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04.06.20- Food Banks Warn They Will Soon Run Out Of Food As Economic Suffering Explodes All Over America
What are hungry Americans going to do when the food banks don't have any more food for them? Over the past couple of weeks, we have witnessed the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history. Since most of those workers did not have any sort of a cushion to fall bank on, a lot of of them have been forced to seek out emergency assistance for themselves and their families almost immediately. Read More
04.04.20- Testing for DNA...Er...
Someone who wishes to remain so Anonymous that they don't even want me to use their initials spotted this article and passed it along. It has me wondering, and doubtless, will have you wondering too.
This intrigues me because it prompts an obvious question: what the heck is a DNA-heritage testing company doing involved in helping China create a corona virus test? Well, for one thing, recall those stories early on as the corona virus story stated to go Viral (pardon the pun), spreading faster than the virus itself. Those early stories indicated that oriental peoples, and particularly Chinese, were more susceptible to the virus due to much higher numbers of receptors in their lungs for the virus to latch onto. Read More
04.03.20- Who's Next to Fail
As much as I hate to invoke The Ayn Rand lest I give off the impression I'm some kind of Objectivist, which I am most certainly not, the engine of the world is coming to a halt.
Money velocity has been falling for years. It is now cratering as we hide in our homes from a bug that eventually we will all have to reconcile with. Credit is the engine of the world of today.
It is the gas which fuels the engine of the world.
COVID-19 has cratered the global economy exposing the internal rot within our hyper-financialized global economy as nothing more than a pyramid of Ponzi schemes… Read More
04.02.20- A light in the Darkness
Diana Johnstone's just published book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher, is the best book I have ever read, the most revealing, the most accurate, the most truthful, the most moral and humane, the most sincere and heartfelt, and the best written. Her book is far more than a memoir. It is a history that has not previously been written. If you want the truth of the last 60 years in place of the contrived reality constructed for us by controlled explanations, it is in this book. Read More
04.01.20- Pharma Insider: 'First Data From ClinicalStudies' Indicates
The CEO of Novartis is giving the public a reason to be hopeful during the pandemic.
Novartis Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan has announced that there is preliminary evidence showing that "hydroxychloroquine kills the coronavirus."
Narasimhan made the announcement to Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung on Sunday, as he was touting the ability of his pharmaceutical corporation to develop medicines to stop the pandemic. They have pledged to donate 130 million doses of hydroxychloroquine as soon as the medicine is approved for widespread use. Read More
03.31.20- "Don't Be Fooled...
"Damn, he was good. Came out of nowhere. Hit us with a full broadside, cut across our tail and took out our rudder. Damn fine gunnery."
According to the press, China is experiencing normal traffic jams, while the major threat is reinfection from the West, so borders are locked shut. They are anticipating business as usual. They are in for a shock.
JP Morgan are on the wires saying markets have made their lows, and although it will be volatile, its time to "average into oversold markets."
In my opinion… they are fools. Read More
03.30.20- Boot Strapping the World Economy
"Boot strapping" is an electrical term used to perform a "black start" or a complete "cold start" of a complex electrical grid after a catastrophic failure. The East Coast blackout of 1965 was one such occurrence. Another was on the Gulf Coast after hurricane Rita. More recently the complete electrical failure in Venezuela illustrates the difficulty. It has been over a year and Venezuela's power system is still struggling to provide power after their cold start. When the crash happens everything is still connected and tries to restart all at once. It can take up to six times the running power to start an electric motor. When everything is trying to start at the same time the system is overwhelmed and the breakers trip out again.Read More
03.28.20- The Grasshoppers Are Swarming Mad That You Are Prepared For The Crash
Most people are familiar with the tale of the Ant And The Grasshopper, an ancient fable about a grasshopper who spends the fruitful months of spring and summer in idle recreation, dancing and playing carelessly while the industrious ant works tirelessly to prepare for what he knows will be a harsh winter. In many versions the Grasshopper harasses the Ant, criticizing him for wasting so much time on work when he could be out enjoying himself in the sun. Read More
03.27.20- FDIC asks Americans to keep their money in the banks
Yesterday the Chair of the FDIC released an astonishing video asking Americans to keep their money in the bank.
Accompanied by soft piano music playing in the background, the official said:
"Your money is safe at the banks. The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks thinking it's going to be safer somewhere else." Read More
03.26.20- The Pandemic Is Accelerating the Breakdown That Began a Decade Ago
The feedback loop has reversed: by saving more, people will spend, borrow and speculate less, draining the fuel from any broadbased expansion…
The feedback loop has reversed: by saving more, people will spend, borrow and speculate less, draining the fuel from any broadbased expansion. Read More
03.25.20- It Could Last 18 Months —
547.5 days. 78.2 weeks. 18 months. "Or longer."
That is how long the coronavirus scourge may endure. This we learn by way of The New York Times.
It has done us all a capital service by executing a rare feat of journalism.
For its spies have captured a government document "not for public distribution or release." Read More
03.24.20- Good night, John Boy…
As some of my readers might remember, there was a 1970's TV show called The Walton's. It was a weekly staple during my early teenage years. The show featured the life of a family living in a small Virginia community during the 1930's Depression years. Although the family was poor, it was rich in love, respect and inner strength. It was a show about the importance of holding on to ones values and morals in a difficult and often negative world.
It may not come as a surprise to many that the recent Covid-19 Crisis will bring about some very difficult times for many people in our community and around the world. How we all conduct ourselves will make the world of difference to the level of suffering to many around us and even the quality of our own lives. Read More
03.23.20- The End of Civilization?
Governments all over the world are using the alleged threat of a COVID-19 pandemic to shut down the world's economy. Daniel Lacalle, an authority on energy economics, writes: "The decision to shut down air travel and close all nonessential businesses is now a reality in major global economies. The United States has banned all European flights as Italy enters a complete lockdown, Spain declares a state of emergency, and France closes all nonessential public places and businesses." Read More
03.21.20- "Hell Is Coming"
We sense that we are among unrealities…
It is as if some hinge, deep within the national psychology, has suddenly given way.
The daily rites of life are suspended. Businesses, schools and arenas the nation over have gone dark. Travel is hopeless…. and borders are sealed shut.
Unemployment claims are piling up. Secretary Mnuchin has suggested they may scale a depression-level 20%. Read More
03.20.20- Will This Be "Just A Recession" Or Will It Be "The Next Great Depression"?
As America slowly but surely shuts down from coast to coast, everyone is acknowledging the fact that we are heading into a very serious economic downturn. Originally, many experts were warning that this coronavirus pandemic could spark a recession, but now some are actually starting to use the "d" word. Yesterday, I wrote about the government planning document that envisions an 18 month pandemic, multiple "waves" of infections, and "critical shortages" of important supplies. If that scenario actually plays out, what we will experience will be far, far worse than the "Great Recession" of 2008 and 2009. So let us hope that a way can be found to slow down the spread of this virus. Read More
03.19.20- How Dead is the Fed?
You can only be so dead, and that's just "plain dead." But there is also Feddy Krueger dead. The kind of dead that keeps on happening like a demonic death that won't stay dead. It is in that nightmarish Elm St. light that I'm going to review the Federal Reserve's death.
It's happened via face-plant failures over past month that I'm going to lay out to show how savagely the Fed is dying a perpetual-motion death. Read More
03.18.20- Economic Effect of Coronavirus Could Be Revolutionary
Coronavirus and globalism will teach us vital lessons. The question is whether we can learn vital lessons that do not serve the ruling interest groups and ideologies.
Coronavirus will teach us that a country without free national health care is severely handicapped. Millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They cannot afford health care premiums, deductions, and copays. Millions have no insurance. This means millions of people infected with coronavirus who cannot get medical help. The morbidity from this is intolerable in any society. Read More
03.17.20- Federal Government To Control And Oversee Grocery Distribution Within Days
Trump will implement the plan with absolutely zero advanced warning to the public to protect the supply lines and prevent mass starvation & death…
Breaking news alert – NaturalNews.com – The US federal government is in the planning stage of implementing a plan to protect and control grocery distribution across the United States via public / private partnerships with top grocery chains such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, HEB (Texas), Target, Costco, etc., sources now tell Natural News. Read More
03.16.20- The "Greater Depression" Is Coming
Just because society experiences turmoil doesn't mean your personal life has to. And a depression doesn't have to be depressing. Most of the real wealth in the world will still exist – it will just change ownership.
What is a depression?
We're now at the tail end of a very long, but in many ways a very weak and artificial, economic expansion. At the same time, we've had one of the strongest securities bull markets in history. Both are the result of trillions of new dollars created over the last decade. Right now, very few people are willing to consider the possibility of tough times – let alone The Greater Depression. Read More
03.14.20- Treatments for coronavirus that have worked in China
These are scientific papers showing effective treatments for coronavirus being used in China
Treatments for coronavirus that have worked in China
These research papers show great antiviral promise for both Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine. The Chinese have started using them. So should we. Read More
03.13.20- Your Pension May Quickly Be 'Infected' by Coronavirus Panic
Following the week that the coronavirus tanked the Dow Jones, it was only a matter of time before ripple effects started to make their appearance.
One of the ripple effects that will likely impact some retirement savers is panic stemming from the virus' potential impact on public and corporate pensions.
Of course, both types of pension programs have been running on fumes for years now. The coronavirus may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Read More
03.12.20- Fear Of The Coronavirus Is Causing
In all of U.S. history, we have never seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average go from an all-time high to a bear market as quickly as we just did. As I keep reminding my readers, the stock market is all about how investors view the future. Early this year, extremely irrational optimism about the future pushed stock prices to the most overvalued levels that we have ever seen, but now things have completely changed. Fear of the coronavirus has many investors fearing an imminent economic crisis, and we have seen volatility on Wall Street that is absolutely insane. Read More
03.11.20- Even The Best-Case Scenario Is Pretty Grim
Let's say President Trump is right about the coronavirus "miraculously" fading away as temperatures rise in the Summer. Will things then go back to the old normal of globalization, free trade and finance-driven "growth"?
Almost certainly not, because the psychological damage has already been done. Over the past couple of weeks the modern globalized economy with its multi-nation supply chains and just-in-time inventory systems has been forced to recognize that such a system only works in a nearly-perfect environment. Take the iPhone: It is designed in the US, its constituent raw materials are mined and processed in numerous other countries and the resulting components are then shipped for assembly to vast Chinese factories. Read More
03.10.20- No, the world is not coming to an end…
This is going to be a rough day for a lot of folks. But it's one that I've been writing about for quite some time.
I've been saying for years that, at some point, there will be a severe financial reckoning. We wouldn't know how, and most likely, we would have very little advance warning.
As an example, in June 2018 I wrote "whatever causes the next major downturn can be something completely obscure and unpredictable. And no one realizes it until it's too late." Read More
03.09.30- Pandemic Pandemania Causes Global Economic Crisis
Back in the oil-embargo recession of the early 70s when Boeing was Seattle's economy and was laying off thousands of Seattleites, a billboard on the edge of town by Sea-Tac Airport read, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn the lights out?" (Boeing had gone from 100,800 employees in 1967 to 38,690 in 1971.) Read More
03.07.20- Weekend Rant: Corona baloney...
We all understand that governments can invent money out of thin air. However, inventing a reason out of thin air to invent the money sometimes takes a little more ingenuity.
Enter THE VIRUS. The medical version of Satan.
To new readers: to fully understand the next paragraph, you'll need to read my previous articles on the "China epidemic" con job (archive here). Read More
03.06.20- Top FBI Spill DISTURBING Beans on Massive Clinton Crime Cartel — How Much Tax Money Did Bill & Hillary Steal
Just how much money did the Clinton Foundation and its criminal cartel of bogus subsidiaries steal from U.S. taxpayers and unsuspecting dupes worldwide? And where did all the hordes of illicit cash go?
Top FBI and federal law enforcement insiders were investigating what amounted to a Clinton-backed crime spree but were told to stand down by Attorney General William Barr. These agents may have stopped the official probe but that is not stopping high-ranking personnel from spilling the beans to Thomas Paine, detailing how the Clinton Foundation ripped off taxpayers amd many many other entities worldwide. Read More
03.05.20- How The Pandemic Crisis Will Probably Develop Over The Next Year
For a while now I have been hearing it said that Americans are "in a panic" over the coronavirus outbreak in the US, and that mainstream media outlets are "feeding the fear". This is an odd conclusion to come to and something worth noting, because the truth is mostly the opposite. For the past couple of months the WHO, the CDC and even Donald Trump have been dismissing Covid 19 as nothing much to worry about. The WHO actually still refuses to call it a pandemic even though the virus meets all of their own criteria. Read More
03.04.20- Have we brewed a whirlwind?
In the United States and throughout the Western World there is public distrust of public authorities and distrust among the public of one another. Public authorities who do not like "conspiracy theories" do a lot to generate them.
We can see the public's distrust of public authorities in the negligent response to the coronavirus. The refusal of public authorities to stop incoming flights from infected countries has brought the dangerous virus into the Western World where inaction has so far prevailed. Read More
03.03.20- What Is The Deep State
A new focus on the Deep State in undermining the national interests has become a serious thought for many citizens. Not known to many, the Deep State has its origin in the British Empire and how the Round Table infiltrated former British colonies (including India) through America.
Last year, fuel was added to this fire when internal memos were leaked from the British-run Integrity Initiative featuring a startling account of the techniques deployed by the anti-Russian British operation to infiltrate American intelligence institutions, think tanks and media. Read More
03.02.20- All Of A Sudden, People All Over America Are Prepping Like Crazy
I can't remember a time when we have seen such widespread "panic buying" all over the nation. Today I spoke with someone that just visited the closest Wal-Mart in this area, and I was told that there are empty shelves all over the store. There are very few canned goods left, some of the most essential medications have been cleaned out, and there was nothing left in the long-term storable food section at all. Of course similar things are being reported at major retail stores all across the United States. All of a sudden, fear of COVID-19 has motivated thousands upon thousands of Americans to start prepping like crazy. Read More
02.29.20- What happens to your bitcoin after you die?
If a "dead man's button" isn't pressed one week, it is assumed the user is dead and the service automatically dispenses a "secret," which heirs can use to retrieve the crypto.
This is more than just a philosophical question: It could involve a substantial amount of currency. Read More
02.28.20- Doug Casey on the Truth About Millennials and the Next Crisis
International Man: Many people perceive Millennials to be entitled, spoiled snowflakes who refuse to work hard.
Whether or not this is true, Millennials as a group will soon surpass the number of baby boomers as the largest generational group.
How equipped is this soon-to-be dominant generation for handling a financial crisis, a major war, or civil unrest?
Doug Casey: According to William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book, The Fourth Turning, the Millennials should be a "Hero" Generation, set to face a huge threat to the country. Read More
02.27.20- The Unsustainable Trajectory of America's Economy
I have never claimed to be an economics "expert" or anything remotely close, but my university years did make me well familiar with certain aspects of higher math as course requirements and quantitative methods of social science research, especially as applied to the demographics of any particular culture and society. So, through this prism and the perspective of largely a layman on the topic, I have looked at all the numbers I could find on this topic, and I attempted to condense them to a core of those most pertinent, in order to present a fairly comprehensive overview of where America's economic future currently stands. Read More
02.26.20- No One on Food Stamps Should Be Allowed to Vote
02.25.20- Your Doctor and Your Guns
What do you do when your doctor asks if you own a gun?
You are at the pediatrician's office for a routine well child visit. Maybe you just moved to a new town. The nurse hands you the standard paperwork with the questionnaire pertaining to your child's health. You start filling out the form and right there . . . question number 14 . . . "Do you have a gun in the home?" It's right after the question about swimming pools and right before the one about household cleaner storage. What do you answer? Read More
02.24.20- US Biowarfare Act Author: Studies Confirm Coronavirus Weaponized!
02.22.20- Is There Any Place Safe Left To Live?
Is there any place where liberty, privacy, self-reliance, and the ability to garden, fish, hunt, build, and protect one's hearth & home are still possible?
Has the entire country gone mad? Is there any place left where liberty, privacy, self-reliance, and the ability to garden, fish, hunt, build, and protect one's hearth and home is still possible? Read More
02.21.20- Omens, Portents, Karma and the Mandate of Heaven
The question of legitimacy isn't limited to China.
What makes humans unique among social mammals? Some say humor, I would nominate superstition: regardless of how hard we promote our rationality and logic, humanity continues to sense portents and omens in events and feel the intangible tug of karma: the consequences of past actions that we arrogantly thought we'd escaped forever. Read More
02.20.20- The Lessons We Have Learned From The Coronavirus So Far...
Every disaster contains a lesson or a message that needs to be examined. Every tragedy, no matter how terrible, should be absorbed into the public consciousness and adopted as a cautionary tale; a part of our mythos. These events should not be cast into the memory hole to make life less stressful, they need to be taken seriously. Otherwise, the damage done and the lives lost are all for nothing.
Refusing to examine the dark side of life and its dangers has become a staple of our society, to the point that it has given birth to a kind of religious cult. Naive optimism has become a virtue, a misplaced form of faith that encourages people to remain oblivious in the face of adversity. Read More
02.19.20- The Betrayal Of The Elites
In an important new book, political scientist Yuval Levin argues that we have lost faith in our institutions—public, private, civic, and political.
We need institutions, including families, associations, churches, corporations, trade unions, political parties, professions such as law and medicine, as well as the formal institutions of government such as Congress, the presidency, and the courts. Read More
02.18.20- Why Covid-19 Demands Our Full Attention
This is an unprecedented moment for our hyper-connected planet
There's a reason we've re-directed so much of our attention towards reporting on and trying to understand the novel coronavirus (covid-19) that originated in Wuhan, China in December.
The heart of our approach is to be "systems thinkers."
02.17.20- The coronavirus achieves all the top priorities of the globalists: Depopulation, authoritarian government and elimination of the elderly who no longer contribute tax money
If the Wuhan coronavirus (CoVid-19) pandemic began from an "accidental" release, it sure was a happy accident for the globalists. Everything the pandemic is achieving just happens to perfectly fit the top priorities of the globalist agenda.
Consider the following: Read More
02.15.20- White People Are Being Erased
White people aren't supposed to know that they are being demonized by the New York Times, PBS, universities, the Democrat Party's Identity Politics, and corporations, and if they find out they are not allowed to protest. If they do protest, they are in even more trouble.
Those Americans empowered by "white privilege" who are still a demographic majority are too scared and too intimidated to open their mouths or use their pocketbooks to protest their demonization and marginalization. Facebook and Twitter will drop them, denying them their virtual existence. Indoctrinated and mindless white friends will shun them as racist, anti-semitic white supremacists. Read More
02.14.20- The Necessity of Questioning Mass Media Journalism (About Nearly Everything)
We now live in an age in which it is imperative to always question mass media journalism if we are interested in arriving at truth about almost any matter. Given recent numerous examples of mass media journalism spreading disinformation as "facts" and social media icons aggressively forwarding the suppression of freedom of speech by censoring any independent journalists that (1) either spreads truth or (2) merely questions the numerous holes that sometimes exist in the mass media narrative. Read More
02.13.20- Hackers Attacking Retirement Savings With Increasing Frequency
Imagine building up a lifetime of retirement savings, in one or perhaps even several retirement accounts ...only to wake up one morning and discover one of your retirement accounts has been wiped out by a hacker.
Unfortunately, this nightmare scenario is happening more and more often as hackers become more creative and use more sophisticated methods. Read More
02.12.20- If Only Economics Was as Easy as Rocket Science
Over the years, I have often heard "rocket science" used to describe the hardest things to do. But as an economics professor, I recognize that the questions of social coordination economics addresses are in many ways much more complex and difficult, especially when it comes to controlling results.
Economics Is Difficult
After all, we have successfully sent rockets to many places in our planetary neighborhood, demonstrating a tolerable ability to solve enough of the relevant problems, yet many economic policies impose more harm than help. And the more one tries to control, the more the information and implementation issues undermine the possibility—much less the probability—of effectiveness. Read More
02.11.20- A Most Convenient Virus
I prefer to write on things I know about, but once in a while an opportunity presents itself for me to comment on some aspect of widespread mistrust and confusion while resting on a solid foundation of my professional curiosity. This is the case of the 2019-nCoV novel coronavirus. A lot of the elements of the coronavirus story just don't add up, and that's what I want to explore. At the outset, I want to make it clear that I am no expert on these matters. Is 2019-nCoV a genetically engineered biological weapon or is it a naturally evolved strain of a virus that is endemic in China's bat population? This we don't know, but it is interesting to look at the plausibility of each of these scenarios and also to consider whether what we are observing could be a combination of a little of each. Read More
02.10.20- In The Bubble: Trump's Presidency Reveals 7 Undeniable Facts About The Swamp
Barely into the New Year, 2020 vision has brought many revelations into better focus, making several ongoing observations perfectly clear. Although there are those who've been watching the dots of The Matrix assemble into the big picture for decades now, the election of Donald Trump has increasingly exposed what was hidden in plain sight for so long. Read More
02.08.20- Welcome to the Bullshit Economy
The Iowa caucus disaster is a function of a broken economic structure that rewards con artistry over competence.
The story of Shadow, makers of the app that utterly failed to deliver in Iowa, is a perfect example of the bullshit economy.
