than zero without bankrupting the banking sector, and federal spending is completely untethered from tax revenues. The "solution" is obvious: borrow the money needed to service new and existing debt. This is the definition of a zombie economy comprised of zombie companies and zombie consumers that need to borrow more to sustain the illusion of solvency, i.e. that their disposable earnings are sufficient to service all their debts.

Notice that the debt-disposable pyramid is inverted: an ever-larger amount of debt is being piled on an ever-shrinking amount of disposable earnings. The trick of borrowing more to make the payments on the existing debt and fund new consumption results in a compounding of debt, not an arithmatic (linear) increase in debt: debt grows geometrically while the disposable earnings needed to service the debt remain stagnant.

The only "solution" left is Stimulus Addiction Disorder (SAD): the Fed must create trillions of dollars out of thin air to buy the Treasury bonds that are sold to fund trillions of dollars in stimulus - not once or twice, but from now on until the entire travesty of a mockery of a sham collapses under its own weight of flim-flammery and fraud.

Artifice, illusion and simulacra are not real, and what's not real vanishes back into the air whence it came. One glance at the chart above explains why the status quo is locked on run to fail and will implode in a spectacular collapse of the unsustainable debt super-nova. SAD, to be sure."
Posted by at No comments:

"Could Be Worse..."

“I’d been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it’s sort of depressing, thinking how many times I’d been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse.”
- Jim Butcher
Posted by at No comments:

"Beware The The Ides Of March"

Plotting, premonition and chaotic violence – 
an ancient account of Caesar’s demise.
by Voices of the Past
‘The body of Caesar lay just where it fell, ignominiously stained with blood – a man who had advanced westward as far as Britain and the Ocean, and who had intended to advance eastward against the realms of the Parthians and Indians, so that, with them also subdued, an empire of all land and sea might be brought under the power of a single head. There he lay.’

Nicolaus of Damascus was a prominent Jewish writer, philosopher and statesman of the first centuries BCE and CE. More than earning his multi-hyphenate status, during his life he served as a tutor to the children of Antony and Cleopatra and met, as an emissary, the emperor Augustus, writing, among other works, his biography – from which this vivid account of Julius Caesar’s assassination is excerpted. A haunting depiction of one of the most infamous moments in history, his retelling is rich with context, dramatic ironies and illustrative details, including glimpses into the Roman Senates’ plotting and the chaotic violence of the ultimate act."
○
As depicted by HBO's "Rome:
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
-  William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
HBO, "Rome", The murder of Julius Caesar.
The aftermath...
HBO, "Rome", Octavian Vs. the Senate
Posted by at No comments:

"And It Was Pointless..."

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”
- Charles Frazier
○
“Never be ashamed of a scar.
It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.”
- Unknown
Posted by at No comments:

"A Bad Bet"

"A Bad Bet"
By Bill Bonner

"Caesar: The Ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone."
– "Julius Caesar," Act III, Scene I

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We’re having a jolly time here in Ireland. We just finished our quarantine (two weeks after arrival). But the whole country is buttoned down. We’re not permitted to go more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from home… unless we have a good reason. Whether the lockdowns have done any good or not, we don’t know. But Ireland has only 93 deaths per 100,000 population. The U.S. is up to 163.

In any case, lockdowns are okay with us. We work from home, anyway. And there’s nowhere we especially want to go. We do need provisions, however. “Can we go into town?” we asked our handyman, Matt. “It’s a little further than 5 kilometers.” “Oh… don’t worry about it. This is the countryside. Everybody goes more than 3 miles. The roads twist around and soon, you’ve gone 3 miles and gotten nowhere. “Besides,” he added with a sly smile, “it’s three miles as the crow flies.”

As the Crow Flies: Stopped by the Gardai (the local constabulary)… in a roadblock: “You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?” “Not as the crow flies,” we replied. “Now what kind of crows are these? You must be at least 10 miles from Youghal. Must be some American crows. Go along with you… and remember the 3-mile limit.” “Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”

Marvelous Stone Lodge: This past weekend, we took up our regular pastime – building things. Wherever we go, we usually have projects underway. And when we return, we find our tools and pick up where we left off. About a quarter mile from the house was an overgrown, abandoned gatehouse. So covered in vines was it, that we didn’t even know it was there when we bought the place. Then, when winter came, among the vines and briars, we found a marvelous little lodge, built of cut stone, with an octagonal center and two wings. “This would make a great office,” said Elizabeth. And so, we set to work.

