Today, additional evidence that recession — or worse — is in sight.
But first, it appears the “Powell put” may extend the countdown clock…
Since Jerome Powell’s dovish comments on Friday, the Dow Jones has been up and away… as an addict thrills to the promise of additional stimulant.
It leaped another 256 points today. Continue reading
The general belief among average citizens is that the purpose of central banks is to help the economy by fighting inflation and mitigating financial crisis. It’s a fairy tale that politicians like to encourage. If there were any truth to it, however, where was the Federal Reserve during the crisis of 2007? Rather than helping, it was widening the crisis with its easy money policies.
While central banks are not a government entity, their primary purpose is to create money for the benefit of the government. By mindlessly printing fiat currency, central banks create a shaky illusion of financial stability. In reality, each central bank is a monopoly that controls the production of distribution of currency and interest rates. Most importantly, it also controls gold reserves. While paper currency allegedly has the backing of the government, it is the central bank that controls the value of the currency at any specific time. Continue reading
While It’s Not Selling Them, Yet, It Reportedly Stopped Buying Them ‘Several Weeks Ago.’
Despite positive signs that Chinese President Xi Jinping may make a wink-and-nod concession to the U.S. overnight at the Boao Forum, a new report suggests China has already engaged its so-called “nuclear option.” Continue reading
Almost every weekday, some arm of the US government issues some sort of economic statistic. News media and financial analysts review and report it. Then 99.9% of the adult population, and probably 90% of the financial industry, forget all about it. And they’re probably right to do so.
The monthly jobs report isn’t like that. Yes, any single month doesn’t tell us much. Yes, the Labor Department’s methodology has some flaws, both major and minor. But imperfect as it is, the jobs report is our best look at the economy’s pulse. Jobs matter in a visceral way to almost all of us, as you know well if you’ve ever lost one. Almost any survey that asked questions around employment would reveal the angst that many Americans feel about the possibility of losing their jobs.
Right now, automation tops the list of things that might threaten our jobs. Artificial intelligence and robotics technology are rapidly learning to do what human workers do, but better, faster, and cheaper. Continue reading
Over the coming months, I believe we could see an economic meltdown at least six times the size of the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown. That’s right: I believe we could see an economic meltdown at least six times the size of the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown
Circumstances lead me to believe it could play out like the meltdown I experienced in 1998 after Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) failed.
This time, however, there will be several crucial differences that will leave investors and regulators unprepared.
In the national defense community, military commanders are known for fighting the last war. They study their prior failures in preparation for the next conflict. The problem is that each war inevitably involves new tactics for which they’re completely unprepared.
Please see the source for the video.
David Stockman is warning about the Trump administration’s tax overhaul plan, Federal Reserve policy, saying they could play into a severe stock market sell-off.
Stockman, the Reagan administration’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, isn’t stepping away from his thesis that the 8½-year-old rally is in serious danger.
Societe Generale SA
- HSBC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley say end of market boom is nigh
- Breakdown in trading patterns is signal to get out soon
HSBC Holdings Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley see mounting evidence that global markets are in the last stage of their rallies before a downturn in the business cycle.
Analysts at the Wall Street behemoths cite signals including the breakdown of long-standing relationships between stocks, bonds and commodities as well as investors ignoring valuation fundamentals and data. It all means stock and credit markets are at risk of a painful drop. Continue reading
In an interview that included a wide range of topics, Bannon said “We’re at economic war with China,” and that the U.S. is at risk of losing. “If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, 10 years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”
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In the interview, Bannon urged tough trade sanctions against Beijing, and said China is unlikely to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. Continue reading
Two weeks after Aleksandar Kocic highlighted the moment in 2012 when the market stopped caring about newsflow and reality, and, in a word “broke” with pervasive complacency setting in regardless of macro uncertainty…
… Deutsche Bank’s post modernist master of stream-of-consciousness narrative is back with a new essay dissecting his favorite topic, the interplay between the Fed and markets, the so-called “umbilical limbo” that connects the two in the form of ultraeasy monetary policy and QE in general, and more importantly, the narrative that the Fed has spun over the past ten years, which while supportive of risk assets, has concurrently resulted in what Kocic calls a “permanent state of exception” from normalcy as a result of the Fed decision to defer the financial crisis indefinitely. Continue reading
Wall Street firms and traders are moving more and more into the realm of AI’s and new tech.
The latest improvment will come from Nasdaq Inc. Fund managers and some traders will get some help starting Tuesday in using data from sources like social media, announcements from central bank and retail sentiment to help improve their bottom line. Continue reading
By all appearances notes SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo, President Trump is doing his damnedest to turn around the economy, revitalize jobs and bring back prosperity. But the larger trends are already in place; the cycle is turning, and the bust cannot be put off forever.
Federal Reserve policy has literally set the country up for collapse, and though the central bank has been very creative in making the impossible work, and putting off disaster, nothing can hold back the flood forever.Unfortunately, it looks like Trump may be blamed for a financial crisis that he didn’t cause. Analysts, including notably Brandon Smith, may be correct in pinpointing the attempt to use the new and highly controversial president as a scapegoat for the dirty work of the bankers.
The conditions are there, and the consequences were built in when the bubble was still being pumped up. Someday it will burst. When, how, and how bad remains to be seen.
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If former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is correct, an Economic Doomsday is here. The second financial bubble is going to soon burst, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. That’s because, as Paul stated, the Federal Reserve has set up the American economy for financial collapse for printing trillions of dollars back in 2008 and 2009. Continue reading
Jack Ma, one of China’s most successful and richest entrepreneurs, has responded to America’s growing globalization backlash, arguing that the superpower has benefited immensely from the process – but that it has largely squandered its wealth.
“American international companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization,” Ma – the founder of Alibaba, the world’s largest online retailer – told participants on the second day of Davos. “The past 30 years, companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft made tons of money.”
The question is: where did that money go? It was wasted, Ma explained. Continue reading
The hunt for money is intensifying with the aid of banks no less. India was the balloon. They simply canceled the current with no notice and imposed a 90% tax on anyone holding the high denomination notes. This is how the world governments operate. The first bail-in was done in Cyprus. We were even contacted by members of the government trying to push back against the EU. We provided the solution, but the government did what the EU wanted because this was a test. If they got away with it in Cyprus, then the “bail-in” would become a contagion. The politicians lied, as usual, and said that policy would NEVER be applied in Europe. It is now standard around the world. We warned, Cyprus, then Greece – who would be next. Continue reading
EUROPE’s biggest banks are vulnerable and pose a huge risk to financial stability, according to some of Wall Street’s top bankers.
Financial heavyweights from the US and Switzerland joined forces to sound the alarm over Deutsche Bank and its peers.
Goldman Sachs’ president Gary Cohn hit out at eurozone banks for failing to clean-up their balance sheets after the financial crisis. Continue reading
If you don’t believe today’s infiltrated and corrupted America would wage economic warfare on its “ally”, Great Britain, think again. It already happened. You just missed the boat:
S&P cuts UK credit rating on Brexit fears
In the US Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential nomination. However, Republican convention delegates are plotting to deny Trump the nomination that the people have voted him. The Republican political establishment is showing an unwillingness to accept democratic outcomes.
The people chose, but their choice is unacceptable to the establishment which intends to substitute its choice for the people’s choice. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 