In one sense, the Iowa caucus debacle will last just a couple of news cycles. We have the data on paper, tabulated in front of tens of thousands of witnesses, and it merely needs to be collated. Eventually it will, and though the damage to the news cycle is irreparable—Joe Biden's disappointing outcome has been diluted in particular—the process will go on with an accurate count. Read More
02.07.20- The Height Of Idiocy
I'm not a fortune teller. In fact, the only things anybody knows about predicting – even if you gussy the concept up by calling it "forecasting" – are 1.) Predict often and 2.) Never give both the time and the event.
The worst offenders are those who pretend they know where the economy's headed. Read More
02.06.20- Pandemic, Lies and Videos
Will we wonder, what were we thinking? and marvel anew at the madness of crowds?
When we look back on this moment from the vantage of history, what will we think? Will we think how obvious it was that the coronavirus deaths in China were in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds claimed by authorities?
Will we think how obvious it was that the virus would spread around the globe, wreaking havoc on the global economy and social order, even as the authorities claimed only a handful of cases had arisen outside China? Read More
02.05.20- Are you prepared for the contagion?
We have been harping on the question "are you prepared?" for years. We have asked if you were prepared financially, mentally, physically, and with your maker? The potential boogeyman as we suggested could come from anywhere or any angle but the end result would affect the economy and thus finance (credit) and would then spill over socially.
I have to admit, a "pandemic" was low on my list of possible sparks, but after thinking it through, a pandemic is a financial disaster. Yes it is a human disaster and many will die, but the odds of dying from the virus are and will remain quite low. The real problem is what the human response will be. I say this because we live in a world of just in time inventory AND production. Read More
02.04.20- The Awakening to Human Truth – Powerful new video forces Leftists to face the depths of their own anti-human EVIL
We've now posted a powerful new mini-documentary called, "The Awakening to Human Truth." Just ten minutes in duration, the documentary forces pro-abortion Leftists to face the depths of their own evil as they call for the destruction of the very same kind of conscious human existence that once defined their own lives as unborn human babies. Read More
02.03.20- Our Kardashian Culture
The recent death of former NBA star Kobe Bryant, and the unbelievable saturation news coverage that followed, illustrated again that we are no longer living in America 1.0.
Bryant was a great basketball player, one of the best in NBA history. He was also accused of raping a nineteen year old hotel worker in 2003. Like all celebrities and wealthy people, Bryant escaped punishment and later settled out of court. The mainstream media broke a time-honored tradition at the time, by disclosing the name of the victim, and questioned her character and motivations in several biased, inflammatory reports. At the last minute, she abruptly decided not to testify, and Bryant avoided a trial. Read More
02.01.20- More on the Coronavirus... a Real Simulation
Earlier this week I blogged about the mysterious coronavirus outbreak in Communist China. I pointed out that in addition to the fact that the virus may have been stolen and weaponized by Chinese spies inside of Canada's National Micriobiology Laboratory, there is an additional "coincidence" in that the outbreak appears to have occurred during the height of the Chinese lunar new year, when many people in China travel. Read More
01.31.20- Savings vs. Money:
Conventional wisdom holds that savings is the amount of money left after monetary income was used for consumer outlays. Hence, for a given outlay, an increase in money income implies more savings and thus more funding for investment. This in turn sets the platform for higher economic growth.
Following this logic, one could also establish that increases in money supply are beneficial to the entire process of capital formation and economic growth. (Note: increases in money supply result in increases in monetary income and this, for a given consumer outlay, implies an increase in savings). Read More
01.30.20- A Date and Time for
Pete H. — a reader — gives us a good, round piece of his mind:
01.29.20- Some Thoughts on
Wise Aristotle placed "Democracy" in the category of "Worst Possible Political System", some 2,300 years ago.
Today, Democracy has become the only accepted political system. All others are considered outrageous. This circumstance did not come about by itself, that is to say, in the course of a normal change in the flow of opinion among the nations of the world. Read More
01.28.20- How screwed up is
Late last year, the investment management giant Morningstar published a report concluding that most people can either save money for retirement, or save money for their kids' education… but NOT both. They make the economic realities very clear: parents have to choose between their own future, or their children's future. And one of the report's lead authors went on to say that the RIGHT choice– the ONLY choice– is to choose your retirement over your kids: Read More
01.27.20- The Things We Believe
I've often spoken of, in this blog, in the many things we believe that are untrue. For example, many financial metrics in which we blindly believe, reported by the mainstream news, like inflation, GDP and unemployment statistics are patently false and not even close to being reflective of reality. This holds true not just in the financial world but also extends to many other beliefs that have been sold to us as facts in the academic setting, but simply are not facts. The things we believe that are untrue, depending on our critical thinking skills, may range from nearly all of, to the majority of, to the minority of our beliefs. Even societal constructs like institutional academics as the only viable choice for education can be a construct in which we believe that is patently not the best option for us. Read More
01.25.20- Coronavirus Is Worse Than You've Been Told: Scientist Explains
01.24.20- UN Human Rights Ruling Says "Climate Refugees" Cannot be Returned back to Their Home Country - US Must Open Its Borders to All Central Americans
The United Nations ruled that "climate refugees" cannot be returned back to their home countries. This ruling forces the United States to allow all Central Americans into our country.
Literally, anyone can claim the new refugee status.
This will essentially open US borders for good. Read More
01.23.20- IMF warns of new 'Great Depression', Russia ahead of the curve due to increased cash & gold reserves
Last week, the IMF issued a stark warning about the global economy. While most large Western states are vulnerable to a new crisis, Russia has prepared its defenses.
Kristalina Georgieva isn't any sort of conspiracy theorist; she's the head of the International Monetary Fund. And when she warns that the global economy risks another "Great Depression," you would think everyone would listen. Read More
01.22.20- One Of The Most Monstrously Evil Political Agendas Of All Time Being Unveiled By Democrats In 2020: The Impoverishment, Enslavement & Extermination Of Much Of The Human Race
The environmental extremists continue to chant their monotonous mantra about the "existential threat" of man-made global warming, or climate change. Indeed, the climate is changing, and it has been changing for nearly four billion years. They recently began using an (apparently autistic) teenager as their spokes-mouth. Like all leftists they talk a good line, assuring us that they care deeply for wildlife, nature, clean air and water, etc. Read More
01.21.20- This IS Tomorrow: Gun Control Is A Tool Of Socialism
01.20.20- Remarks on the
The first thing to understand is that it is not a trade deal. It is Trump backing off his tariffs when he discovered that the tarrifs fall on US goods and American consumers, not on China. Trump is covering his retraction by calling it a trade deal. China's part of the deal is to agree to purchase the US goods that it already intended to purchase. Read More
01.18.20- What Will It Take to Get the Public to Embrace Sound Money?
01.17.20- The two best gifts to give your newborn child
A Japanese woman was surprised when Hong Kong Express Airways required her to take a pregnancy test before boarding her flight.
They made the poor woman sign a form indicating her body type was observed by staff to appear pregnant. The test proved she wasn't.
The woman was traveling to Saipan, the largest island among the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory. Read More
01.16.20- Debt and Inflation Are Bringing the Economy Down
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Fed Adds $82 Billion to Financial Markets." That's the headline on page B12 of today's Wall Street Journal, reporting on Tuesday's Federal Reserve action. On Monday, the Fed added $60 billion.
This "repo madness" has been going on for four months.
It's time to ask some questions… Read More
01.15.20- 7 Major Earth Changes That Are Happening Right Now That Everyone Needs
There has never been a time in modern human history when our planet has been changing as rapidly as it is changing right now. The sun is behaving very strangely, freakishly cold weather is breaking out all over the world, ocean temperatures continue to rise, volcanoes all over the globe are shooting ash miles into the air, Australia is experiencing the worst wildfires that they have ever seen, and the north magnetic pole has been moving at a pace that is deeply alarming scientists. Could it be possible that all of this bizarre activity is leading up to some sort of a crescendo? Read More
01.14.20- Commercial Ammo: The Untold History of Springfield Armory and America's Munitions Factories
To understand how American citizens today can get their hands on ammo, which rolls off the same factory lines as those that supply the world's largest militaries, it's important to first understand how munitions technology developed. Starting in medieval Europe, on a battlefield where a mounted knight in armor could defeat almost any number of peasants, the development of more advanced and accurate ways to destroy enemy personnel and equipment by launching a projectile is one which combines trial and error, scientific ingenuity, and private enterprise. It's a story of power and technology dating back to the 13th century, at the height of "the divine right of kings," and tracks the subsequent diffusion of that power held by a chosen few as the individual became capable of breaking the state's monopoly on violence. Read More
01.13.20- This Is What 'Diversity'
You can't argue with the numbers.
The number of murders has gone up and down. Note that the population of the United States has continually risen, so the number of murders, assuming that the rate per person remains the same, should be a continually-upsloping line growing at about 1% a year.
It isn't. In fact the number of murder peaked around 1990. It is materially lower now than then, despite all the screaming of the various scolds, and we're 20 years further down with more people in the nation. Read More
01.11.20- Sanctuary Cities: A Battle Over the Second Amendment is Unfolding Across America
The Second Amendment sanctuary city movement is growing and showing no signs of slowing down.
As Virginia's new Democratic legislature promises gun control measures, the wives of National Guardsman are warning that impending gun legislation threatens to turn neighbor against neighbor. Read More
01.10.20- Doug Casey on the Difference Between a Whistleblower and a Rat
International Man: There's been a lot of talk from the political class about whistleblowers lately, but few have clearly defined what it means.
Webster's defines a whistleblower as "one who reveals something covert or who informs against another."
Doug, you're a fan of using words correctly. What is your view on what a whistleblower is? Read More
01.09.20- Facts and Speculations – Next Decade
Breaking news: The impeachment circus continues, the trade deal is both off and on, tweets and Iran news move the market, S&P 500 Index hit new highs (thanks to central bank liquidity), and more of the same nonsense will unfortunately create more of the same.
WHAT HAPPENS TO PRICES NEXT DECADE—IN FIVE TO TEN YEARS? Read More
01.08.20- Another Stupid War
All I wanted to do this week was work on part 2 of my localism series, but circumstances quickly got the best of me. The assassination of Iran's top general Qassem Soleimani was an event of such historical significance, I feel obligated to detail my thoughts on what it means and how things unfold from here, especially given how much of a role geopolitics and questions of empire have played in my writings. Read More
01.07.20- No, Jesus Wasn't a Socialist
Christian charity, being voluntary and heartfelt, is utterly distinct from the compulsory, impersonal mandates of the state.
The claim that Jesus Christ was a socialist has become a popular refrain among liberals, even from some whose Christianity is lukewarm at best. But is there any truth in it?
That question cannot be answered without a reliable definition of socialism. A century ago, it was widely regarded as government ownership of the means of production. Jesus never once even hinted at that concept, let alone endorsed it. Yet the definition has changed over time. When the critiques of economists such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman demolished any intellectual case for the original form of socialism, and reality proved them to be devastatingly right, socialists shifted to another version: central planning of the economy. Read More
01.06.20- Our Real Existential Crisis - Extinction
If Western elites were asked to name the greatest crisis facing mankind, climate change would win in a walk.
Thus did Time magazine pass over every world leader to name a Swedish teenage climate activist, Greta Thunberg, its person of the year.
01.04.20- 3 Key Economic Trends to Keep Your Eye On in 2020
As we enter the year 2020 (and a new decade), it's important to keep in mind how long it has been since the last major recession started in the U.S. — more than 11 years now.
Since the economy generally operates in cycles, and the yield curve has already inverted, the next recession could be right around the corner. Read More
Iran, It's Your Move – Trump's Takedown Of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani Is Likely To Start A Global War
We just witnessed one of the most important deaths in the Middle East in decades. Just hours ago, President Trump ordered the drone strike on Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani and several other key officials. Suleimani was the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, but even more importantly he was a huge national hero in Iran. To describe this killing as "seismic" would not do it justice. Read More
01.02.20- Understanding The Keys To Power Will be a Survival Requirement for the Coming Decade
The past decade was undoubtedly shaped by the policy adopted by the global central banking cartel to flood the world with massive amounts of liquidity (over $15 trillion) to "rescue" markets following the Great Financial Crisis.
It's becoming increasingly clear who benefitted most from this: the ultra-rich Read More
01.01.20- I, Who Vowed to Never-Ever Short Stocks Again, Just Shorted the Entire Market
12.31.19- Nullify Government Tyranny: In 2020, Harness The Power Of Your Discontent
"The people have the power, all we have to do is awaken that power in the people. The people are unaware. They're not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government." - John Lennon
Twenty years into the 21st century, and what do we have to show for it? Read More
It seems the Democratic Legislature in the State of Virginia has decided that they will simply do away with the Second Amendment in that state. Oh, they will take sort of a Fabian approach and do it as gradually as they are forced to but there can be little doubt that's their socialist intent. And they may well hope to be a bell weather for the rest of the country–sort of a "well, if we can do it so can you" sort of thing. Read More
12.28.19- Jim Rickards Warns That Debt Tsunami Could Upend Economy
At some point, an economic problem deepens so much that the piper has to be paid. Both in the U.S. and globally, one of those problems appears to be mountains of debt.
Jim Rickards recently issued a dire proclamation about the global debt situation:
Current global debt levels are simply not sustainable. Debt actually is sustainable if the debt is used for projects with positive returns and if the economy supporting the debt is growing faster than the debt itself. But neither of those conditions applies today. Read More
12.26.19- Very Unusual Seismic Activity On The West Coast Has Some Experts Extremely Concerned About What Could Happen
The west coast never stops shaking, but lately the shaking has gone to an entirely new level, and this has many people deeply concerned about what may be coming. Last summer, a series of alarming foreshocks immediately preceded the two historic quakes that shook the Ridgecrest area in southern California. But those quakes were nothing compared to "the Big One" that scientists assure us is way overdue. Someday an earthquake that is hundreds of times stronger will absolutely devastate the California coastline, and it may be arriving a lot sooner than many people think. Farther north, the Cascadia subduction zone is a ticking time bomb that could literally unleash an unprecedented disaster at any moment. Read More
12.25.19- An End to the World as We Know It?
At the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston stated what he thought was obvious, that "England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests." Palmerston was saying that national interests should drive the relationships with foreigners. A nation will have amicable relations most of the time with some countries and difficult relations with some others, but the bottom line should always be what is beneficial for one's own country and people. Read More
12.24.19- Welcome To The Era Of Intensifying Chaos And New Weapons Of Conflict
Geopolitics has moved from a slow-moving, relatively predictable chess match to rapidly evolving 3-D chess in which the rules keep changing in unpredictable ways.
A declining standard of living in the developed world, declining growth for the developed world and geopolitical jockeying for control of resources make for a highly combustible mix awaiting a spark: welcome to the era of intensifying chaos and the rapid advance of new weapons of conflict as ruling elites attempt to stamp out dissent and global powers pursue supremacy by whatever means are available. Read More
12.23.19- Sexual Perverts Are the New American Privileged Class
The United Church of Christ in Ames, Iowa, for reasons unknown flew a LGBTQ flag/banner of sexual perversion. A 30 year old Hispanic immigrant took it down and burned it. For this "crime" he was sentenced to 16 years in prison!
In response to college kids or provocateurs burning the US flag during Vietnam War protests, the US Congress passed the 1968 Flag Act that permits those who burn or defile the US flag to be imprisoned, but not more than one year. What has happened to America that buring a flag of sexual perversion is 16 times more serious than burning the American flag? How can this be the case, and in a red state!? Read More
12.21.19- The Fed Gets Blindsided... Again
The big news this week was that the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Trump now joins Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton as the only U.S. presidents to be impeached (Nixon resigned before he could be impeached).
Now it goes to the Senate for trial. But there's no chance the Senate will convict Trump on the charges, given the Republican majority. Read More
12.20.19- Skyrocketing Costs Will
The reckoning is coming, and everyone who counted on "eternal growth of borrowing" to stave off the reckoning is in for a big surprise.
We've used a simple trick to keep the status quo from imploding for the past 11 years: borrow whatever it takes to keep paying the skyrocketing costs for housing, healthcare, college, childcare, government, permanent wars and so on. Read More
12.19.19- The Crazy Events Of The Past Month And What They Mean For 2020
In a world without constant manipulation and disinformation most economic and geopolitical events would happen spontaneously and randomly. Things would be more unexpected, but at least they would make life fascinating and interesting, and often there would be positive outcomes. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in. Our world is highly micro-managed by global elites with a rather broad if not clichéd agenda. This makes most events highly predictable, as each event services a singular end game. Read More
12.18.19- HUGE: Democrats rushing impeachment to obstruct bombshell investigations of billions in money laundering and kickbacks run by Obama officials
The real story behind the Dems' rush for impeachment has finally emerged. Thanks to investigatory work by Rudy Giuliani, we now know that prominent Democrats ran billions of dollars in money laundering, extortion and kickbacks through Ukraine, funneling cash to their own pockets through an elaborate network of shell companies and corporate fronts. Read More
12.17.19- Markets vs. Politics: Which Will It Be?
No man can avoid politics. All are in siege.
No rival field of human enterprise can approach its ferocity. War is the extension of what by other means… in Mr. Carl von Clausewitz's telling?
The answer is politics of course.
Today we file a scorching tort against politics.
Politics separates, divides, enrages, disrupts — as war itself.
Democratic politics offer no exception. Reduce electoral politics to its naked core… Read More
12.16.19- Bubbles Are Brutal
Nothing makes sense in their late stages
Asset bubbles are brutal.
The most difficult time to remain centered and focused is during their last stages as everyone around you is going nuts. Logic has been tossed out the window, sentiment is manic, and every narrative – the stories we hear and use to make sense of our world – is thoroughly ungrounded. Read More
12.14.19- Why We Should Worry About a New Global Currency War
After five years of secular strength in the Dollar, the Trump administration seems intent to weaken its currency through unilateral measures. The possible implications should not be underestimated.
The expression «currency war» conjures up a scary 1930's image of competitive devaluations (against gold) designed to divert a larger part of globally stagnant demand to individual countries at the expense of others. Then – as today –, such fears have been exacerbated by the prospect of «trade wars» as well. Read More
12.13.19- Borrowing From Peter to Pay Paul…
…The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme Called Fractional Reserve Banking
Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done: you induce many investors to invest their money, promising steady above-market returns; and you deliver – at least on paper. When your clients check their accounts, they see that their investments have indeed increased by the promised amount. Anyone who opts to pull out of the game is paid promptly and in full. You can afford to pay because most players stay in, and new players are constantly coming in to replace those who drop out. Read More
12.12.19- Lil' Tyrone
12.11.19- A History of Inflationary Money:
So that we can understand the financial and banking challenges ahead of us, this article provides an historical and technical background. But we must first get an important definition right, and that is the cause of the periodic cycle of boom and bust. The cycle of economic activity is not a trade or business cycle, but a credit cycle. It is caused by fractional reserve banking and by banks loaning money into existence. The effect on business is then observed but is not the underlying cause. Read More
12.10.19- 6 Things We Learned from Prohibition
In a book on prohibitions, John Meadowcroft of King's College in London offers several "generic lessons and implications" of the practice.
Just over 100 years ago (October 28, 1919), the National Prohibition Actbecame law. Better known as the Volstead Act, it outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Read More
12.09.19- The Fed Could Be Setting Us Up for Explosive Price Inflation
Until recently, Federal Reserve Chair Powell has maintained that the Fed will operate using a "symmetric 2% inflation target."
Simply put, that means the Fed sees 2% inflation as a level that sustains economic growth without putting too much upward pressure on prices. Read More
12.07.19- Transferism, Not Socialism, Is the Drug Americans Are Hooked On
The United States has never had a meaningful socialist tradition or even a semi-serious socialist party. Socialism in the United States is a fringe movement at best and always has been. This makes the sudden acceptability of socialism all the more surprising. But with one avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, campaigning for the presidency for a second time, and another, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, rising to national prominence from her post in the House of Representatives, American socialism is more mainstream now than at any point in our history. Read More
12.06.19- The Meaning of Valuation
Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
A New York Times article published the following day elaborated on Fisher's comments:
"After discussing the rise in stock values during the past two years, Mr. Fisher declared realized and prospective increases in earnings, to a very large extent, had justified this rise, adding that 'time will tell whether the increase will continue sufficiently to justify the present high level. I expect that it will… While I will not attempt to make any exact forecast, I do not feel that there will soon, if ever, be a fifty or sixty-point break below present levels such as Mr. Babson has predicted.' Read More
12.05.19- The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? Not So Fast…
The holiday season is often hailed as "the most wonderful time of the year". For most that is true!