It is a small project. And we intended to do it ourselves and had already done some clearing the year before. We intended to return to it last May. But along came the COVID-19. Trapped in Argentina, we could make no progress, so we gave the job to our friend, Mick, a local Irish builder. He tore off the old roof and put back a new one… took down the wobbly walls and rebuilt them, pointing up the joints of the others.
Mick “pints” up the joints.

This Is Ireland: And now, we are insulating, sheathing… and electrifying. While we can do these things ourselves, we are not good at them. So, we let the professionals continue and turn our attention to simpler, rougher work outside. Specifically, we are putting up a shed, where we’ll be able to stack our firewood and keep a few tools.

Normally, you build walls before you put on the roof. But this is Ireland, and it rains a lot. We need to get the space covered as soon as possible. Stonemasonry is fun to do. But it takes time. Instead, we propped the roof ridge on top of the old stone wall… and ran the rafters down to a 2x10, attached to two posts. Builders will notice that the rafters are neither on 18” centers, nor 24” centers. They’re on 1-meter (about 3-foot) centers. Ireland has gone metric. And with no snow load to worry about, and lightweight tin, roofing frames tend to be on the light side, too.
A shed in a hurry.
Thus, in a couple of days, we were able to get the roof on. Now, with some protected space available, it will be easier to go back and fill in the missing stone walls.

World of Money: Meanwhile… In the world of money, everything is possible. Everything is at play. Nothing is true. Nothing is straight or on-the-level. Everything is subject to interpretation and manipulation, lies and humbuggery. It’s La Bubble Epoch. The best of times… and the worst of times. Grand and squalid. An information age, where nobody knows anything, and even the surest lessons of history are forgotten.

Over the weekend, the sober financial press began taking stock of Joe Biden’s remarkable $1.9 trillion boondoggle. The Wall Street Journal, for example, notes that the giveaways are likely to become permanent. It is already fretting about the taxes that will be needed to pay for them: "A group of progressive lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) recently proposed a so-called ultra-millionaire tax. The legislation would create a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion and an additional 1% surtax on those above $1 billion."

The Financial Times, meanwhile, takes a more historical view. Biden is “country-building,” it says. And the whole nation is edging away from Ronald Reagan’s small government and back towards the big, fat budgets of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. And why not? With so much free money available, says Maya MacGuineas, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, lawmakers are “almost numb” to fiscal restraints.

Adds Chattanooga mayor, Andy Berke: “People have been knocking on our doors asking for affordable housing, job training and enhanced transit… The public is excited to see the federal government taking action after way too many years of dysfunction.”

No Turning Around: At least The Economist notices the cliff ahead. "Yet, though today’s policymakers have a guaranteed place in economic history, they may not come to be seen as heroes. That is because America is running an unpredictable three-pronged economic experiment that features historic levels of fiscal stimulus, a more tolerant attitude at the Fed[eral Reserve] towards temporary overshoots in inflation, and huge pent-up savings which no one knows if consumers will hoard or spend. This experiment has no parallel since the second world war. The danger for America and the world is that the economy overheats…

Mr. Biden’s stimulus is a big gamble. If it pays off, America will avoid the miserable low-inflation, low-rate trap in which Japan and Europe look stuck. Other central banks may copy the Fed’s new target. Massive fiscal stimulus may become the normal response to recessions. The risk, however, is that America is left with rising debts, an inflation problem and a central bank facing a test of its credibility."

Big gamble? What are the odds? 

No, there’s no theoretical reason to think that real output can be replaced with fake money.

No, there’s no example in history where money-printing has proven successful at creating sustained, real economic growth and prosperity.

No, there’s no way to stop the money-printing. Households, businesses, and the government now rely on it.

No, there’s no painless way to return to normal interest rates and normal fiscal/monetary policies.

No, there’s no plausible reason to think that this won’t end in disaster, just like every other episode of runaway money-printing in history.

But heck… this is La Bubble Epoch… everything is possible… even things that are impossible. Hand out $1.9 trillion in money you don’t have… to people who don’t need it, haven’t earned it, and don’t deserve it? No one will lend you that much, so just print it up yourself. A gamble? Perhaps. But we’ll take the other side of that bet."
Posted by at 1 comment:

"How It Really Is"

 

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)