Filling your days with hot cocoa, classic movies, and the smell of pine trees, baking cookies, or logs burning on the fire, along with the company of friends and family to warm your heart can be festive indeed. But for some, especially those further north, the long, dark winter months can be dreadful, regardless of the joy surrounding them, if you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Read More
12.04.19- Central Bankers Have Declared War On Your Savings
When any one of the plethora of bubbles burst – pick your poison – and the next financial crisis impacts Wall Street and Main Street, how will the central banks and federal governments react? They have fired all their unconventional rounds of bullets, from subzero interest rates to vast money-printing . One other proposal could conceivably be giving your deposits a haircut, much like what occurred in Cyprus following the recession. This dyspeptic vision is not hyperbole nor is it paranoia – the tariffs have raised the price of tinfoil! It is unfolding right now as our globalist overlords are executing, or at least entertaining, fiscal and monetary measures to confiscate your wealth – directly or indirectly. Read More
12.03.19- Death Wish
The early winter holidays are notorious for giving people the blues, but as the last Thanksgiving leftovers slide into the stockpot, the Democratic Party was put on suicide watch. Is the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein in charge? It's a little late to call an exorcist. The gun pointed at the Democrats' head now is a stubby little low-caliber weapon in the person of Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has only grazed the party's skull in two previous misfirings. The third time, the old saying goes, may be the charm. Read More
12.02.19- See You on the Dark Side of the Moon
And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear
Brain Damage, Pink Floyd
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
Brain Damage, Pink Floyd Read More
11.30.19- Two Easy Strategies to Pay Less Taxes
Dear Reader,
In the big picture of personal finance, there are four financial forces that cause most people to work hard and yet struggle financially. They are:
Take a moment and reflect briefly on how much these four forces affect you personally. For example, how much do you pay in taxes?
Not only do we pay income tax, but also sales taxes, gasoline taxes, real estate taxes, and so forth. More important, to whom do our tax dollars go and for what causes? Read More
11.29.19- Happy Thanksgiving, America 2.0
As we celebrate another Thanksgiving, between the turkey and the stuffing and the cranberries and the pie, it is an appropriate time for reflection.
Thanks to countless films and television shows, Americans have come to understand that Thanksgiving means having to tolerate your extended family members for a few hours. For some it represents a lone annual occasion for parents and children, or siblings, to be in the same physical location. Read More
11.28.19- Gun Sales Surge In October As 2020 Dems Unveil Gun Control Proposals
Nearly 11 percent more guns were sold in the United States in October than a year ago, according to newly released data.
Roughly 1.2 million guns were sold this October, a 10.8 percent increase from Oct. 2018, according to Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting (pdf). The firm also estimated that about 1.1 million guns were sold in September, another increase of almost 11 percent from the same month last year. Read More
11.27.19- 5 More Signs That The Global Economy Is Careening Toward A Recession
The global economy is already in the worst distress that we have seen since 2008, and it appears that the global slowdown is actually picking up pace as we head into 2020. And this is happening even though central banks around the world have been cutting interest rates and pumping massive amounts of money into their respective financial systems. The central bankers appear to be losing control, and it certainly wouldn't take much of a push for this new crisis to evolve into a complete and utter nightmare. Read More
11.26.19- Holiday Sales May Be Missing In Action
I'm sure most of you are inundated with "Black November," "70% off" and "clearance" email promotions from the usual cast of brick/mortar/online chain retailers. It started with my inbox in October. This is because retailers are terrified of what could be one of the worst holiday spending seasons in years.
The mainstream financial media, planted with soundbytes from Wall Street snakeoil salesmen, have already created this year's "the dog ate my homework" excuse for poor holiday spending with the absurd notion that the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is shorter this year. Quite frankly, I would not be surprise if many households used Amazon's Prime day and easy Amazon credit lines offered to buy holiday gifts early this year. Read More
11.25.19- The Greatest Swindle In American History... And How They'll Try It Again Soon
International Man: Before 1913 there was no income tax, and the United States was a much freer country. Initially, the government sold the federal income tax to the American people as something only the rich would have to pay.
Jeff Thomas: Yes, exactly. It always begins this way. The average person is always happy to see the rich taken down a peg, so this makes the introduction of the concept of theft by the government more palatable. Once people have gotten used to the concept and accept it as being perfectly reasonable, then it's time to begin to drop the bar as to who "the rich" are. Ultimately, the middle class are always the real target. Read More
11.23.19- Princeton Study: The U.S. Is Not 'Losing' Its Democracy, It's Already Long Gone
11.22.19- Who Knew 2 Cents Could Go So Far?
They keep chanting their "2 cent" mantra like a marketing slogan, deluding voters into believing that a small percentage of taxpayers can foot the bill…
About a week and a half ago I had a terrible sinus infection… I'm talking -really- bad. My sneezes were so ferocious that I half-expected the US Geological Survey to register them on the Richter Scale.
In the midst of all that misery, I became acutely interested in the health care plans of leading US Presidential contenders… and stayed up late at night when I couldn't sleep combing through their solutions. Read More
11.21.19- The Antifederalists Were Eerily Prophetic
What the Antifederalists predicted would be the results of the Constitution turned out to be true in most every respect.
Most school kids are left with the impression that the US Constitution was the inevitable follow-up to the Declaration of Independence and the war with King George. What they miss out on is the exciting debate that took place after the war and before the Constitution, a debate that over the dangers of creating a federal government at all. Read More
11.20.19- A Striking Collection of
When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.
One of the pitfalls of identifying market conditions using labels like "bull market" and "bear market" is that the accuracy of those labels can only be verified in hindsight. Early technical analysts like Charles Dow, Robert Rhea, and William Peter Hamilton tried to address that uncertainty by requiring various "confirmations" before applying those labels. For example, a new bull market isn't "confirmed" in Dow Theory until both industrial stocks and transportation stocks experience an initial advance from market lows, followed by a moderate pullback, followed by both indices breaking above the highs of that initial advance. Read More
11.19.19- The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment: Understanding the Court's Landmark Decisions
The Second Amendment is one of most fundamental provisions of the Bill of Rights, and one of the most fiercely debated. Since it was first put to paper, legal scholars, gun owners and anti-gun activists have engaged in an endless discussion over the meaning and scope of the Second Amendment, and for most of that time, gun owners have been on the losing side of the argument. Read More
11.18.19- Entertaining Questions
Anyone who doubts that the Attorney General is dead serious about cleaning up the goddamned mess of sedition spawned by the Democratic Party, its agents in the permanent Washington bureaucracy, and its public relations arm in the news media, might invest a little time and attention in William Barr's speech to the Federalist Society Friday evening. (Text of speech here and video here.)
Mr. Barr declared unambiguously and in plain English that "in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of 'Resistance' against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law." Is any part of that unclear? The confounded might take in this more detailed lesson in recent history from the speech: Read More
11.17.19- Yes, Taxation Is Theft
Libertarians think that taxation is theft. The government takes away part of your income and property by force. Your payments aren't voluntary. If you think they are, try to withhold payment and see what happens.
An influential book by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership, tries to show that this view of taxation is wrong. Many people, they say, foolishly resent taxes. By what right does the government take away part of what we own? Isn't this legalized theft? The government may claim that it needs the funds to provide essential social services: are the poor to be left to starve? But these assertions do not justify its policy of forcible seizure. Read More
11.15.19- Doug Casey on How the Homeless Crisis Could Soon Become an Epidemic
International Man: There is a growing homeless crisis in liberal West Coast cities, including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and many others. People living on the street are overrunning these cities.
Residents must deal with human feces, syringes, disease, and filth every day. In some areas, it's worse than the dirtiest slums of Brazil, Kenya, and India.
How did this happen? R ead More
11.14.19- John Adams on the Purpose of Government
At a time when we often forget that liberty is both America's rationale and its greatness, Americans would profit from Adams's wisdom.
John Adams, who has become "virtually an asterisk in history books today," in one writer's words, is inadequately celebrated. He played a leading role in our revolution and the beginnings of constitutional government. He wrote a Stamp Act protest that became a model for other protests. He outlined principles of liberty for Americans on the cusp of independence. R ead More
11.13.19- How the Deep State Media Operate
Few now doubt that the major U.S. media outlets, under the guise of journalism, function as political activists, saturating the airwaves and the internet with the talking points of the Democrat party.
There has long been liberal bias in the media, but deliberate efforts to undermine the traditional nonpartisan ideal of journalism took a giant leap forward with the 2007 founding of "Journolist." R ead More
11.12.19- If Impeachment Fails, Will The Elite Crash The Economy In Order To Prevent Four More Years Of Trump?
By now, it is exceedingly obvious that the global elite absolutely hate Donald Trump. No president in U.S. history has faced such a relentless assault by the corporate media, and there have been attempts to sabotage his presidency at every turn. Miraculously, Trump has survived all of these attacks so far, but now the specter of impeachment looms large over his administration. The Democrats have a solid majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they are working quickly toward drafting articles of impeachment, and they actually hope to have Trump impeached by Christmas Day. R ead More
11.11.19- The Wounded Mind
11.09.19.- Weekend Rant: Plans for
Global policy planners intend to deliver replacements for both dollar hegemony and fossil fuels. Plans may appear uncoordinated and in their early stages, but these issues are becoming increasingly linked.
A monetary reset incorporating state-sponsored cryptocurrencies will enable exchange controls to be introduced between nations by separating cross-border trade payments from domestic money circulation. The purpose will be to gain greater control over money and to direct its investment into green projects. R ead More
11.08.19- The Real Stock Market Is Declining
The major stock indices – the Dow, SPX and Nasdaq – have wafted up to all-time highs on a cloud of Central Bank printed money. Interestingly, most of the stocks in all three indices are below to well below their all-time highs. Breadth of the move is shockingly thin. Very few stocks are responsible for pushing the indices higher. The Dow's move last Friday, for instance, was primarily attributable to AAPL (by far the biggest contributor), MSFT, HD, UTX and JPM. Of those, only AAPL, UTX and JPM hit their all-time high on Friday. MSFT and HD were close. R ead More
11.07.19- An Obituary of the Western World
During the course of my life I have watched the Western World abandon all of the values that made it successful. Despite all its crimes, and they are many, the Western World succeeded. Everyone wanted to be part of it, and it will be the demise of the Russians that they still do.
The Western World succeeded, because it believed in objective truth and searched for it. This resulted in scientific and technological discoveries, in architectural & artistic beauty, and in brilliant literature that educated the educatable into the human condition. R ead More
11.06.19- Being a Modern Heretic
It's not easy going against the grain in any time period, in any society. In our present crumbling America, it may be more difficult than ever.
When you oppose both authoritarian political correctness, and the all-encompassing greed that has produced an unprecedented disparity of wealth, as I do, your prospects in all ways will be severely limited. Family and friends roll their eyes, at best, and at worst shun you. Prospective employers are not impressed. R ead More
11.05.19- How Far Will They Go?
CBS-News carried another bucket of muddy water for the coup team Sunday night with a lead 60 Minutes agit-prop story on Maria Butina, an ambitious Russian cutie who worked the American NRA circuit in the most public manner imaginable to make herself into a sex-bomb celebrity at the exact moment in history when the US Deep State wished to reinforce the fantasy, as Lesley Stahl put it, that "Russia was interfering in our electoral process." R ead More
11.04.19- 25 mind-blowing things that are likely to happen if the Dems succeed in removing Trump from office
A coordinated, deep state attempt to remove Trump from office at any cost is now gaining steam. With the collusion of the deep state media, CIA operatives and anti-Trump tech giants that censor all truth, the deep state is hoping to crush democracy, destroy Trump and install Hillary Clinton as President of the United States in just the next few months.
Should they succeed in achieving a U.S. Senate conviction of Trump — which would remove him from office — here are 25 shocking, history-changing events we may see unfold. R ead More
11.02.19- Justice is Dead
"Where's the justice, where's the law? Raise your healthy voice." ~ Ted Nugent, Stormtroopin' (1975)
The U.S. Department of Justice, commonly referred to as simply the Justice Department, is a subdivision of the Executive Branch of the government under the control and authority of the United States Attorney General. Their primary function is to ensure that the laws are upheld and that justice is served. (So what went wrong? ~ Ed.) R ead More
11.01.19- A History of the 21st Century
In the 1990s with the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of the communist hardliners' arrest of Soviet President Gorbachev and Yeltsin serving as Washington's puppet while Americans and Israelis looted Russia, the neoconservatives called for Washington to overthrow Middle Eastern governments. The neocon scenario for remaking the Middle East was set out prior to the events of September 11, 2001. R ead More
10.31.19- Individual Goodness Is the Antidote to Collective Turmoil
In my day to day search for interesting and, hopefully, relevant content, there are a handful of discussion boards I visit.
The discussions span a wide range of interesting topics from history to how to cook a particular dish to where to find a good deal on wool socks to the best song of the 1960s. However, politics, by far, appears to be the most common driver of discussion.
I suspect it's like this in many corners of the online world. R ead More
10.30.19- Have The Bankers And Politicians Taken America to The End of Its Financial Rope?
What if you woke up this morning to hear news reports that the U.S GDP (gross domestic product) is in decline for the first time in decades?
The GDP is a number world economies use as a bellwether. Where the U.S. economy goes, so goes the world. (Given that the Post WW I & II rearrangement saw to it that the U.S. would have high incomes to produce a consumer economy and most of the rest of the world would be a supplier economy with low incomes to provide cheap products to the U.S.) R ead More
10.29.19- Three things you didn't know about the crash of 1929
October 28, 1929– 90 years ago today– is known as 'Black Monday' in financial circles.
The US stock market had peaked the previous month, on September 3, 1929, with the Dow Jones stock index reaching a record high of 381.
But throughout September and October, nervous investors began pulling their money out of the market.
And over a three day period in late October (including Black Monday), the market lost more than 30% of its value. R ead More
10.28.19- This Is What Worries Me
10.26.19- What You Think Is Controlled By What You Watch, And What You Watch
Why do you believe what you believe? Some people have a really solid answer to that question, but much of the population never thinks much about deeper questions such as this. In fact, for most Americans it is simply easier to let others do their thinking for them. Today, most of us spend multiple hours each day absorbing information through a screen, and most of the content that is fed to us through our televisions, phones, tablets and computers is controlled by the elite. And if you allow anyone to feed information into your mind for several hours every day, it is going to have a dramatic impact on how you view the world. R ead More
10.25.19- 55 Ways to Starve the Beast
A term coined in 1985 by an unnamed staffer of the Reagan administration was "Starve the Beast". This referred to a fiscally conservative political strategy to cut government spending by paying less in taxes. So, in the original sense, "the Beast" was the government, and people were to starve said beast by spending less and using loopholes to pay less in taxes.
Now the Beast is a whole lot bigger.
These days the Beast has a lot more tentacles than just the government. R ead More
10.24.19- The Pathocracy Of The Deep State: Tyranny At The Hands Of A
"Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths. I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/ antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this... That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow — but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one."
- Dr. Martha Stout, clinical psychologist and former instructor at Harvard Medical School R ead More
10.23.19- Central Bank Hints at a "Big Reset" and Reveals a Possible Solution
It's not every day you hear a major financial institution hint at the possibility of the entire economic system collapsing.
The reason major financial institutions (and the mainstream financial media) shy away from a negative outlook on the economy is out of fear of triggering a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy." People stampeding to sell stocks and pull money out of banks could cause a vicious cycle of declines and losses. R ead More
10.22.19- The American Economy RIP
Thirty-eight years ago when I was in charge of United States domestic economic policy, the US Treasury and President Reagan believed that the purpose of economic policy was to serve the country, not Wall Street and the banks or the corporations or any of the various organized interest groups. Our idea was that policy could not be for this or that part of the economy. It had to be for everyone.R ead More
10.21.19- Tulsi Gabbard: Canary in the Democratic Coal Mine
The imminent demise of her presidential campaign portends disaster for her party.
For a sense of how divorced the Democrats are from mainstream America, the collapse of Tulsi Gabbard's presidential campaign is instructive. Gabbard is a liberal who supports banning so-called assault weapons, raising the minimum wage to $15, free college tuition, etc. But her positions on abortion and health care are relatively moderate. Moreover, she is circumspect about impeachment, the only responsible position for a sitting congresswoman, and supports withdrawing American troops from Syria. Read More
10.19.19- Still Think There's No Inflation? Check Out All The Affluent Renters
Generally speaking, if you can afford to buy a decent house you do it. Owning is viewed by most people to be both simpler (no worries about your landlord selling a rental out from under you) and a better financial deal. And of course there's the status of home ownership. When you rent, people wonder why you can't afford to buy. When you own, they view you as a higher class of neighbor.
Yet a growing number of affluent Americans are now renting. From today's Wall Street Journal: Read More
10.18.19- The 16th Amendment: How the U.S. Federal Income Tax Became D.C.'s Favorite Political Weapon
The American Revolution was sparked in part by unjust taxation. After all, the colonists in Boston rebelled against Britain for imposing "taxation without representation," and summarily tossed English tea into the harbor in protest in 1773.
Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like entrepreneurship and investment. Read More
China, The NBA, And The Massive Face of Globalism
Let's get one thing straight. The Chinese people, whether they appear happy or sad, support their government because they're controlled. After generations of being beaten down, the population bows the head and bends the knee to slave masters. Call that freedom if you want to.
And if you really believe the situation in America is no better than the system in China, even with the amount of censorship alive and well in America, even with the rigging of this economy, try an experiment. Move to China and start publishing articles relentlessly critical of the government there. See what happens. Be sure to leave a copy of your last Will and Testament at home. Read More
10.16.19- Property Rights Are What Separate Humans from the Animal Kingdom
As someone who has studied public policy for decades, I have frequently been struck by how many people are so committed to their favorite ism or "answer" on an issue that they will ignore powerful contradictory analysis and evidence that is only a couple easy keystrokes away, or even when it is right in front of them.
A good example of this willful ignorance is the frequency with which opponents of capitalism reiterate dog-eat-dog, "survival of the fittest," and jungle as descriptors when they open their cornucopia of calumny. Read More
10.15.19- We're in a permanent coup
Americans might soon wish they just waited to vote their way out of the Trump era
I've lived through a few coups. They're insane, random, and terrifying, like watching sports, except your political future depends on the score.
The kickoff begins when a key official decides to buck the executive. From that moment, government becomes a high-speed head-counting exercise. Who's got the power plant, the airport, the police in the capital? How many department chiefs are answering their phones? Who's writing tonight's newscast? Read More
10.14.19- Will Social Security Be There for You? Status of the Social Security Trust Fund
"Don't rely on Social Security": because inflation adjustments are punitively low, and benefits become more inadequate as you age.
The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund – does not include the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund – which closed the fiscal year 2019 at the end of September with a balance of $2.80 trillion, according to figures released by the Social Security Administration. This balance was up by $3 billion from September last year, but was down $16 billion from September 2017. Read More
10.12.19- U.S. Marines reserve units activated for "emergency within the United States" which "will come with little warning" – cites "threats in the Homeland"
(Natural News) BREAKING NEWS UPDATE concerning a directive involving the United States Marine Corps reserve units via MARADMINS number 550/19, signed on Oct. 3, 2019, authorized by Brigadier General Daniel L. Shipley, Director, Manpower Plans and Policy. Read More
10.11.19- Why you shouldn't be able to drive to your bank
What is your favorite coffee shop or restaurant? Which doctor's office and dentist do you prefer to go to?
I bet these are all within, say, 15 minutes of your home. That makes sense–who wants to drive three hours to get coffee, or take a plane to their dentist?
But what about your bank?
If you live in the USA or Europe, chances are, the banks in your neighborhood probably aren't that great. Read More
10.10.19- PG&E's Deliberate Blackouts
Seriously, folks, I do not know why Nuttyfornians haven't done a run on pitchforks and ropes, because I've never seen a state so lost in lunacy as that one. While San Francisco drowns in human poop and drug needles, the people in the state capital, the administrative center of the asylum, Scarymental , are worried about plastic straws and forcing people to get vaccinated. Read More
10.09.19- Inflation Will Eliminate Excess Debt
"We'll take inflation if necessary, but we can't take unemployment."
– Richard Nixon
Today, we come bearing glad tidings.
We've seen how both Trump and Warren, the Federal Reserve, Congress, Krugman, Summers, the powers that be, and all the ships at sea are committed to inflating our way out of the debt trap. Read More
10.08.19- Following the Greater Depression
I'm often asked how I see the warning signs that allow me to gauge the timing of the coming economic crisis.
Although careful research into an economy can result in a relatively accurate prognostication, the timing is always the most difficult aspect to pinpoint. Read More
10.07.19- The Impeachment Waltz
Let me confess; I would have supported the impeachment of almost every president since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Just in more recent years, both Reagan and George H.W. Bush could have been impeached over the October Surprise and Iran/Contra scandals. Bill Clinton could have impeached for many high crimes and misdemeanors, but the mass murder at Waco certainly stands out as an impeachable offense. Dubya could have been impeached for the "weapons of mass destruction" lie and the government stand down on September 11, 2001. Barack Obama assassinated an American citizen with a drone, bragged about it, and then killed his sixteen year old son a month later. I don't recall any impeachment efforts over that. Read More
10.05.19- Weekend Rant: "I Love The Smell Of Malfeasance In The Morning"
Sometimes, if you open up a big enough gate and stand in the void, the gate will swing back and slap you on the ass — which is where serial bungler and arch-schlemiel Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) finds himself at the end of an exhausting week's dissembling in the WhistleGate matter. Long about now, his reluctant partner in the latest impeachment gambit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, must feel date-raped just a little bit as every unraveling thread in the story leads back to another exposed deception by Schiff, the Inspector Clouseau of impeachment politics. Read More
10.04.19- The Huge & Terrifying US Dollar Beast
This is a perspective that those may wish to take into consideration who think the US dollar is about to collapse…
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) explains very well how to predict the winner of a beauty contest successfully. You must, he noted, think along the following lines: "(…) each competitor has to pick, not those faces which he himself finds prettiest, but those which he thinks likeliest to catch the fancy of the other competitors (…). It is not a case of choosing those which, to the best of use of one's judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have to reach the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be." Read More
10.03.19- America's Perilous Path Of Wealth Distribution
10.02.19- Soviet Catastrophe Paints Grim Picture of America's Future
10.01.19- 11 Habits You Need to Break Before You're Broke
I'm all for treating myself to some of life's luxuries, but I won't splurge to the point where it starts to hurt my finances.
Sadly, for a lot of Americans the latter is true.
In fact, the average US adult spends $1,497 a month on nonessential items, according to a recent survey conducted by OnePoll. That's roughly $18,000 a year on things we can all do without. Read More
09.30.19- Geoengineering Watch Global Alert News
09.28.19- Weekend Rant: It Is Time To Go: Over Half Of All California Voters "Have Considered Leaving The State"
Why in the world does anyone still want to live in California? Great weather and good paying jobs are the two biggest positives that residents often point out, but the high cost of living and the absolutely ridiculous housing prices often eat up all of the extra money that Californians think that they are making. In fact, it was recently reported that it now takes approximately $350,000 a year to live a middle class lifestyle in the city of San Francisco. If you have a ton of money, it can partially insulate you from the problems that are increasingly ravaging the state, but unless you never go out in public nothing is going to insulate you completely. Read More
09.27.19- It's impossible to know everything. Here's the smartest way to be ignorant
I spent 15 minutes reading tuna cans in the grocery store the other day. I could have spent hours if I decided to look up each type online.
Keeping the price in mind, I wanted a smaller variety of tuna to avoid high mercury content and something with few dangerous chemicals in the packaging. Read More
09.26.19- This law allows hospitals to kidnap you for profit
An 89 year old man named Robert Allen was feeling depressed after Christmas.
He went to the emergency room, and told the doctor that he had thoughts of hurting himself. Using his powers under the Baker Act, the doctor sent Robert to a mental health facility called North Tampa Behavioral.
Florida's Baker Act allows doctors, police, or judges to involuntarily commit patients to psychiatric hospitals for up to 72 hours if they show signs that they may hurt themselves or others. Read More
09.25.19- What I learned from having my mind manipulated this weekend
There are few times in life when you have the opportunity to witness a master at work… someone who is truly the best in the world at what they do.
Whether it's the world's greatest chef, a champion athlete, a master pianist, or even the guy who holds the world record for being able to recite the first 70,000 digits of Pi, it's always exciting to see the best at work.
Apollo Robbins is the best in the world at what he does. Read More
09.24.19- Doug Casey on Why the State Is a "Parasite on Society"
Allow me to say a few things that some of you may find shocking, offensive, or even incomprehensible. On the other hand, I suspect many or most of you may agree – but either haven't crystallized your thoughts, or are hesitant to express them. I wonder if it will be safe to say them in another five years… Read More
09.23.19- How to Slice Your Cell Phone Bill in Half
Can you name any other cell phone providers other than AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile?
If you can't, I don't blame you. The 'Big Four' have dominated the mobile provider space for decades.
And with their dominance, they've been able to dictate the price of your monthly phone plan. The average starting price of an unlimited plan within the Big Four is now $68.75 a month. Read More
09.21.19- Ben Hunt: Prepare To Get Burned
Society is pretending its actions don't have consequences. It's badly mistaken...
History teaches us that there is no free lunch, reminds Dr. Ben Hunt, publisher of EpsilonTheory.com.
And science informs us that even the most simple systems become nearly impossible to predict or control with 100% precision as time and variables change. Read More
09.20.19- The Greatest Threat to World Stability No One Knows About
The absolute greatest threat to world stability is a threat that oddly receives virtually no publicity. It's not nuclear arms, it's not a US stock market crash, it's not a global bond market crash and it's not a real estate market crash. The greatest threat to world stability is one that originates within the realm of cyberwarfare. Before you state, "Yeah, I've heard that many times before" and dismiss this article, there is a very low probability that your understanding of the magnitude of this risk is anywhere near complete simply due to the fact that the great majority of people do not have a clear understanding of how much of their daily modern lives depend upon a functioning internet. Read More
09.19.19- Democracy Is a Scam
The news this week, so far, has focused on Saudi Arabia and the oil market.
Somebody launched an assault on a refinery. Immediately, a group called the "Houthis" claimed responsibility. And immediately, too, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that it was the fault of Iran… and U.S. President Trump said he was locked and loaded for a retaliation against someone. Read More
09.18.19- Financially Transmitted Diseases
It all happened when I was having dinner with some colleagues discussing quantitative easing (QE) and negative interest rate policy (NIRP).
NIRP will have the biggest impact on our global markets moving forward. Read More
09.17.19- The Black Swan Is a Drone
What was "possible" yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.
Predictably, the mainstream media is serving up heaping portions of reassurances that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are no big deal and full production will resume shortly. The obvious goal is to placate global markets fearful of an energy disruption that could tip a precarious global economy into recession. Read More
09.16.19- Tectonic Rumblings
The memory hole that appeared in America's zeitgeist around 2016 is expanding like some evil cosmic rot. Things happen and then things unhappen and after a while it's like they never happened. For instance, little seems to have happened all summer long with the matter known as RussiaGate, the attempt by high US government officials to overthrow the result of the 2016 election by pretending that Russia was trying to interfere in the 2016 election. Read More
09.14.19- Everything I Know About Business I Learned From The Godfather
09.13.19- Has America Become One of the Most Evil Nations on the Entire Planet?
How will history remember us? As Americans, we like to think that we are a light to the world and that other countries should be using us as a model for how to properly do things. But the truth is that we have become unspeakably evil, and after reading this entire article I doubt that there will be anyone that will disagree with me. Read More
09.12.19- Tulsi Gabbard Suggests Government Is Run By A "Small Group Of Political Elite"
Democratic candidate and congresswoman from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard is an unconventional political figure in this upcoming election that has been turning heads. Whether it's sharing truths about the Syrian war and the US arming terrorists or whether she was exposing establishment candidates like Kamala Harris, Gabbard is someone who many people are seeing as 'the only viable Dem candidiate.' Read More
09.11.19- Just when you think you own your own private property…
The year was 1967. Ronald Reagan had just become governor of California. Aretha Franklin was belting out R-E-S-P-E-C-T on the radio. Marxist revolutionary leader Che Guevara was captured and executed in Bolivia.
And a restaurant chain called The White Spot opened its newest location in Denver, Colorado. Read More
09.10.19- 9/11 After 18 Years
I would appreciate hearing from readers whether they have come across a report in the print, TV, or NPR media of the highly professional four-year investigation of WTC Building 7's demise. The international team of civil engineers concluded that the official story of Building 7's destruction is entirely false. I reported their findings here.
I suspect that the expert report is already in the Memory Hole. Popular Mechanics, Wikipedia and CNN cannot label a distinguished team of experts "conspiracy theorists." Read More
09.09.19- Gun control is 'NOT' the answer… Idiot control 'IS' the only answer!
Interesting statistics! The following jives with the research of Prof. Lott at the University of Chicago, who is a noted expert on gun laws and stats. ~ Ed.
There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, and this number is not disputed. The U.S. population is 324,059,091 as of June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.00925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death: Read More
09.07.19- It's The Pace Of Change That Kills You
And it has now sped up beyond our means to control it
A treasured member of my family is in the process of dying right now. She has lived a full, rich life; but her passing is a sad affair for us.
I've spent a lot of time recently with hospice workers. I've learned that they're often asked by their patients, "How much time do I have left?" Read More
09.06.19- The king of Ponzi schemes was an amateur compared to this
Ten years ago, a man was forever separated from his $40,000 slippers.
Posing as an investment firm for decades, Bernie Madoff's company defrauded thousands of investors out of their money.
In 2009 Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for running the $64 billion Ponzi scheme. Read More
09.05.19- Free-Riding Investors Set up Markets for a Major Collapse
Free riding is one of the oldest problems in economics and in society in general. Simply put, free riding describes a situation where one party takes the benefits of an economic condition without contributing anything to sustain that condition.
The best example is a parasite on an elephant. The parasite sucks the elephant's blood to survive but contributes nothing to the elephant's well-being. Read More
09.04.19- Truth is an Endangered Species
Dear Readers, you have kept this website going longer than I had hoped. It is a lot of work for me. My columns and those of guests generate a lot of appreciation and also a lot of demonization and expressions of hatred toward me. The slightest criticism of Israel labels one an anti-semite. People who are aware understand that this word is so over-used that it has become meaningless, but the insouciant conclude that if you are labeled an anti-semite you are some kind of monster who wants to harm Jews. If you point out the double-standards that white people suffer, you get branded a "racist white supremacist." If you point out that #MeToo feminists are criminalizing heterosexual sexual attraction, you become a misogynist. Read More
09.03.19- In Coming Currency Wars, Gold Is the Only Practical Way to Preserve Buying Power
Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I've met people who don't want to try for fear of failing. – J.K. Rowling
OLD TOWN HOTEL, HANOI – This month, we are billionaires.
As longtime Diary readers know, a year ago, my ex-wife Kate and I packed up our things and left America. Then we converted our savings and investments into gold and silver. Since then, we've been traveling the world. Read More
09.02.19- Mass Layoffs Are Back.
Millions are going to lose their jobs in the coming recession. Will you?
Imagine the following scene playing out at work tomorrow:
08.31.19- Trade War Tariffs to Hit U.S. Consumers and Retailers
U.S. consumers and retailers may not escape the next round of tariffs set to roll out on September 1. Turns out, they won't be delayed until December as originally stated.
The new tariffs will be raised to 15% from 10% in response to China's additional tariffs on $75 billion of American goods.
According to a Newsmax piece, POTUS said that "the $250 billion of goods and products already being taxed at 25% will see that rate hiked to 30% starting on Oct. 1." Read More
08.30.19- "Monster" Hurricane Dorian Is Projected To Be "A Very Big Hurricane,
Well, that certainly escalated quickly. On Wednesday we were told that Hurricane Dorian would only be a Category 3 storm when it hits the Florida coastline, but now we are being told that it will be a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Dorian is rapidly gaining strength over very warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean, and the latest forecast has it making landfall somewhere along the east coast of Florida on Monday. If it is officially a Category 4 storm when it arrives, it will be the most powerful storm to hit the east coast of Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Read More
08.29.19- How to become a billionaire
Every morning here in Puerto Rico, I wake up around 6am as the sun rises over the ocean in front of my house. And I pretty much head straight to the gym.
Once there, one of my favorite medieval torture devices is a fairly new exercise bike called a Peloton.
In case you haven't used one before, a Peloton is like any other stationary exercise bike. You pedal a lot, and it sucks. Read More
08.28.19- The Next Recession Will Destroy Millennials
Millennials are already in debt and without savings. After the next downturn, they'll be in even bigger trouble.
The trade war is dragging on. The yield curve is inverting. Investors are fleeing to safety. Global growth is slowing. The stock market is dipping. The Millennials are screwed. Read More
08.27.19- Peter Schiff Compares Trade War to "Battle at Little Bighorn"
Political commentators are increasingly critical of U.S. trade policy, particularly tariffs and the trade war with China. Radio host Peter Schiff went so far as to compare U.S. trade policies to General Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Meanwhile, some economic red flags seem to support their worries.
In today's polarized political climate, there is one topic both the Left and the Right seem to agree on: the trade war with China is eventually going to hurt the average American. Read More
08.26.19- Save The World By
08.24.19- A Critical Threshold Has Just Been Crossed, And Things Will NEVER Be The Same Again…
Just when things seemed to be settling down a little bit, our conflict with China has suddenly escalated to a dangerous new phase. This is not simply just a "trade war" any longer, and our relationship with China will never be the same again. As you will see below, President Trump just referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as our "enemy", and this is something that the Chinese are going to take extremely seriously. In China, the national leader is a representation of the government as a whole, and the government as a whole is a representation of the entire county. Read More
08.23.19- What a Nobel Peace Prize, the Federal Reserve, and endless war have in common
It was ten years ago that Congressman Ron Paul released his book, End the Fed.
It immediately shot to number six on the New York Times Bestsellers list.
Paul's message was that the Federal Reserve was created to bail out banks. It privatized profits for them and socialized losses for the rest of us.
He said the system works against us by killing competition among banks and hiding taxes through inflation. Read More
08.22.19- The "Hidden Tax" That Could Hurt Your Retirement Savings
Retirees have enough potential problems to deal with when it comes to providing security for their retirement, including the disturbing fact that 42% of Americans may retire broke.
You can see in the GoBankingRates chart below that 61.6% of retirees have less than $100,000 saved for retirement, which is far from the amount some experts claim is needed on average: Read More
08.21.19- Something Stinks About The "Booming Economy" Narrative:
Apparently J.C. Penny didn't get Trump's "Consumers are in the best shape ever" memo…
J.C. Penny, yes, that same J.C. Penny that has been a staple, for decades, in malls throughout America, is getting into the business of selling used clothes. Read More
08.20.19- Censorship of Conservative Voices on the Internet is Virtual Book Burning
Americans are currently in the midst of a virtual "book burning" akin to the ones we look back on in shame.
08.19.19- 'Con'-fidence
Markets are subject to a giant con game. The game of CONfidence. Confidence must be maintained under all circumstances or we're heading into a global recession first and then a US recession to follow.
Consider the macro context here: Nine major economiesare either in recession or on the verge of it. This includes Germany, UK, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, South Korea, Russia. Everything else is slowing down hard. Read More
08.17.19- Bubble Bubba
Let's take a look at how the average consumer is doing. I'll call this typical consumer "Bubba" because I just read an article that claimed "Bubba's doing better today than at any time since before the Korean War." It disgusted me because I found it to be such a disingenuous set of lies wrapped in half-truths, all contrived to pacify the trickle-down peasants as that philosophy continues to short-change the middle class with its fake promise. Read More
08.16.19- Inflation Rising: Consumer Goods Prices Increase by Most in Seven Years
08.15.19- Major Recession Alarm Sounds
Red, red, in every direction we turn today… red.
The Dow Jones shed 800 scarlet points on the day.
Percentage wise, both S&P and Nasdaq took similar whalings.
The S&P lost 86 points. And the Nasdaq… 242.
And so the market paid back all of yesterday's trade-induced gains — with heaps of interest.
Worrying economic data drifting out of China and Germany were partly accountable. Read More
08.14.18- The "R" Word Is Rearing Its Ugly Head
It's here, or at least nearly here. "It," in this case, is another recession.
We can debate the causes – an escalating trade war between the US and China, too much dodgy debt, the end of the longest bull market in history, or perhaps all three. Read More
08.13.19- The True Story Behind China's 'Currency Manipulation'
08.12.19- Isn't it obvious? Jeffrey Epstein was murdered because dead men don't talk
This post won't be lengthy. The story is so simple that everybody already knows what happened here.
Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell at 7:30 am this morning, according to police. He was under "suicide watch," which was of course a designation placed on him roughly two weeks ago to set up the back story for what just happened. Jeffrey Epstein was "arkancided" / murdered for the simple reason that dead men don't talk. Read More
08.10.19- To Avoid A Collapse Means Restoring
With the recent discussion of the collapse of the western system of banking (and neo-liberal 'post-truth' values more generally) a serious overview of the post-WWII stripping down of nation states is in order. Over the past couple of weeks, various figures like France's Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and American Senator Elizabeth Warren have called for a re-organization of the banking system with Le Maire saying on July 13 that the Bretton Woods "has reached its limits", and Warren stating on July 22 that "the country's economic foundation is fragile.Read More
08.09.19- Heading for civil war
Donald Trump's opponents are completely unhinged. The hate and slander directed toward the president and his supporters is off the charts. The vitriol comes not just from the Democratic Party, the media, and the world of entertainment, but also from a sizable proportion of the federal bureaucracy and many seemingly ordinary people. Read More
08.08.19- The Middle Class is Getting Destroyed!
Youtuber Jeremiah Babe tells it like it is, and doesn't mince his words. The middle class is getting eviscerated and it'll be so much worse once the economy comes crashing down again.
In his recent video, Babe says far too many Americans are staring the boogeyman in the face and yet they still ignore the "dangers that are coming with this [economic] collapse." He added: "I'm absolutely dumbfounded by the lack of common sense here in America in regards to what is happening to this economy." Read More
08.07.19- "Worst Year Ever": The Chinese Ban On U.S. Agricultural Products Will Be A Death Blow For Countless U.S. Farms
08.06.19- Why We're Keeping Our
POITOU, FRANCE – Watch out, Dear Reader, this could be a tough week for investors.
Investor's Business Daily reports:
So far, the big, fat, ugly Dow has sat on the wall and stubbornly refused to tumble. But last week, Donald J. Trump gave Humpty a shove. Read More
08.05.19- Scarcity vs. abundance: How globalists enslave humanity by creating artificial scarcity in everything: Money, health, knowledge, energy and more
How do evil globalists control the world and enslave humanity? By creating artificial scarcity in everything from energy to money to food.
Abundance is the enemy of globalist control. When people experience abundance, they become more self-reliant and realize they don't need big centralized government to run their lives. Abundance leads to economic mobility and human dignity, and these must be crushed by globalists to keep humanity suppressed. Read More
08.03.19- Weekend Rant: Fiscal Conservatism Is Dead. Republicans Killed It.
"Fiscal conservatism," R.I.P. And while the Democratic Party has been an aider and abettor of this untimely death since at least the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, it is the Republican Party — the purported partisan home for fiscal conservatism — that ought to be credited with the fatal coup de grâce. Read More
08.02.19- America's Poverty Trap: How A Small Financial Setback Can Spiral Into An Inescapable Disaster
When you are living a financially fragile life, it seems like someone somewhere is trying to keep you poor. Why is it so hard to get ahead? Well, because the system is rigged against you when you're living paycheck to paycheck with fee after fee after fee. Because what makes more sense than charging someone who already can't pay their bills even more money? Read More
08.01.19- How Real Mind Control Works
When people are confronted with the idea of "mind control" they often think of something out of television or film media; a lone prisoner tortured, chemically dazed and conditioned into a hollow zombie as his captors squeeze information from him or use him to complete a task he would not normally do or morally accept. And while there is actually some truth to this kind of Hollywood depiction, as is evidenced in the exposure of government programs like MK Ultra, the most insidious forms of mind control are far more subtle. Read More
07.31.19- Johnstone: How the Question "Who Benefits From This?" Can Change Your Life
"Cui bono?" is a phrase you'll often see used on conspiracy-minded Youtube videos and discussion forums. It's Latin for "Who benefits?", and it refers to a perspective in legal analysis that the one who stands most to gain from a crime is often the perpetrator. It's the "motive" part of "means, motive and opportunity". Read More
07.30.19- What I Learned from Eating Candy
I don't remember exactly how old I was, but it was either late single digits or early doubles.
I was looking through the local newspaper and saw a big, bold ad. Or maybe my parents showed it to me… I can't remember that part either.
What I do remember is what the ad said, and how exciting it was to me at the time: Topps, the famous baseball card and candy company, was looking for taste testers.
More specifically, they wanted children taste testers. It was a one-day job. You'd go there, taste some sweet stuff, and get paid to tell them what you thought. Read More
07.29.19- Boomer Retirement
It happens if you live long enough. You finally get old enough for social security. Even though we are in our early 60's and not planning to retire I was curious when my wife's social security statement arrived in the mail. She glanced at it and then handed it to me.
Now I plan on working until the day I die. I just want to work less and less every year. Fortunately I am in a position where I can slow down, downshift a gear and not quit. I still want to work but I want to take more time off and travel a little more. Most people run at their jobs full speed until one day they just jump off (or are pushed off) the merry-go-round and all of a sudden find themselves unemployed. Read More
07.27.19- Non-Profit Hospitals
The annual cost of health care for the average American family hovers around $20,000. Premiums increase yearly, and this is a primary driver of why real wages for average Americans don't seem to improve. Meanwhile, the CEO of non-profit Banner Health, based out of Arizona, raked in $21.6 million last year. Nearly half of the CEOs of America's leading non-profit health systems made more than $2.5 million. Only eight of the 82 executives of non-profit companies earned less than $1 million. Read More
07.26.19- How to Buy "the Next Amazon"
The date was May 15, 1997.
A small company founded in Bellevue, Washington was set to go public. With the modest ambition of selling books online, Amazon (AMZN) listed for just $18 a share.
We all know what happened next…
On a split-adjusted stock basis, Amazon rose from $1.50 per share to where it is trading today around $1,975 per share. That is an incredible 1,317 times your money, or a 131,567% return on investment. That turned every $1000 invested into more than $1.3 million. Read More
07.25.19- Free-Riding Investors Set up Markets for a Major Collapse
Free riding is one of the oldest problems in economics and in society in general. Simply put, free riding describes a situation where one party takes the benefits of an economic condition without contributing anything to sustain that condition.
The best example is a parasite on an elephant. The parasite sucks the elephant's blood to survive but contributes nothing to the elephant's well-being. Read More
07.24.19- California's nuclear power plants found to be sitting on top of a massive supervolcano filled with
We have raised an entire generation of Americans that have no respect for the law, and now we are reaping what we have sown. I cannot even begin to tell you how alarmed I am by some of the videos that I have been watching lately. As you will see below, all over the nation young people are brazenly flouting the law, obstructing and assaulting law enforcement officers, and committing criminal acts in large groups. I think that "lawlessness" is perhaps the best word to describe what is happening, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning. Read More
07.23.19- Beware, the IRS is eyeing your inherited money
One little-noticed tax grab is already on the table, and another waits in the wings
One of the perils of being well-off is the constant risk that the federal government and/or your friendly state and local tax collectors will figure out new and different ways to snatch more of your wealth. Especially wealth that you earned the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it. To raise your paranoia to the appropriate level, here are two new things to worry about. Read More
07.22.19- Badly Screwed: The Elite Are Spitting in Your Face!
For the past two months, I've sunk my mind into the subjects of income inequality and wealth inequality. It took me on a journey that included over 13 lengthy books, countless recorded lectures, and numerous all-nighters to finally articulate my main conclusion on the matter, based on the facts.
Bottom line: America's politicians, wealthy businessmen, and CEOs do not, in their heart of hearts, give the slightest thought to the average person's well-being. Read More
07.20.19- Trump's Fight With The Fed Over Interest Rates Is A Scripted Farce
There is a very bizarre narrative being circulated in the mainstream economic media and it goes a little something like this:
"The Federal Reserve has capitulated on liquidity tightening yet the US economy is "stronger than ever", isn't that weird?" Read More
07.19.19- The Greatest Hoax of All
Fifty years ago, our government and its state-run media tell us, Americans sent men to the moon. Neil Armstrong said "One small step," and all that, and the photographs of the event were startlingly clear. Well, except for all the shadow anomalies, and lack of stars in the sky, that is.
As a twelve year old, and a huge astronomy junkie, I followed the Apollo program nearly as closely as I memorized Major League Baseball batting averages. I knew all the astronauts' names, and even had a favorite; Jim Lovell, who would head the ill-fated Apollo 13, denying him the honor of walking on the moon. Read More
07.18.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 5
Eugenics emerged with a bang in the early 1900s with a primary focus of controlling the population. What began as fairs and baby contests for the best pedigree and maintaining ancestral records to distinguish traits, evolved into a cesspool of genetic manipulations and infertility by the hands of scientists, "philanthropists" and the entire medical industry, whether some knew it or not. But that wasn't enough for the masses – GMOs, big tech, geoengineering, and AI moved to the forefront to pick up the slack – and suddenly health began. declining everywhere. Read More
07.17.19- Promise The Moon
In the 2018 US general election, a spate of liberal candidates appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, each making dramatic promises for a more collectivist US.
Until the 2016 election, the US hadn't seen many openly collectivist candidates since before World War II, but since the campaign that gave rise to avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialist candidates have appeared in abundance and have become "the other democrats." They're not only plentiful, but unapologetic in their socialist stance.
But why should this be? And where will it lead? Read More
07.16.19- The Next Industrial Revolution
What you're going to read in the next few minutes will be shocking and unbelievable. But it's also factual and logical. That will make it upsetting and disturbing. Most people are at least vaguely aware of what's happening. But very, very few are aware of its degree or the implications.
As you probably know, I believe times are about to get quite rough economically and politically. But, at the same time, I'm very optimistic about what's happening in science and technology. So let me hazard some predictions. And break the old rule about how, if you predict an event will occur, to make sure you don't predict its timing. Read More
07.15.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 4
Eugenics is all about controlling the population. This is not a lost art – it is an evolved art that they have perfected. The U.S. population growth hit a historic 80-year low last year and the entire world population growth is on a downward spiral, particularly in western countries. This is due to a decrease in the number of births and an increase in the number of deaths, along with an infertility crisis. How did this happen? Read More
07.13.19- Do You Truly Have Free Will?
How we're constantly at war with our biological programming
I love that Jung quote. I've used it generously in conversation, seminars and writings throughout the years. Read More
07.12.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS Part 3
Since the dawn of eugenics, they've tried to trace the pedigree and traits of human beings so as to control the masses. Through DNA, they have not only accomplished this, they have extended a branch to the population to show off their ancestral trees. Much like in the days of pedigree fairs, people had no idea what they were signing up for. Read More
07.11.19- Are White People
There is a strong case that they are. Having been demonized for many years and intimidated from defending themselves, white people are now intentionally discriminated against by the racial "minorities" (actually vast world majorities) of the people they have been pressured to elevate above them. Once the "oppressed" are put in charge by dumbshit whites, the whites are really oppressed. Read More
07.10.19- Major Red Flags Are Causing Many To Doubt Whether Justice Will Be Done In The Jeffrey Epstein Sex Scandal
It won't just be Jeffrey Epstein that will be on trial in the months ahead. As this scandal unfolds, the entire U.S. legal system will be on trial, and if justice does not prevail many Americans will lose faith in the system for good. And of course the rest of the world will be watching too, and so what are they supposed to think about us if we are not able to put Epstein and all of his dirty friends in prison? As I detailed in part three of this series, the evidence against Jeffrey Epstein and his partners in crime is mounting. Read More
07.09.19- Goodbye Dollar, It Was Nice Knowing You!
The significance of the European move cannot be understated…
Over the past two years, the White House has initiated trade disputes, insulted allies and enemies alike, and withdrawn from or refused to ratify multinational treaties and agreements. It has also expanded the reach of its unilaterally imposed rules, forcing other nations to abide by its demands or face economic sanctions. While the stated Trump Administration intention has been to enter into new arrangements more favorable to the United States, the end result has been quite different, creating a broad consensus within the international community that Washington is unstable, not a reliable partner and cannot be trusted. Read More
07.08.19- You Are Being Trolled
The world is on the brink of war, again. And again. And, yes, yet again. And then it's not on the brink of war any more… but wait, there's more! Of course there's more, there always is. US aircraft carrier battle groups are steaming toward North Korea… or not. They are steaming about aimlessly, nowhere near North Korea, but in a very threatening manner. Then Trump and Kim Jong Un meet, get on great, sign a piece of paper that means nothing and part friends. Now the aircraft carriers are steaming about far less menacingly. Then Trump and Un meet again, to sign some other meaningless piece of paper, but then John Bolton shoots his mouth off and the deal is off. Read More
07.06.19- Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS
Over 60,000 Americans were sterilized in the U.S., in the name of eugenics, but it didn't end there. The phenomenon of men's sperm declining by 50% and infertility in females rapidly rising – stumps no one – they just won't tell you the truth.
07.05.19- Central Banks Will Keep Easing "Until Parliaments And Palaces Burn"
"There must be someway out of here, said the joker to the thief..."
Oh, what a beautiful morning… It's a Friday in July, so I may as well have an off the wall rant! If you are stuck in the office, send me a mail and we can bemoan we're not working from home in the back garden! Read More
07.04.17- Rediscovering America:
Near the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson described the Declaration of Independence as "an expression of the American mind." On Independence Day, Americans should remember not only the Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War but, more important, the fundamental principles and ideals that created and sustain the nation.
The quiz below, from the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio, provides an opportunity for you to test your knowledge of the 4th of July .Read More
07.03.19- The Only Thing Worse Than The World Dying Would Be If It Died Unseen And Unappreciated
ABC News put an article out the other day titled "Was Tulsi Gabbard's nuclear war warning during Democratic debate hyperbole, or all too real?", which makes a surprisingly reasonable appraisal of just how close we all are to losing everything all at once.
It's a mainstream media piece, so of course it ends with a couple of think tank denizens claiming that Gabbard's dire warnings during the debate are hysterical nonsense, but the first half of the article quotes authorities on nuclear disarmament confirming that we may very well be as close to nuclear annihilation as we were at the height of the last cold war. Read More
07.02.19- AT&T Fires Up Sweat-Inducing 5G in "Sin City" With Plans for 20 More Despite Anticipating More Lawsuits
Last February, telecom executives gave congressional testimony that they could NOT provide any studies that prove that 5G technology is safe.
Unfortunately, plenty of research already proves it isn't (see 1, 2, 3).
Not only that – cybersecurity experts, (see 1, 2), environmentalists (see 1, 2, 3) meteorologists, NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, and utility companies have ALL warned that installing 5G everywhere could lead to widespread catastrophic events. Read More
07.01.19- It's No Bitcoin: Facebook's Libra Currency Is Tied to Government Currencies
Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek was, as he says in the 1990 introduction to his Denationalization of Money: The Argument Refined, one of the chief "gold bugs" of the 20th century. And he reminded us, so long as politicians want to control money, gold-backed currency is essential to protect our liberty from the politics of inflation.
But his concern for money and market reached back to his earlier work, as noted in a number of articles posted in recent years at mises.org. As noted by Nikolay Gertchev: Read More
06.29.19- Weekend Rant: Freedom and
"Even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Anyone who listened to Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren share her horror over states making gains in halting abortion understands that true liberty and individual rights, even states' rights, mean nothing to the Democrats. Warren called for a federal law that codifies Roe v Wade, with the certain knowledge that the federal government treasury would be used to coerce states to fall in line, as has been done regarding so many other federal laws. Read More
06.28.19- Buy Gold, Sell Bonds
As the first-half of 2019 draws to a close, investors have much to cheer about. A lot of money has been made across many asset classes.
If you're considering tweaking your strategy for the second-half of the year, I have four words for you: Buy gold, sell bonds.
Why Gold Is Attractive Again
Gold has been dead money since 2011. But lately, it's showing signs of life again. Gold recently broke above an important resistance level at $1,350. Some technicians think this sets the stage for a run to $1,700. Read More
06.27.19- The Diminishing American Economy
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovered economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored.
For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the work force to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2019, the labor force participation rate fell from 65.7 to 62.8 percent. Read More
06.26.19- The Pain Of This New Economic Downturn Is Starting To Show Up All Over The Country
It is going to take a miracle for the U.S. economy to pull out of this tailspin, because the economic numbers are really starting to deteriorate very rapidly now. On Tuesday we got some more new numbers, and they were just as bad as we thought they might be. But even before today's numbers all of the data were telling us the exact same thing. Read More
06.25.19- No Inflation? A Day Trip To The Regional Amusement Park Costs A Family Of Four OVER $1,000 This Summer (2019)
Cedar Point is the closest "day-trip" amusement park to where my family lives.
This is arguably the best amusement park in the nation in terms of the number/quality of thrill-rides/roller-coasters, and sure, this is subjective opinion, but I'm saying that as having gone to amusement parks all over the country for most of my life, including many in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and In other states I'm sure I'm forgetting about because that data has not yet been de-fragmented in my brain, and by "most of my life", I mean, I've gone to amusement parks as a kid, as a student, as a single, as a married fella, and as a family man. Read More
06.24.19- Why Legal Cannabis Will Be
Editor's Note: Longtime readers may know Teeka Tiwari as a world-renowned cryptocurrency expert. He made his first crypto recommendation to his readers in April 2016, well before the crypto boom in 2017.
But Teeka has been diving deep into a new, booming industry – legal cannabis. He's been flying all over the world… talking to the most important CEOs in the cannabis space. And, as he details below, he sees this industry as an even bigger play than cryptos… Read More
06.22.19- The Politics of Personality
The election of Donald Trump planted a loud and divisive lightning rod into the middle of our political discourse. Everything in American politics now is channeled through this billionaire/reality TV star, and how one feels about him. It is not about issues now, not even the limited issues Americans are allowed to discuss.
The social justice warriors have won; all politics in this country are emotion driven now. There is no reasoning, no flexing of the intellect. It is all about how you feel, and the larger, timeless principles America was founded upon have become irrelevant to a public that is basically ignorant of them anyway. Read More
06.21.19- The Advent of Truth-Destroying Technology
Tyler Durden on Zero Hedge reports that the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality:
06.20.19- An Examination Of The Leftist Cult And Their Religion
There is a common misconception among newer activists in the liberty movement that the idea of the "false left/right paradigm" means that there is no political spectrum; that the entire notion of left vs right is a fabrication. This is not exactly the case. When we talk about false paradigms in regards to politics (or geopolitics), what we are actually referring to is the elitist class, otherwise known as globalists, and the fact that they have no left or right political orientation. They do not care about Democrats or Republicans, they have no loyalty to either party. Their loyalty is to their own agenda, and they will exploit BOTH sides to get what they want whenever possible. Read More
06.19.19- Americans Are Losing the Only Fight Worth Having
DUBAI – A man walks over the footbridge across an artificial lake in an artificial town.
On the other side, he unrolls a mat, kneels, and bows in prayer, facing the Holy City of Mecca.
This morning at 6 a.m., it is already almost unbearably hot and humid Read More
06.18.19- Gold Standard Coming Into View…US Must Adapt Gold Trade Note
A Perfect Storm is hitting the Gold market, with an internal factor (return to Quantitative Easing on steroids), an external factor (Shanghai Gold Exchange taking market share), and a systemic factor (Basel 3 Rule permitting Gold in account ratios). All three forces are positive in releasing Gold from the corrupt clutches of the Anglo-American banker organization. The Eastern Hemisphere has a planned coordinated and effective strategy to abandon the USDollar and to adopt the Gold Standard. It has happened first in the trade payment form, actually more like a global blossoming process. More progress can be inferred in its early stages. Read More
06.17.19- Waiting For The Black Swan
War with Iran would be the beginning of the end
Two more tankers were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning (6/13/19) in the Gulf of Oman, and if hostilities advance we could be facing a 'black swan' event. One that changes everything, and divides the world into 'before' and 'after' periods. Read More
06.15.19- It's Coming And It's Going to SUCK
Those who believe there will never be another recession are flat-out insane.
The business cycle has never been repealed. Every person who has predicted that someone has "conquered" it over the decades has been wrong.
Let me repeat that for emphasis: EVERY PERSON who has made such a prediction or claim through the last roughly 100 years HAS BEEN NOT ONLY WRONG THEY'VE BEEN DISASTROUSLY WRONG. Read More
06.14.19- FAANG Companies Facing Impacts from Imminent Antitrust Probe
06.13.19- How the Stock Market Actually Works
Here is the best explanation I've seen to date of how the U.S. stock market works. It is from John Jay, who posts regularly in the Rick's Picks Forum: "The stock market is the primary bag-man the Federal Reserve uses to transfer the U.S. Dollars they create from thin air to the .01%." Just so. When you consider how many hundreds of billions of dollars find their way into the pockets of the very rich when just a half-dozen mega-cap stocks rally sharply, you begin to understand how the U.S. economy actually works. Read More
06.12.19- The American Bolsheviks
It's coming. It's happening.
Our dark fears and midnight tremors are coming to life. In the broad daylight.
The Bolsheviks are invading the suburbs and cities… and even the Corn Belt… all across America.
American Jackassery
Both Democrats and Republicans are turning to three-part programs – one part Soviet economic claptrap, one part Mussolini's political bamboozle, and one part pure American jackassery. Read More
06.11.19- Sometimes Things Turn
A February night in 1924, in a Manhattan concert hall owned by the Aeolian piano company… the wailing, warped, and flatted clarinet glissando that opens George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue announced the 20th century's self-recognition that something new was up in the world, and especially in the USA. The composer tried to represent the stupendous energy of the maturing industrial culture in a symphonic cacophony with a core of the deepest tenderness — capturing all the wonder and grace of the moment. For America, everything was on the move. Love and power were in the air. Read More
06.10.19- Socialism Rises Due To The Great American Economic Growth Myth
There is little denying the rise of "socialistic" ideas in the U.S. today. You can try and cover the stench by calling it "social democracy" but in the end, it's still socialism.
Since 1775, millions of Americans have given their lives in defense of the American "idea." The tyranny and oppression which arise from communism, socialism, and dictatorships have been a threat worthy of such sacrifice. I am sure those patriots who died to ensure the "American way of life" would be disheartened by the willingness of the up and coming generations adopt such ideals. Read More
06.08.19- The State of the Economy
The story line is going out that the economic boom is weakening and the Federal Reserve has to get the printing press running again. The Fed uses the money to purchase bonds, which drives up the prices of bonds and lowers the interest rate. The theory is that the lower interest rate encourages consumer spending and business investment and that this increase in consumer and business spending results in more output and employment. Read More
06.07.19- How $30 Trillion Disappears…
Stocks went up on Tuesday and Wednesday – a total gain of 207 points for the Dow. Futures markets are predicting another up day today.
But the economy continues to sink. The longest expansion in U.S. history seems to be approaching its end. Here's CNBC:
06.06.19- The Trade War Is About To Become An Economic World War III
For many years I have examined how wars of all types have been used by the money elite to distract the masses and maintain a certain level of influence over social and political systems. But war is not only a useful tool for keeping the status quo. Some wars, particularly world wars, are often catalyzed and exploited by those with a globalized agenda as a way to change the way civilizations function and think. The goal? To influence the masses to abandon their attachments to concepts like individualism, nationalism, free markets and sovereignty, and to embrace total globalization.Read More
06.05.19- 32 Tips For Navigating A Society Full Of Propaganda And Manipulation
For as long as there has been human language, humans have been using it to manipulate one another. The fact that it is possible to skillfully weave a collection of symbolic mouth noises together in such a way as to extract favors, concessions, votes and consent from other humans has made manipulation so common that it now pervades our society from top to bottom, from personal relationships between two people to international relationships between government agencies and the public. Read More
06.04.19- The War On Truth
"The ability of the owners of the political/media class to discredit and neutralize anyone who poses a threat to their interests simply by rearranging the narratives about them is one of the most destructive psychological weapons in their arsenal. The main reason it's so hard to convince the public that they have been taken in by propaganda and smear campaigns is because for some stupid reason, one of the most shameful things anyone can do in our society is be fooled. If we are to overcome the narrative dominance of the powerful, it is essential that we find a way to shift that shame from those who have been fooled onto those who have been fooling them." — Caitlin Johnstone Read More
06.03.19- Do We Face a Global Food Disaster?
No, this is not at all an endorsement of the apocalyptic scenarios of AOC or that famous young Swedish climate expert, Greta. It is, however, a look at unusual weather disasters in several key growing regions from the USA to Australia, the Philippines and beyond that could dramatically affect food availability and prices in the coming year. That in turn could have major political implications depending on how the rest of the growing season develops. Read More
06.01.19- These Are The 'Good Old Days'
At tipping points like now, the steps we take in the present determine our future
Bill was 48 when his wife stunned him with a request for divorce. Right up until that moment, he'd thought everything was fine.
He'd been pouring all his energy into his work to provide a very comfortable life for his wife and 2 children. But she was unhappy and fell out of love while Bill wasn't paying attention to matters at home. He'd taken her for granted and forgot to be present for the most important people in his life, and to be grateful in the moment. Read More
05.31.19- Globalists Only Need One More Major Event To Finish Sabotaging The Economy
05.30.19- Why A "Safe Retirement" Is Becoming Too Difficult to Obtain
It used to be that you could save money for retirement, put some of it into Treasuries and/or CDs, and your "nest-egg" would be primed to give you retirement security.
That clear retirement path ended in 2000, according to John Mauldin in a recent SeekingAlpha article (emphasis ours): Read More
05.29.19- Monsanto is finally getting a taste of its own poison
Monsanto is the quintessential evil corporation.
In the 1960s it created Agent Orange, a defoliant–hardcore weedkiller–which the USA used during the Vietnamwar. The military sprayed vast swaths of the jungle causing horrible health effects like cancer and birth defects in American veterans and Vietnamese civilians exposed to the chemical.
Then Monsanto brought their products home to the USA and started dumping its poison on the homeland. Read More
05.28.19- Pain Is Inevitable;
How to avoid becoming collateral damage in the coming crash
Sometimes you really do find enlightenment at the top of the mountain.
I spent this week hiking in Montana's Bitterroot mountain range, as a participant in the pilot run of a new personal-growth-through-adventure-travel startup.
In our group was a famous professional cyclist, who had been a superstar on the Tour de France for many years. Read More
05.27.19- The CPI Is Underrepresenting Food Inflation By 40%: Here's The Proof
The "muzzle" on reported inflation has policymakers and analysts perplexed.
As Joseph Carson, former director of economic research at Alliance Bernstein writes in his follow up to a "New Working Theory on Inflation", numerous economic explanations and theories have been offered, and policymakers are considering making changes to their operating price-targeting framework. Yet, before any decisions are made policymakers should consider all of the factors that could be keeping a "muzzle" on published inflation. Read More
05.25.19- The Ongoing Destruction of the Minds of Children
There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.
Compulsory schooling is a travesty. To call it education is absurd. Real education is lifelong learning as an individual, while compulsory public schooling is the indoctrination of children as a collective exercise to bring all down to the lowest level. Prisons called schools are simply the forced means to stifle individual brilliance while promoting sameness and monotony. The result of this brainwashing is meant to teach children to obey orders, and to be satisfied spending their lives in a virtual cage of ignorance, to never become entrepreneurs and dissenters. Read More
05.24.19- How to Survive the Journey Ahead: A Graduation Message for a Terrifying Age
Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people. Read More
05.23.19- Why Imminent Pension Crisis Reveals a Grim Future for All Retirees
Whether or not you're relying on a pension for part of your retirement, there is a grim future on the horizon for retirees tied to the pensions' demise.
John Mauldin shines a light on the math that seems to explain why public pensions aren't living up to their task:
05.22.19- Origins of the Deep State in North America Part 3: What is the Fabian Society and to What End was it Created?
Our first two installments have dealt with the origins of the Deep State in North America by reviewing the creation of the Rhodes Scholarship/Chatham House network at the end of the 19th century and the infiltration of indoctrinated scholars into every governing branch of western society. We traced the key players in this Oxford-based network who were formed with the intent of fulfilling the will of Cecil Rhodes to "form a church of the British Empire" and undo the effects of the American Revolution as a global phenomenon. Read More
05.21.19- The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part 2: Milner's Perversion Takes Over Canada
Canada's history has remained clouded in misinformation and outright lies for over 200 years, while basic truths which were once well understood by leading statesmen in Canada a century past are now treated as little more than myth or "conspiracy theory". Yet as the above quote written by the pen of Lord Alfred Milner indicates, the crafting of the Canadian identity has been bought for the price of a national soul. The greatest obstacle to Canadian sovereignty today is found in the fact that Canada's synthetic identity has been constructed over the past decades with the intention of obstructing the establishment upon this earth of a world of sovereign republics, which was and still is the outgrowth of the success of the American Revolution. Read More
05.20.19- The Origins of the Deep State
"Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits… One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world." Read More
05.18.19- Trump's Last Stand
General George Custer met his doom charging into a battle he thought he could win, against an opponent he did not understand. Based on his views about the fast-emerging trade war with China, it looks to me that Donald Trump, another blonde with a very high opinion of himself, is charging into an economic version of the Little Bighorn. By mistaking the real nature of international trade, the costs of tariffs, the effects of currency movements, and the supposed ease with which the United States could quickly re-establish itself as a low-cost manufacturer, Trump risks shredding the safety nets that have undergirded the U.S. economy for decades and plunging us into a war we are ill-equipped to fight. Read More
05.17.19- The Darkness Rising - Twilight of Those Who Would Be Gods
The retail sales number came in rather badly this morning.
05.16.19- We Have 3 Years Before The National Debt "Death Spiral"
According to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Debt Management, the U.S. government is just five years away from the point of no return. With the national debt spiraling quickly out of control, there are only a few years left before every single dollar the government borrows will go toward funding interest payments on the national debt. Read More
05.15.19- The Economy Has Fundamentally Changed In The 21st Century...
The net result is we have an economy that's supposedly expanding smartly while our well-being and financial security are collapsing.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other metrics of economic activity don't measure either broad-based prosperity or well-being. Elites skimming financialization profits by expanding corporate debt and issuing more loans to commoners while spending more on their lifestyles boosts GDP quite nicely while the security and well-being of the bottom 90% plummets. Read More
05.14.19- 5 Memes… because if you can't laugh about government, you'll cry
05.13.19- The World To America: "You're Fired!"
Some ironies are just too precious to pass by.
The 2016 US presidential elections gave us Donald Trump, a reality TV star whose famous tag line from his show "The Apprentice" was "You are fired!" Focus on this tag line; it is all that is important to this story. Some Trump Derangement Disorder sufferers might disagree. This is because they are laboring under certain misapprehensions: that the US is a democracy; or that it matters who is president. It isn't and it doesn't. By this point, the choice of president matters as much as the choice of conductor for the band that plays aboard a ship as it vanishes beneath the waves. Read More
05.11.19- A compound in pomegranates can trigger cancer cell death
The interest in fruits rich in polyphenols has recently increased due to their cancer-fighting potential. In a study published in the journal Nutrition Research, a team of researchers from China found that a compound in pomegranates called punicalagin can fight against cancer by triggering cancer cell death.
A previous study carried out by the same researchers revealed that punicalagin induces autophagic cell death in papillary thyroid carcinoma cells. For the current study, the research team hypothesized that punicalagin triggers DNA damage associated with cell death because DNA damage was previously reported as an inducer of autophagy. Autophagy can encourage tumor suppression during cancer initiation and protect tumors during progress. Read More
05.10.19- "Get The Popcorn Ready" - Why The World's Most Bearish Hedge Fund Thinks The Biggest Crash Is Almost Here
Conventional investing wisdom would have you believe that anybody who has remained bearish on global markets since the financial crisis has not only lost a boatload of money, but has missed out on the opportunity to cash in on one of the most torrid bull markets in recent memory.
However, as Horseman Global's Russell Clark has proven over and over again, this simply isn't true. A few years back, we anointed Horseman with the title "The world's most bearish hedge fund" for a very simple reason: Read More
05.09.19- Border Crisis: Most Arrests In 12 Years; Over 168,000 Released Into US; Measles, Chickenpox Found
05.08.19- Seven Laws of Investing
Lance Roberts listed James Montier's 7-Immutable Lawsof Investing. They are:
Those sensible rules apply to gold and silver. Read More
05.07.19- The Old World is Dying
Yesterday, Trump took to Twitter and unexpectedly threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods this coming Friday. This caught most people by surprise given incessant commentary over the past several months about how good trade talks were going and how close both sides were to signing a monumental deal. Although Trump's tweet led to immediate turmoil in global financial markets, U.S. equities have gone up in a straight line since the market opened and are barely down as I write this. Investors appear to assume this is just theater meant make the U.S. public think he's being tough, so that when he ultimately signs a largely meaningless sham deal with no teeth he can talk it up and pat himself on the back for being a brilliant negotiator. I'm not convinced this is correct, but it's what markets seem to be pricing in. Either way, we'll have answers soon enough. Read More
05.06.19- Which SHTF situation is most likely to actually happen?
The prepping lifestyle can be overwhelming for most people but at its core, preppers prioritize readiness in all aspects of their lives. But amid all the talk about prepping skills, survival gear, and food supplies, how do you know which disaster event has the highest chance of occurring within your lifetime? (h/t to TheSurvivalistBlog.net) Read More
05.04.19- Why Does Time Seem Like It's Speeding Up?
Does constant exposure to digital technology change the way we perceive time? I would have to agree with the following video from Truthstream Media and say yes. When human attention is hyperfocused on a single point, all other environmental stimuli tends to be cut off. When we completely cut our experience off from our surroundings, this often makes us feel as though we are suffering from what is sometimes called "time loss". Add to this the neverending quest for a new hit of dopamine that digital culture provides and you have a recipe for the mass warping of human brains. Read More
05.03.19- Covington Gives a Glimpse of
During the attempted electronic lynching of the Covington Catholic high school boys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the mask hiding the Left's genocidal rage slipped and was momentarily visible. The reality of the confrontation was inverted 180 degrees by the duplicitous mainstream media so that a smiling white teenager was made to face the wrath of an Orwellian two-minute hate that stretched on for days, even after the factual record was corrected. Read More
05.02.19- Show Me the Real Money
05.01.19- How the Financialization Scam Works
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Financialization is our subject…
What is it? How does it happen? Does it matter? Who cares?
Let's begin with the last question: Who cares?
Answer: Nobody… until it blows up. Read More
04.30.19- Tom Petty was Right
How to account for Americans being the most anxious, fearful, and stressed-out people among the supposedly advanced nations? Do we not live in the world's greatest democratic utopia where dreams come true?
What if the dreaming part is actually driving us insane? What if we have engineered a society in which fantasy has so grotesquely over-run reality that coping with daily life is nearly impossible. What if an existence mediated by pixel screens large and small presents a virtual world more compelling than the real world and turns out to be a kind of contagious avoidance behavior — until reality is so fugitive that we can barely discern its colors and outlines beyond the screens? Read More
04.29.19- Wealthy Elitists Freak Out As Hordes Of Homeless People Take Over Their Neighborhoods All Over The West Coast
The elite are very "tolerant" of the homeless until they start showing up in their own neighborhoods. Even though the mainstream media keeps telling us that the U.S. economy is "booming", the number of Americans living on the streets continues to grow very rapidly, and this is particularly true in our major west coast cities. More than half a million Americans will sleep on the streets of our cities tonight, and they need help, care and shelter. Sadly, as economic conditions deteriorate that number is likely to double or even triple. Of course many among the elite are all in favor of doing something for the homeless, as long as they don't have to be anywhere around them. Read More
04.27.1- No One Is Coming to Rescue You — Especially Not a Presidential Candidate
No one is coming to help you, so you might as well stop waiting and start fixing your own life today.
We are only a few months into 2019, and already the 2020 presidential election season is well underway. Each week, it seems that more candidates are entering the race, especially in the Democratic field. And as the country cycles through its political flavors of the week, social media has become overrun by passionate posts that read more like stump speeches in support of a given candidate. Read More
04.26.19- Nearly 102 Million Americans Do Not Have A Job Right Now – Worse Than At Any Point During The Last Recession
Wouldn't it be horrible if the number of Americans without a job was higher today than it was during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009? Well, that is actually true. As you will see below, nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now, and at no point during the last recession did that number ever surpass the 100 million mark. Of course the U.S. population has grown a bit over the last decade, but as you will see below, the percentage of the population that is engaged in the labor force is only slightly above the depressingly low levels from the last recession. Read More
04.25.19- A horrible future awaits for anyone who depends on government
Lice, cockroaches, and root canals all have better approval ratings than Congress.
Congress controls government spending. And nine out of every ten people say the government doesn't spend tax dollars wisely.
57% say tax rates are too high. Read More
04.24.19- Here's an easy way to tell if your bank is actually safe
March 15, 2013 was a pretty normal day in Cyprus. It was a Friday, and most people were looking forward to a relaxing weekend.
The next morning the entire nation woke up in horror. Their politicians had been up all night, negotiating with international lenders to provide an emergency loan to the country, and its banks. Read More
04.23.19- Now who would have thought it would be this simple to explain!
The author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry. The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. If you have a pulse you have a purpose.
The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the U S, especially in the minority races. Not the Catholics, not the Mormons. Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by 3 speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant & Muslim faiths, who each explained their beliefs. Read More
04.22.19- The Best Case For Free Trade
Business is personal. And all barriers to trade are restrictions on personal freedom.
The best case for free trade—the best argument in favor of unbridled commerce—might be a personal one.
Let me explain. Read More
04.20.19- Are "Conspiracy Theories" Tearing Society Apart Or Saving Us From Destruction?
The phrase "conspiracy theory" is often used by establishment agencies, the mainstream media and useful idiots as a tool to dismiss legitimate evidence or viewpoints that disagree with their predetermined version of events. This method of propaganda was not always as widespread as it is today. The phrase was not "created" by the CIA, but it was in fact weaponized by them in the 1960's after the assassination of John F. Kennedy with the express purpose of shutting down rational debate.
CIA memo 1035-960, circulated within the CIA in 1967 and exposed through a freedom of information act request by the New York Times in 1976, outlines strategies the agency would use to shut down critics of the Warren Commission Report. Read More
04.19.19- The House on Lake Minnetonka That Never Existed
A Tale of Two Lakes
04.18.19- How to Make Your "Embarrassing" Investments Pay Off
04.17.19- Guess who ends up paying those taxes meant only for the rich…
Imagine starting a small business in the USA in 1875.
Imagine working for yourself, or building a company from scratch. With no corporate taxes, and no income taxes, you kept the full rewards of your risk and labor.
It's not surprising that in about 100 years the United States went from non-existent, to having the largest economy in the world. Read More
04.16.19- Japanified World Ahead
Regular readers may have noticed me slowly losing confidence in the economy. Your impression is correct and there's a good reason for it, as I will explain today. The facts have changed so my conclusions are changing, too.
I still think the economy is okay for now. I still see recession odds rising considerably in 2020. Maybe it will get pushed back another year or two, but at some point this growth phase will end, either in recession or an extended flat period (even flatter than the last decade, which says a lot). And I still think we are headed toward a global credit crisis I've dubbed The Great Reset. Read More
04.15.19- The Bull(y) Rally
Something unnatural is going on
The current market rally is like a playground bully; shoving to the ground anyone in its path.
But like all bullies, the braggadocio belies an underlying cowardice.
Those in charge of the status quo must be absolutely terrified to resort to the unnatural lengths they are going to right now to keep the current rally intact. Read More
04.13.19- Trump Calls for New Quantitative Easing to Prop Up U.S. Economy
As gold and silver markets continue in choppy trading this spring, bulls are hoping a dovish Fed will sink the dollar and lift the metals.
Now that the Federal Reserve is on "pause" – presumably for the rest of 2019 – perhaps investors can stop obsessing over interest rate decisions by central planners. Perhaps markets can finally trade based on actual market signals and underlying fundamentals.
Perhaps ... not. Read More
04.12.19- World Faces "Uphill Battle" With Average IQ Of Just 82!
David Becker has released a new version of the World's IQ. Each country has a score showing the cognitive abilities of their citizens, this being a blend of genetics and the environment of each country, particularly as regards education and health. The world's global score is 82. This is 12th percentile rank on the Greenwich Mean Intelligence benchmark of IQ 100. As school teachers used to say in end of year reports: "Could do better". Read More
04.11.19- Growing Public Pension Crisis an 'Existential Financial Threat'
WASHINGTON—Unfunded liabilities of nearly $6 trillion in state pension plans pose a significant risk to public workers, retirees, and taxpayers across the United States, according to a new study.
Almost every state struggles with massive unfunded pension obligations due to the "risky and uncaring attitudes" of lawmakers, according to a report released March 20 by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public-policy organization.
State pensions in the United States are funded at an average of 35 percent of what they should be, according to the report. And that means an average of $18,300 in unfunded pension obligations for every resident in the country. Read More
ANOTHER "Bomb Cyclone" Will Bring More Flooding To Parts Of The Midwest That Were Hit By A "1,000 Year Flood" Last Month
Less than a month after a "bomb cyclone" caused a "1,000 year flood" in the middle portion of the country, another "bomb cyclone" of similar strength is going to bring even more flooding to the High Plains and Upper Midwest. According to meteorologists, it is being projected that this new "bomb cyclone" will be "similar in intensity and in snowfall" to the last one, and the latest forecast is calling for "more than 30 inches in some areas". The floods that we witnessed last month absolutely devastated communities throughout the region, and now it is going to happen again. Read More
04.09.19- The Curse of the Thinking Class
How might we account for the strange melding of neuroticism and dishonesty that has gripped America's thinking class since the ascent of Donald Trump as an epically reviled figurehead on our ship of state? It all seems to come down to shame and failure.
There is, for instance, the failure of America's leading economic viziers to arrest the collapse of the middle class — and with it, the disintegration of families — that more than anything produced the 2016 election result. What is a bigger emergency: the destruction of all those towns, cities, and lives in flyover-land, or the S & P stock index going down twenty points? Read More
04.08.19- Why a Ruinous Deflation Is Coming
I've been writing on deflation since the early-1990s, when I had the topic all to myself and was regarded as a voice on the lunatic fringe. Scary essays that I freelanced to Barron's, the San Francisco Examiner and a number of other publications turned out to have been premature, but I've never doubted that the endgame for a global economy glutted by debt would be a deflationary collapse. Skeptics say the Government will make this impossible by simply revving up the printing presses, creating enough money to bail out 'the system' regardless of how many dollars it takes. Oh really? How would this work if, as is extremely likely, a state pension system goes bust? Read More
04.06.19- The Growing Opposition To
News From Information Clearing House
I just heard from Tom Feeley:
04.05.19- Read this if you believe that you will never need a semi-automatic rifle.
"Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
Day in and day out I observe that The Rule of Law is being eroded in America, especially the Highest Law of the Land, The Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights. If you disagree with me, then maybe you simply do not know what it is that you are looking for, so you do not miss it. Here is a list with four things to help you better see what exactly it is that we are slowly but surely losing. Read More
04.04.19- US government's net worth is now NEGATIVE $75 TRILLION
Usually around the middle of February each year, the US Treasury Department releases an annual report of the federal government's financial condition.
It's called the Financial Report of the US Government… and it looks a lot like an annual report that you might see filed by a big company like Apple or Facebook.
Except that, unlike Apple and Facebook, the US government's annual report is absolutely gruesome. Read More
04.03.19- Missouri bill will ban
I thank God that our Founding Fathers, whose greatest fear was a tyrannical government, had the wisdom and foresight to institute curbs on government power in the form of numerous checks and balances.
One of those checks is the creation of a federal republic, in which the constituent geographic states have their separate powers — a founding principle that is enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which spells out the powers of the constituent (geographical) states and of the people. Read More
04.02.19- Open the Age of Reason
"There, in the stars, lies mankind's entry into the long-awaited Age of Reason, when our species sheds at last the cultural residue of the beast." — Lyndon LaRouche, 1985
In unveiling his five-year U.S. manned-Moon mission and succeeding international Moon-colonization and Moon-Mars missions when he did so, immediately after the collapse of the "Russiagate" coup against him one week ago, President Donald Trump acted exactly as Lyndon LaRouche might have advised him—if only LaRouche were still alive to see these signal victories for his ideas.
The British beast may have suffered a big setback, but it is still active and still working to shred the U.S. Constitution; we must go on to inflict its final defeat. Read More
04.01.19- Here's What Pops the
As regular readers of the Diary already know, the Fed responded to the 2008 financial crisis with unprecedented amounts of easy money. It claimed it would "stimulate the economy."
But as Bill has been showing you all week (catch up here, here, and here), all that "stimulation" did absolutely nothing for the real economy. All it did was push up the price of financial assets, specifically stocks and bonds. Read More
03.30.19- The Financial Panic of 2019?
The distortion in the yield curve is building with tremendous force. There are vast bids for US 90-day T-Bills from around the world and no offers. The shortage in US government paper is now being reported to us from repo desks around the world. There is a MAJOR PANIC in to the dollar as emerging markets come under a financial crisis, in part, instigated by Turkey. The government simply trapped investors and refuses to allow transactions out of the Turkish lira. Turkey's stand-off with investors has unnerved traders globally, pushing the world ever closer to a major FINANCIAL PANIC come this May 2019. Read More
03.29.19- How to Play The Game of Life & Go Into Extra Innings
03.28.19- Behind the Mueller Distraction…
The last two years have been full of absurd distractions. The Mueller Report, for example – one big, fat, waste of time.
So were the trade wars… first with Canada and Mexico… and now with China. Lots of blah, blah… gumming and jawing…
And there was the "taking the knee"… which many people took seriously. And remember Stormy Daniels? And two summits with North Korea?
What was the point? Why the circus? Read More
03.27.19- For The Average Investor, The Next Bear Market Will Likely Be The Last
Just recently Anna-Louise Jackson published an interesting article asking if "The Financial Crisis" still haunted your investing. To wit:
03.26.19- How the Perfect Prepper Plans
When a disaster strikes unexpectedly, there's nearly always some kind of monkey wrench that causes your well-thought-out prepper plans to work less effectively than expected. When describing the situation, the person says sheepishly, "Normally we wouldn't have had X circumstance going on when it happened, and our preps would have worked just fine."
Or, in the eloquent words of Mike Tyson, "Everyone's got a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth." Read More
03.25.19- France Is The Socialist Future We Should Dread
A lot of attention and ink are being poured these days in trying to explain to a generation of voters why socialism always fails. Not only does socialism always fail to deliver the economic goods; it is also a source of massive oppression and pain.
I get why so many are devoting such amounts of energy to this task. First, the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and few others have made the notion of socialism acceptable in some circles and even hip. Also, according to a poll from August, more Democrats approve of socialism than of capitalism. Read More
03.23.19- 18 Statistics That Prove That America Has Become An "Idiocracy"
Once upon a time, America had the greatest system of education on the entire planet, and our people were sharp, capable and extremely well informed. Sadly, none of those things are true anymore. In 2006, Mike Judge made a movie entitled "Idiocracy" in which an individual of below average intelligence wakes up after being asleep for 500 years thanks to a military hibernation experiment. When he wakes up, he quickly realizes that he is now the smartest man in America, and that is not a good thing. The film became an instant classic, but when I originally watched it I thought that such a thing could never actually happen in this country. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Read More
03.22.19- Government Warns Of Historic, Widespread Flooding "Through May" – Food Prices To Skyrocket As 1000s Of Farms Are Destroyed
We have never seen catastrophic flooding like this, and the NOAA is now telling us that there will be more major flooding for at least two more months. On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that "historic, widespread flooding" would "continue through May". More than 90 percent of the upper Midwest and Great Plains is currently covered by an average of 10.7 inches of snow, and all of that snow is starting to melt. Read More
03.21.19- Social Security "Tipping Point" Could Be Arriving Faster Thanks to Congress
The Social Security system is expected to have enormous financial pressures placed on its back for the next two decades.
If nothing is done, in 2034 the clock will be ticking for this and other entitlement programs like Medicare.
But a "tipping point" may be coming faster than most people think. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan had a prescription to offer in a Newsmax piece. There's his "easier said than done" part: Read More
03.20.19- A Recipe for Massive Government Spending
I try to avoid partisan politics in my analysis. And I never try to tell people how to vote or what they should think. I trust my readers to make their own judgments. But sometimes I can't avoid partisan politics because they can have a major impact on markets and the economy.
Leading Democratic presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders have expressed desires to increase income taxes to 70% or even 90% on the rich, impose "wealth taxes" on their net worth and impose estate taxes that are equally onerous when they die. Read More
03.19.19- How States/Empires Collapse
The promises cannot be met, and so society decays into warring elites and competing constituencies.
There is a grand, majestic tragedy in the inevitable collapse of once-thriving states and empires: it all seemed so permanent at its peak, so godlike in its power, and then slowly but surely, too many grandiose, unrealistic promises were made to too many elites and constituencies, and then as growth decays to stagnation, the only way to maintain the status quo is to appear to meet all the promises by creating money out of thin air, i.e. debauching the currency. Read More
03.18.19- Internet Censorship and False Flag Fake wars coming to a city near you
\This recent shooting in NZ was not just a 'shooting' it was a crossing of the Rubicon into a new sea of Orwellian fear and loathing. As we explain in our book, NOTHING is as it seems. Everything is about OPTICS and what really goes on is largely disregarded. New Zealand is a testing ground: Read More
03.16.19- The Government's Greatest Con Job
Yesterday we documented our personal frustrations with contemporary technology.
Today we file a protest against contemporary money.
We begin with the "evolution" of United States currency…
We refer you to this $10 bank note, dated 1928: Read More
03.15.19- World War 3 Coming? Israel Is On The Brink Of War With Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria And Iran All At The Same Time
On Thursday, rockets were fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since 2014, and Israel responded by hammering Hamas with airstrikes. This latest exchange has brought Israel closer to another war with Hamas than ever. But as you will see below, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. And on top of everything else, the most pivotal election in Israel in many years is on April 9th. If more rockets are fired at Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford to look weak because that could cost him a lot of votes in this very tight election. Read More
03.14.19- Why Do Some People Live Paycheck To Paycheck?
It is common place today to hear of people living paycheck to paycheck. If so many people are living so close to the edge one must ask why? There are many reasons why someone might be in financial distress but one looming question remains. If they lack sufficient funds to live as they do, why do they continue on that path?
It has become evident to me that many people live paycheck to paycheck because they choose to. It seems that many people today decide what standard of living they want and start living it. They get the home, car, clothes, jewelry and other items they view as their birthright. Then they try to find a job that will pay for it all. They are basically doing things ass backwards. Read More
03.13.19- Shoot Now Or Be Shoved In The Oven
The title of this article is not hyperbole.
Gene Sperling was just on CNBC saying that health care must be treated as a right and essentially deferring the debate as to how to pay for all of that -- and of course he trotted out the trope of a kid born with severe disabilities bankrupting his or her parents.
Health care is, today, almost 20% of our economy. One dollar in five. Read More
03.12.19- Civil War Would Erupt If "Green Deal" Socialists Actually Get What They Want
In the months preceding the 2016 presidential election, I predicted a Trump election win but tried to temper expectations with the reality that there were multiple scenarios exploitable by globalists which could turn the conservative elation into confusion and chaos. Just after the election, I published an article titled 'Order Out Of Chaos: The Defeat Of The Left Comes With A Cost'. In that article I warned that the political Left, when confronted with failure, has displayed a habit of doubling or tripling down and becoming even more extreme in their rhetoric and policies. Read More
03.11.19- Third Reich Redux: Don't Say We Weren't Warned
As widely reported in the press and widely discussed on social media venues, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey indicated that nearly two-thirds of registered voters believe that the Democratic Party supports socialism; further, that a whopping 56 percent of those aged 18-24 and 48 percent of those aged 25-34 favor a "mostly socialist" system.
Now, for those who may be exclaiming that it's time to put a fork in America "because we're done," the latter two stats are admittedly pretty worrisome, even if one factors in the unreliability of some polls due to selective sampling and subjective interpretation. The numbers in question are even up from those of a 2016 Harvard University survey of adults between the ages 18 and 29, which reported that 51 percent of these did not support capitalism. Read More
03.09.19- Stunning Prediction of a Global Battle to Replace Fiat Money
Revolution is ugly and messy, but it's sometimes necessary when tyranny exists. Tyranny can take many forms, including economic tyranny, which is manifested through the monetary supply in today's world. Getting back to the gold standard would require nothing less than a revolution, and one widely-regarded commentator is predicting that we'll see a revolt on a global scale.
Wealth Research Group actually had the chance to speak with this daring individual, who happens to be none other than Mr. Bob Moriarty. Read More
03.08.19- How To Earn an Income? What Do You Tell Your Kids?
Get good grades. Get a good job. Get a college education. Work your way up the ladder. You might become a millionaire. But you are always relying on someone else determining how valuable you are. According to the U.S. Debt Clock, in this land of capitalism and free enterprise, there are only 8,826,490 Americans out of a labor force of 156 million who are self employed and have no imposed cap on their income. Read More
03.07.19- The Trade Deficit Continues To Explode, Factories Continue To Be Closed, And U.S. Jobs Continue To Be Sent Overseas
03.06.19- 3 Top Cyber Security Threats and How To Protect Yourself Against Them
The mass expansion of technology and global communication has made the world a smaller place. Never before has it been easier to speak with someone across the world in an instant.
This information has its perks, but greater connectivity can open your data to everyone. The good news, there are ways to mitigate the risks and protect your data. Read More
03.05.19- Bannon Predicts 2019 Will Be "the most vitriolic year in American politics
Where Did AOC Get Her Sweet Potatoes?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was trying to explain to me that the world is going to melt, we are all going to die, and probably we shouldn't be having any more children, but I was distracted by the dinner she was preparing on camera. She was carefully cutting sweet potatoes before putting them in the oven.
She put salt and pepper on them. Salt was once so rare that it was regarded as money. Ever try to go a day with zero salt? Nothing tastes right. That was the history of humanity for about 150,000 years. Then we figured out how to produce and distribute salt to every table in the world. Now we throw around salt like it is nothing, and even complain that everything is too salty. Nice problem. Read More
03.02.19- The Debt Accrued Through Dollar Hegemony Is Unpayable (Except In Hyperinflated Dollars)
The United States Entity lost the war in Iraq. That fact determines the Entity's position in the Middle East today.
After having destroyed Saddam's army and dispossessing the Sunnis in favor of the Shi'ites, after Abu Ghraib and it's indelible pictures, after the total destruction of Fallujah, in short after a victory achieved with the utmost brutality, contempt and humiliation of Iraq and Iraqis, the Entity was in charge. Then the "insurgents" appeared. They put improvised explosive devices along the roads so, with a phone call, they could destroy patrols of the Entity. They made car bombs so that every vehicle approaching a check-point might spell doom. They donned suicide vests to blow themselves and any nearby Entity soldiers up. Entity soldiers couldn't go into the streets. Read More
03.01.19- Ginseng May Work Better Than Chemo and Radiation. Here's How…
Known for thousands of years as a powerful tonic for health, new research reveals that ginseng and other cancer stem cell killing plants may provide highly effective treatments for cancer.
Cancer stem cells are one of the keys to understanding both the root cause(s) and the most appropriate treatment approaches for cancer. Read More
02.28.19- In Washington, Regime Change Is Truly and Urgently Needed!
I am surprised that no one else is saying it, writing it, shouting it at each and every corner:
It is not Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran that are in dire and crucial need of 'regime change'. It is the United States of America, it is the entire European Union; in fact, the entire West.
And the situation is urgent. Read More
02.27.19- How to Truly Measure
Economics has one goal in mind - to maximize standards of living. This noble and never-ending goal sits at the heart of economics and has, by consequence, driven the majority of financial decisions made by government, corporations, academia, and other institutions (at least nominally anyway). Our decisions are to get us out of poverty, increase our incomes, extend our lives, and drive towards the unattainable goal of unlimited wealth so that at some point in the future we attain a "Star-Trekkian" future where money is eliminated because wealth is infinite. And it is in this pursuit of unlimited wealth, the economics profession has settled on a measure by which we measure standards of living today - GDP or "income" per capita. Read More
02.26.19- You Can't Stop The Cycle: The Next Few Years Will Change Everything
2018's valuation records are astounding in that they show the S&P 500 to be more fundamentally over-valued than it was at the prior two historic stock market valuation peaks in 1929 and 2000, bona fide speculative manias.
– Crescat Capital
Cycles are perhaps the most natural and common occurrence in the universe. The planets orbit the sun, seasons change, day turns to night and night back to day, humans are born, grow old and die. Read More
92.25.19- The Freedom Fairy
For some time, it's been apparent that the former "free world" countries (the US, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc.) have been on a downward progression – socially, politically and economically.
But, in the last ten years, the awareness of this has become increasingly pronounced. With each successive year, more and more people recognise that all facets of life in these formerly great countries are heading in a decidedly negative direction. Read More
02.23.19- Class Warfare
Justin's note: Are billionaires bad?
Many Americans on the left are asking themselves this question. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the Democrat's new rising star – is certainly no exception. Just look at what AOC said in a recent interview.
02.22.19- 12 Steps You Can Take if
Losing your job is one of the most devastating life events both emotionally and financially.
Open the paper or do a quick Google search online and you'll see all the recent corporate layoffs happening in America.
This month, General Motors said it was starting to hand pink slips to about 4,000 salaried workers in the latest round of restructuring. Read More
02.21.19- Plunder: An American Way of Life
Frederic Bastiat, a French economist and member of the French National Assembly, lived from 1801 to 1850. He had great admiration for our country, except for our two faults — slavery and tariffs. He said: "Look at the United States. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property." If Bastiat were alive today, he would not have that same level of admiration. The U.S. has become what he fought against for most of his short life. Read More
02.20.19- Greatest Bubbles of All Time
Economic bubbles are one of the most difficult events to spot of all. Thus very difficult to avoid, let alone do something about it. So why study them at all? History rarely repeats itself (at least not in the exact same way, with the exact same financial assets).
On the other hand, we can extract some lessons from every bubble. Thus constructing some protocol for future guidance. Here I'll write about 7 of the Greatest Bubbles of all time, and then highlight common aspects between them. Read More
02.19.19- Great Civilizations Aren't Murdered, They Commit Suicide: The U.S.'s Likely Collapse
Historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilizations. Toynbee concluded that great civilizations don't "get murdered," rather, they kill themselves, and all the signs of a civilization collapse are here.
02.18.19- A gold backed alternative to the dollar may finally be here in the Iranian PayMon cryptocurrency
Yesterday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence severely chastised members of the European Union for defying Washington and for their plans to create an alternative to the SWIFT system. Additionally, he threatened these nations with sanctions or worse if they continue to follow in their support of Iran and the JCPOA.
Yet ironically, Europe's defiance to the U.S. regarding the Iranian JCPOA could have triggered the final battle for dollar hegemony in the world as multiple nations within both Europe and Eurasia are being recruited to ditch the reserve currency for a new gold backed cryptocurrency replacement. Read More
02.16.19- The Uncertainty Hiding in the Recent Market "Rally"
If you look at the Dow year-to-date, you might think the market has rallied fairly well for the start of 2019. You might even think the uncertainty from 2018 was accounted for to some degree.
But not so fast. According to a recent report, Liz Ann-Sonders from Charles Schwab highlighted concerns about an imminent earnings recession.
Ann-Sonders said that an earnings recession – two straight quarters of year-over-year profit declines – is possible. It's just not "something that the market is forecasting right now." Read More
02.15.19- The Democratic Party's Secret Attack On The Middle Class
Democrats repeatedly claim their goal is to promote middle-class prosperity. Yet, their policy of increased spending financed by higher taxes and rising debt are a direct threat to the middle-class standard of living and economic security. That is the conclusion of new research I have just completed based on an analysis of state taxes, spending and debt policies and their economic consequences based on data provided by the Tax Foundation, Sales Tax Institute, U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. government. Read More
02.14.19- Avoid the Financial Circus
From Dr. Maya Shetreat, MD:
Wall Street cheerleaders assure everyone stocks go up in the long term. Yes, they rise because the dollar is devalued every year, which they seldom discuss. Their cheerleaders avoid stating that corrections and crashes occur every five to ten years. Wall Street generates fees by encouraging individuals and pension funds to stay invested for the long term. Read More
02.13.19- Trump Missed His Last Great Opportunity
Lies and Claptrap
No one wants to hear about the State of the Union speech (SOTUS). Full of bluff and bluster… lies and claptrap – all of them are best forgotten, and fast.
But we return to last week's SOTUS, as to the site of a murder, not to bury the corpse but to praise him.
For there lies DJT… Donald John Trump… slain. Like Caesar, smitten in the Capitol, but by his own hand.
Our guess is that he will never rise again. A further guess is that he will take the nation down with him; we will look at that tomorrow. Read More
02.12.19- If This Isn't Stock Market Manipulation, Then I Don't Know What Is
Executive teams have leveraged up their companies to record levels while paying record valuations for share buybacks…
There is a growing chorus surrounding the topic of stock buybacks and whether they should be banned. Most recently, Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders wrote a piece for the New York Times arguing that buybacks are nothing more than corporate self-indulgence that leads to long-term harm to both companies and the economy. This may be true and, with equity valuations at or near all-time highs, buybacks certainly appear uneconomic at current prices but this is no reason to ban them. Companies should be allowed to throw money down the drain if they so choose. It's a free country, as they say. Read More
02.11.19- Dreams Die Hard
02.09.19- Weekend Rant: Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A Destructive Globalist Belief System
Over many years of investigating the mechanics of global events and the people behind them I have become perhaps a little obsessed with one particular subject – the source and motivations of evil. This fascination does not stem from a simple morbid curiosity, but a strategic need to understand an enemy. Much like an exterminator needs to understand the behavior of cockroaches to be effective, I seek to understand the behavior and nature of organized evil. Read More
02.08.19- Telltale Signs Of Recession
I'm seeing lifestyles that are out of stock and no longer available, even in China.
Though every recession is unique, all recessions manifest in similar ways in the real economy. By real economy, I mean the on-the-ground economy we observe with our own eyes, as opposed to the abstract statistical model reflected in official declarations of when recessions begin and end.
One characteristic that never makes it into the abstract statistical representation of recession is the light switch phenomenon: business suddenly dries up, as if someone turned a light switch off. This is especially visible in discretionary purchases, which include everything from smart phones to vehicles to eating out. Read More
02.07.19- "The Value Of The Dollar Has No Guarantee Whatsoever"
The statement above is of course totally accurate for a country running budget and trade deficits for over half a century with a total debt, including unfunded liabilities, in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.
It could have been said today, but it actually dates back to August 1971 when the People's Daily in China declared the beginning of the end for the monetary system of the capitalist world. Read More
02.06.19- CounterThink: How the Cancer Industry Will DESTROY the New Cure for Cancer
02.05.19- Home Sales to Get Even Uglier
"Dripping down, down, down. Frustrating that the housing market is not recovering": National Association of Realtors
What will home sales look like in January and February? Very, very lousy, according to pending home sales, a measure that counts how many contracts were signed. Contract signings run roughly one or two months ahead of when the sales close and are reported as sales. The measure of pending home sales for December projects actual home sales in January and February. To that tune, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that its Pending Home Sales Index for December fell to the lowest level since April 2014: Read More
02.04.19- If You Are Warm Right Now,
Last night the temperature fell 3 degrees an hour. As I write this, it is negative 10 degrees outside. A "once in a generation" polar vortex has swept into the American Midwest from the Arctic.
I am lucky to be alive. It would take me just a couple of hours to die from hypothermia if I were outside in such weather. But I am not just alive, I am comfortable. It is a balmy 73 degrees in my home. I am relaxing by my gas fireplace that gives off a warm heat as gentle flames dance about and please my eye. I can hear the gentle whir of fans blowing heat around my living room, generated by my furnace. I write this on my comfortable sofa with a computer on my lap powered by electricity and fed information via the Internet, itself powered by electricity and glass-fiber conduits that carry information to me from computersfrom across the earth. Read More
02.02.19- How Rich Is Rich?
With an ever-growing chorus of 'soak the rich' rising from the left-er of the leftists, it is becoming increasingly important to know what "rich" is – How much would you have to earn in a year in the U.S. before someone considered you rich?
Statista's Niall McCarthy has the answer. According to a recent YouGov poll ,that depends heavily on you ask…
The research found that the American public considers an annual income between $90,000 and $100,000 necessary to be deemed rich. The fieldwork for the survey was carried out in September 2018 and it found that 76 percent of respondents think an annual income of $10,000 constitutes being poor. Read More
02.01.19- How Do You Beat The Bankers At Their Own Game?
Those that have been following events for several years know they are under attack by an enemy that has no face and means to do them great harm. Nothing less than their sovereignty and freedom is at stake. Absolute control over people and resources is the ultimate goal.
People need to understand that the bankers need to collapse everything and leave the population in want of resources. Just like after a natural disaster when the government shows up to provide help to those that have lost everything, the bankers want to show up after the population has lost everything in a collapse, to be their savior and gain control of everyone by offering resources in exchange for compliance. Read More
01.31.19- U.S.-China War May Be
I have warned repeatedly that currency wars and trade wars can lead to shooting wars. Both history and analysis support this thesis.
Currency wars do not exist all the time; they arise under certain conditions and persist until there is either systemic reform or systemic collapse. The conditions that give rise to currency wars are too much debt and too little growth.
In those circumstances, countries try to steal growth from trading partners by cheapening their currencies to promote exports and create export-related jobs. Read More
01.30.19- So You Want to Get Rich: Focus on Human Capital
Wealth is flowing to those who earn money from their human capital and enterprise.
So you want to get rich: OK, what's the plan? If you ask youngsters how to get rich, many will respond by listing the professions the media focuses on: entertainment, actors/actresses, pro athletes, and maybe a few lionized inventors or CEOs.
The media's glorification of the few at the top of these sectors masks the statistical reality that those who attain wealth in these pursuits number in the hundreds or perhaps thousands, not in the millions. As in a lottery, the odds of joining such a limited group are extremely low. Read More
01.29.19- Bunnies, Bombers and Butter
The welfare people and the warfare people control congress, appropriations, corruption and national policies. Implications are grim.
If a nation subsidizes butter, it will get more butter. The U.S. and most other western governments subsidize welfare and warfare. Those expenses inevitably increase and are inescapable, like the mathematics of debt.
The U.S. federal and state governments created a huge network of government programs, giveaways, entitlements and public assistance. The welfare people have increased the number and cost of those programs every decade. Giveaways will expand next decade when the U.S. elects a welfare-oriented politician as President. She will push for Universal Basic Income, Medicare for all, guaranteed jobs, free tuition, wealth taxes and more. Read More
01.28.19- Feminism Is A Disease -
It seems these days like everyone and their genderfluid grandma has some "profound" insight into the minds and world of men. Men and masculinity are spoken of in the media with sharp tones of fear mixed with disdain, as if we are a dangerous aberrant genetic anomaly that needs to be studied under a special microscope that will protect the observer from being influenced by our vitriolic pheromones. The problem is, most of these "experts" on manhood are not men at all, or, their observations of male behavior are tainted with deep-seated resentments. That is to say, they are hardly objective. Read More
01.26.19- Weekend Rant: Toxic Masculinity and White Privilege
Just a forewarning, this is one of the most controversial Conversations With Casey we've ever published. You might want to skip reading this one if you're easily offended.
Justin: Doug, what did you think of that Gillette ad?
Doug: The first thing that came to mind was that, when I was a kid in the '50s, Schick razors used to sponsor boxing on television. Boxing, ritualized unarmed combat, is about the height of masculinity. It was, logically, sponsored by a razor company. Read More
01.25.19- Do This to Profit in a Bear Market
01.24.19- Experts Uncertain About Social Security's Future Prove One Thing is Certain
A lot can happen between now and 2034. If you were to listen to a consensus from experts, you'd hear Social Security could run out of money in about 15 years.
This idea was recently addressed in a MarketWatch article, which included this potential result:
01.23.19- Three Ways the Government Shutdown forecasts a totally boring federal collapse
Imagine: the federal government collapses, poof, gone.
Maybe it's 2034, the date the government admits it can't pay it's $50 trillion Social Security bill.
Or maybe it's earlier. The national debt is at almost $22 trillion, plus the massive everything-bubble created by the federal reserve money printing. Those don't bode well for the future of the dollar.
It is inevitable that all this debt and the debasing of the US dollar will eventually hurt. Read More
01.22.19- What Will Take the Place of America?
The dog and pony show that is US leadership is an ongoing embarrassment for millions of American brought up to believe in excellence. Big talk, never-ending controversy, and mudslinging, and disastrous decisions on a daily basis have made a mockery of freedom and democracy. Trump-Russia, propaganda, and the rewriting history and truth are bigger threats than terrorism. Here's another brief look at the mayhem from Washington. Here's some food for those who think.
Investigative genius Gordon Duff wrote recently about the psychopathic killer, former Vice-President Dick Cheney in a piece about the indecency of Washington. Discussing a new film called "V-I-C-E," which fries Cheney on the spit like a big fat hen, Duff encapsulates what mucky slime our nation's capital is infested with the following passage: Read More
01.21.19- C.S. Lewis Sounded the Alarm on the Dangers of Progressivism
While most of us associate C.S. Lewis with theological literature, the renowned author sounded the siren against progressivism's clear dangers not only to the political rights and liberties of man, but also to our very perception of the reality of mankind…
C.S. Lewis: World-renowned author, philosopher, theologian. Christian apologist. Mere mention of his name fills our minds with images of faith-based allegory, of lions, witches, and wardrobes, of rational defenses of the Christian faith. Read More
01.19.19- The U.S. Economy and the Ponzi Scheme
In a Ponzi scheme, money is taken from one source to pay for another, without actually having a real foundation or solid guaranteed future store of funds. The initial returns generate excitement leading to more spending based mainly on reporting of false gains and the continuing propagation of unrealistic ideals. At some point, the scheme loses its' viability and fails to deliver as promised resulting in collapse and loss of funds, leaving victims' scrambling to try to make up in some way for their losses.
The most famous Ponzi scheme of modern day was run by Bernie Madoff from New York City who managed to turn $5,000 saved from a lifeguarding job and installing sprinkler systems into nearly $65 billion of accounts. During the run of the scheme he was able to amass an impressive list of clients including numerous celebrities and other well-known public figures. Arvedlund, E. (2018). Read More
01.18.19- This problem is 10,000 times bigger than the border wall
We are in the midst of the longest government shutdown in history.
Don't get me wrong, I like having the government shut down. As I've said before, I believe it is my moral duty to pay as little taxes as possible.
The government does some really stupid things with your tax dollars. I'd rather not pay for a $2 billion Obamacare website that doesn't work, or to defend Congressmen against sexual assault allegations.
So, by starving the beast, I at least ensure they're not squandering my money. Read More
01.17.19- This New Market Could Make You a Fortune in 2019
He stared down his opponents, with his eyes barely visible under the broad brim of a Stetson cowboy hat.
He had a rattlesnake with its jaw open and fangs exposed glued to the front of it. With a Texas drawl, he'd tell the other players how he had killed it himself.
At 6'4'' and 170 pounds, Amarillo Slim was the greatest gambler to ever live. He made his first million in 1947 when he was only 19. His unforgettable look helped make poker a mainstream game around 20 years ago. Read More
01.16.19- Where Will You Be Seated at the Banquet of Consequences?
To get a good seat at the banquet of consequences, the owner of capital has to shift his/her capital into scarce forms for which there is demand.
The Banquet of Consequences is being laid out, and so the question is: where will you be seated? The answer depends on two dynamics I've mentioned many times: what types of capital you own and the asymmetries of our economy.
One set of asymmetries is the result of the system isn't broken, it's fixed, i.e. rigged to favor the few at the expense of the many. There are many manifestations of neofeudal asymmetry that divides neatly into two classes and two systems, the nobility and the serfs. Read More
01.15.19- Here's What an American Economic Collapse Could Actually Look Like (And How It May Be a Lot Different Than Folks Expect)
When we think of "economic collapse" our imaginations usually lead us immediately to the desperation we've witnessed in places like Venezuela or Greece. We think of starvation, a complete lack of medical care, and waves of suicide by people who simply can't survive. We imagine an apocalyptic societal breakdown that is immediately visible. Read More
01.14.19- Why I Will No Longer Recognize
One of the main problems with life is that to merely survive takes all (and more) of your youth. That to just get by you need to work two jobs, double time it to earn yourself a degree, double time it again to pay off the associated debts, and then still double time it a third time to establish yourself in a career. If you do it right and are frugal along the way, you inevitably "win" where you have the American dream, no debts, and an adequate retirement account. You are free to live your life and you're lucky if this happens before 40. Read More
01.12.19- This Technology Will Be Bigger
Last October, a modified Toyota Prius drove itself 3,099 miles – from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan.
There was a human in the driver's seat, but he didn't touch the steering wheel, gas, or brake pedals for the entire trip. The self-driving car drove itself the entire distance.
If any readers are curious about the trip, have a look at the time-lapse video of the entire coast-to-coast journey here.
This coast-to-coast, self-driving journey was the first of its kind. Yet it got little to no press. Read More
01.11.19- The Recession Will Be Unevenly Distributed
The coming recession will be unevenly distributed, meaning that it will devastate many while leaving others relatively untouched. A few will actually do better in the recession than they did in the so-called "recovery."
I realize many of the concepts floated here are cryptic and need a fuller explanation: the impact of owning differing kinds of capital, fragmentation, asymmetry, opacity, etc. ( 2019: Fragmented, Unevenly Distributed, Asymmetric, Opaque).
These dynamics guarantee a highly uneven distribution of recessionary consequences and whatever rewards are generated will be reaped by a few. Read More
01.10.19- Here's Where the Next Crisis Starts
The case for a pending financial collapse is well grounded. Financial crises occur on a regular basis including 1987, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2007-08. That averages out to about once every five years for the past thirty years. There has not been a financial crisis for ten years so the world is overdue. It's also the case that each crisis is bigger than the one before and requires more intervention by the central banks.
The reason has to do with the system scale. In complex dynamic systems such as capital markets, risk is an exponential function of system scale. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses. Read More
01.09.19- The Last Act Crowns the Play
For uncounted ages, the world's thinkers accepted, unquestioningly, the fact that human life is what it is, and cannot be changed: that its nature is unalterable.
Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306 -337 AD) legalized Christianity but allowed the existence of other religions. Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD; other religions were considered foolish. Read More
01.08.19- Our Politics Now: Up vs. Down,
If you were to view the evolution of politics in the West in traditional left versus right terms, you undoubtedly would see the political preferences of most people have shifted leftward.
Just look at how most Americans view federal spending: total government spending (federal, state, and local) accounts for 37.7 percent of the country's overall gross domestic product. In other words, 37.7 percent of America's economic growth is set to be generated by government spending (which is why Wall Street and other analysts worry about a government shutdown). Read More
01.07.19- Why Trump Must Legalize Pot
Editor's Note: Today, we turn to our weekend guest editor, Crisis Investing's Nick Giambruno. Below, Nick shows why President Trump's defining legacy likely won't be an infrastructure boom or The Wall. It will be bringing legal pot to America.
Legal pot is a bit out of our wheelhouse here at the Diary. As Bill often says, his usual beat is money. But cannabis is now legal nationwide in Canada. It is expected to be lawful in Mexico starting this year. And a majority of Americans now favor legal pot. With all these forces converging, this is a trend that should be on every investor's radar. Read More
01.05.19- Tax Attorney: Social Security Participants About to be "Disenfranchised"
If Rebecca Waiser is right, millions of Americans are about to be "disenfranchised"of their Social Security benefits. Waiser, a licensed tax attorney and certified financial planner writing for Fox Business, says the math is incontrovertible and irreversible.
According to the trustees running the program, Social Security will be forced to start cutting benefits by 2034, 15 years from now. According to Waiser the crisis will hit in three years. Read More
01.04.19- Markets are all about flows
This article looks at prospective supply and demand factors for financial assets in the New Year and beyond. Investors should take into account money flowing into and out of financial assets as well as stock flows, particularly escalating government bond issuance, which looks likely to accelerate significantly in the coming years. It adds up to the fundamental case for physical gold and silver.
01.03.19- 2019 From a Fourth Turning Perspective
"An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics."
Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. Read More
01.02.19- The World Known to Me Is Fading Away
In a few hours it will be another new year, 2019. I can remember when 1984 seemed far in the future, both as a calendar date and George Orwell's predicted dystopia, to which 9/11 and the digital revolution gave birth in the 21st century. Now I find myself 35 years past 1984 and a stranger in a strange land.
Over these holidays two occurrances brought the strangeness of the present time home to me. Read More
01.01.19- Opinion: Roubini: President Trump is flirting with mutually assured economic destruction
Now that financial markets see the danger of the Trump presidency, the risk of a financial crisis and global recession has grown
Financial markets have finally awoken to the fact that Donald Trump is U.S. president. Given that the world has endured two years of reckless tweets and public statements by the world's most powerful man, the obvious question is: what took so long? Read More
12.31.18- Guess What These Four Fastest Growing States Have in Common…
Keep the federal government shut down and let the states set policy.
"Non-essential" government workers… well then what the hell are they doing there?
Every penny of federal spending should be only the most absolutely crucial, necessary cent to keep the country's most basic functions going… Read More
12.29.18- The Baby Boomer Survival Guide – Part 2
What is money really good for?
Money is our beat at the Diary.
But money means nothing without philosophy. Beyond what we need to survive, money has no importance.
Is it good? Is it bad? It depends.
We need a simple philosophy to make sense of it – to guide us past the Gucci bags… past cable TV… and past the million-euro apartments of the 16th arrondissement in Paris. Read More
12.18.28- The Arrival Of The Credit Crisis
Those of us who closely follow the credit cycle should not be surprised by the current slide in equity markets. It was going to happen anyway. The timing had recently become apparent as well, and in early August I was able to write the following:
12.27.18- The Baby Boomer Survival Guide – Part 1
What should you do if you are running out of time and money?
This is the question we get from readers over 50… over 60… and sometimes, over 70.
We baby boomers were famously saying "Na… na… na… Live for today."
Now, it's tomorrow. And many of us – often through no fault of our own – are having trouble making ends meet. Read More
12.26.18- "The Worst Is Yet To Come Next Year"
When talking heads on mainstream news networks are using phrases such as "the worst is yet to come next year", that is a clear indication that a new financial crisis has arrived. And that is an extremely bold statement to make considering that this is already the worst quarter for the stock market in 10 years, this is the worst December for stock prices since 1931, and we just experienced the worst Christmas Eve that Wall Street has ever seen. So when Mark Jolley made the following statement during a recent guest appearance on CNBC, it definitely raised some eyebrows… Read More
12.25.18- The Greatest Gift For All
Christmas Column 2018
Dear Donors, thank you for your support in 2018. Although you have kept me working yet another year, I find it encouraging that there are some Americans who can think independently and who want to know. As Margaret Mead said, it only takes a few determined people to change the world. Perhaps some of you will be those people.
My traditional Christmas column goes back to sometime in the 1990s when I was a newspaper columnist. It has been widely reprinted at home and abroad. Every year two or three readers write to educate me that religion is the source of wars and persecutions. These readers confuse religion with mankind's abuse of institutions, religious or otherwise. The United States has democratic institutions and legal institutions to protect civil liberties. Nevertheless, we now have a police state. Shall I argue that democracy and civil liberty are the causes of police states? Read More
12.24.18- How to Barter for Survival (not just a list): 100+ Items to Barter in a Post-Collapse World
Editor's Note: This resource has been updated and revised for 2018.
Do you know how to barter? In preparedness circles, the term barter is used a lot when describing a post SHTF situation when goods and services may no longer be available through normal channels. According to Wikipedia, "barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money". Read More
12.22.18- Do you really have to go to work?
Monday through Friday, 9-5, are work days. You commute to the office every day. And then you have the weekend off.
That's how it has been for decades and decades, right? And before that Sunday was the only day off, and the hours were much longer.
These traditions began in factory settings when everything had to be standardized. It's not like farmers were clocking in and punching out… they worked when there was work to do. Which was basically always.
But as we turn over to 2019, do we still need to work the five day work week? Do we still need to commute to the office? And should work even be hourly or even salary for most professions, or task-based? Read More
12.21.18- The History of Banking Control in the United States
The dictatorship of the bankers and their debt-money system are not limited to one country, but exist in every country in the world. They are working to keep their control tight, since one country freeing itself from this dictatorship and issuing its own interest- and debt-free currency, setting the example of what an honest system could be, would be enough to bring about the worldwide collapse of the bankers' swindling debt-money system. Read More
12.20.18- The 10 Daily Habits of Prepared People
For some people, preparedness is about the big things: the well-stocked retreat home, buying yet another firearm, or getting a super-fancy generator. While these things can certainly be classified as preparedness endeavors, it isn't the expensive and dramatic gestures that make us truly prepared people.
The way prepared people spend their time before an emergency is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy. Read More
12.19.18- Anything Goes!
The disturbing fact regarding human life on planet Earth is that we are, all of us, and I include myself, living the life of lunatics, because we are all out of touch with Reality. I except from this condition, the few remaining tribes of primitive people living in the remote jungles of places such as Borneo, the Amazon river basin and other similar locations.
Some few humans, among whose small number I count myself, know that this is our condition, but the vast majority of humanity are not aware of the dire situation in which we live.
One result of the collective insanity which prevails in our modern world is that it has allowed the very worst of the lunatics, possessing destructive impulses, to rise to dominant positions in human societies. Read More
12.18.18- I Can't Afford to Live in this Private Community. And I Wish Everywhere Was Like This.
Private government is really nothing new.
And I don't mean some arrangement between coercive government and "private" companies that make their money from government contracts.
That arrangement actually produces the inequality that people blame on free markets.
Notice how everyone is taxed. Yet the government spends the money enriching the government defense contractors, handing out subsidies to already rich oil companies, bailing out sub-par automakers and predatory bankers… Read More
12.17.18- Why Speculators Should Love
12.15.18- Texas Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional
A Texas federal judge on Friday ruled that Obamacare violated the Constitution, likely pushing the ruling towards the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Reed O'Connor, a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas appointed by former President George W. Bush, ruled that Obamacare violated the Constitution.
20 Republican state attorneys general brought the suit, Texas v. Azar, who asked the court to rule that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the Constitution after Republicans managed to zero out Obamacare's individual mandate penalty with the Jobs Act last year. The judge ruled that the law's individual mandate violates the Constitution and therefore the entire ACA violates the Constitution. Read More
12.14.18- What is the Deep Web and How Do You Get There in 2018?
The deep web and dark web are terms that have enjoyed plenty of headlines in recent years. You could conclude — wrongly, it turns out — that nothing exists in that seedy cyberalley except for deals that involve contract killing, illegal drugs, human trafficking, weapons, pornography and other not-so-nice products and services.
The Silk Road, a website synonymous with shady dealings, was shut down twice by the FBI and its founder, the Dread Pirate Roberts, also known as Ross Ulbricht, imprisoned for life. Read More
12.13.18- A Bad Moon Rising –
John Fogerty (Credence Clearwater Revival) wrote "Bad Moon Rising" in 1969. The lyrics are relevant today.
12.12.18- A Crisis in the Making: Know Your Rights or You Will Lose Them
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."—Thomas Jefferson
We are approaching critical mass, the point at which all hell breaks loose.
The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.
What makes the outlook so much bleaker is the utter ignorance of the American people—and those who represent them—about their freedoms, history, and how the government is supposed to operate. Read More
12.11.18- As Many as 8 Million Children Are Kidnapped and Trafficked Into Sex Slavery Every Year by Global Pedophile Network – of Which Many Politicians Are Members
According to official statistics that you'll never hear reported by the mainstream media, as many as 800,000 children in the United States, and eight million children globally, are being kidnapped and trafficked into sex slavery every single year as part of a massive pedophilia network that spans the entire world. And though it might not be comfortable to think about, many high-level politicians on both sides of aisle actively participate in, and partake of, this unimaginable evil. Read More
12.10.18- Dow 10,000
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – Trading continued yesterday… with stocks swinging lustily from tree to tree like drunken monkeys.
When the closing bell finally sounded, the Dow was down just 79 points. The monkeys were greatly relieved.
And today, the Fed sets up another drink. Here's a headline from The Wall Street Journal:
Our advice to readers: Relax… and enjoy the comedy show. Read More
12.08.18- What to Do When the Market Goes "Nuts"
According to the efficient market hypothesis, there's nothing insane going on in the stock market. Stock prices reflect all of the currently available information and investors' analysis of that information.
In the long term, I'll agree that markets are efficient, investors are rational, and stock prices generally end up where they are logically supposed to.
In the short term, though, the market is nuts.
Fear and Greed Read More
12.07.18- Things Change, But Not Always For The Better
The whole universe operates in cycles. Just as the seasons change on a regular basis, all other things change on schedule as well. A person is born, they go to school, they get a job, they get married and buy a home. Later they have children, buy a bigger home, send their children to school and save for retirement. Their children grow and leave home, they get a smaller home and retire. These are predictable cycles most people go through in life but never pay much attention to.
Knowing that these cycles occur can give a person an idea of what to prepare for in the future. We know that the national debt doubles about every 8 years. We know that the economy goes into a recession every 6 to 8 years. We know that the FED manipulates the economy with money printing and interest rates. We know politicians spend money we don't have to get reelected. Read More
12.06.18- "Too Perfect to be Natural": Those Strange Seismic Waves
My inbox has been veritably flooded with so many different versions of this story, I don't know where to begin, other than to say thank you to all of you who drew it to my attention. The story has now rippled around the word from its point of origin – Madagascar – to the antipodes and back again more times than the seismic waves themselves. But this story is truly strange, and since we're into "strange stuff" on this website, as one might imagine, I have some of our trademark "high octane speculation" to offer, but first, here's one version of the story: Read More
12.05.18- Is An Offshore Account Safe?
In response to our recent articleabout investing offshore, many readers asked for more information. They expressed many concerns, particularly about safety.
Jamie Virjhof, Relationship Manager of Weber Hartmann Virjhof & Partners Ltd. recently interviewed me and addressed those concerns. Read More
12.04.18- Another Serious
What is the real interest rate? It is the nominal rate minus the inflation rate. I previously wrote about one problem with this notion (the nominal rate exists in the market, but the real rate is imaginary). Now let's turn to another problem.
To visualize this problem, let's make an analogy to someone who inherits a family farm. There are two approaches to making a living from a farm. In the first—we'll call this investing—Farmer Brown determines how to produce the greatest amount of food at the least cost. He increases production of milk from his herd, and apples from his orchard. Read More
12.03.18- How "Laziness" Can Make You Wealthy
The desire to work less is not a vice, but a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence. When combined with commitment, persistence, and common sense, it creates economic efficiency, an essential component of building great wealth.
– From Principles of Wealth, by Mark Ford
The unpaid bills are stacked next to the unwashed dishes. You've been short about $1,200 per month since the divorce.
You need something to fill that income gap – some sort of money-making scheme that's feasible, flexible, and profitable. It can't be a financial investment because you've got no savings. What's there to do? Read More
12.01.18- How to Profit From Trade War Hysteria
The trade war has claimed its biggest victim.
…Apple (AAPL).
Apple sells the wildly popular iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. It's one of the most recognized companies on the planet. It was the world's most valuable publicly traded company until Microsoft (MSFT) overtook it on Monday.
So how did a company this powerful get caught up in the trade war? Simple. On Monday, President Trump threatened to introduce a 10% tariff on consumer electronic products made in China.
This would impact the iPhone and other Apple products…Read More
11.30.18- Rothschild rule ends
The announcement on October 24, 2018 by Rothschild & Co that they are getting out of the trust business is a major historical turning point that almost slipped by unnoticed.
11.28.18- The Best Stock Investors: Dead People
BALTIMORE – The stock market got a healthy bounce Monday. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.
But you don't have to guess. Because you don't make money in the stock market from short-term moves. You'll guess wrong as often as right, and you'll end up getting nowhere.
It's the big, long-term moves that make a difference. And the trouble is, sometimes, those moves last longer than we do. Read More
11.28.18- The Best Stock Investors: Dead People
BALTIMORE – The stock market got a healthy bounce Monday. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.
But you don't have to guess. Because you don't make money in the stock market from short-term moves. You'll guess wrong as often as right, and you'll end up getting nowhere.
It's the big, long-term moves that make a difference. And the trouble is, sometimes, those moves last longer than we do. Read More
11.27.18- End This Madness
It is a bit of an alienating experience for one to see the nation of his birth and the principles of our ancestors under constant assault, from foreigners and people born here who are amerikkans rather than Americans. I refer to those Muslims who desire Sharia law, the Black Muslims who simply hate America, LaRaza with its Hispanic communists and conquerors who want to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico, the communist Democrat Party that seeks the eradication of our Founding Principles and the destruction of our Constitution and Republic, and those communist proletarians, the TAKERS, who seek their upkeep and livelihood at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. Read More
11.26.18- Thoughts From The Precipice
Things are worsening. But we're not over the edge quite yet.
As you already know, things are unraveling. The narratives of the past are being revealed as false and fraudulent — even harmful.
For example, the fallacy of pursuing "ever more" growth. Growth up to a point is beneficial, but it turns self-destructive when it exceeds what available resources can sustain.
As it is practiced, economic growth as pursued around the world today is now destructive. If we continue on our current trajectory, it will become fatal. Read More
11.24.18- Weekend Rant: Mad World
The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears' Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy. Read More
11.23.18- The Assassination of Bitcoin
As Bill reported last week, central banks are toying with the idea of launching a bank-backed cryptocurrency. Dan believes that outcome is all but assured. Only one thing stands in the way… bitcoin.
The collapse of bitcoin – down 68% year to date and 78% from its all-time high of $20,000, set in December 2017, when it traded at $4,200.22 earlier this week – may have a perfectly normal explanation.
It's a bubble that popped. Or it's happened before and is nothing to worry about. As my colleagues have shown their readers in the last week, bitcoin dropped 94% in 2010, 94% in 2011, 85% from 2013 to 2015, and 76% in a three-month period alone in 2013. Read More
11.22.18- How Not to be a Turkey on Thanksgiving
Ask a turkey a week before Thanksgiving if the farmer loves him.
The farmer comes every day to feed the turkey and feed him well.
He provides free accommodations: a nice yard to peck around in, water, shelter from predators.
From the turkey's perspective, a week before Thanksgiving, life has never been better. Read More
11.21.18- An Odor of Perfidy
I suspect there's a hidden agenda behind the announcement in The Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Hillary Clinton aide Mark Penn that the Ole Gray Mare is actually eyeing another run for the White House in 2020. No, it's not just that she would like to be president, as she averred on video last week in a weak moment, or that she has decided late in life to go full Bolshevik policy-wise. It is to establish her in the public mind as a serious candidate so that when she is indicted a hue-and-cry will arise that the move is a purely political act of revenge by the wicked Trump. Read More
11.20.18- The globalist plan to exterminate humanity begins now: "Useless eaters" must be eliminated, say globalists
Far beyond the distractions of political bickering and cultural trends, the big, big picture that's unfolding across our world right now is a plan to exterminate 90% of the current human population in order to "save" the planet and protect what globalists see as the future of human survival on a cosmic scale.
This plan is under way now due to two important developments: Read More
11.19.18- Soaring Health-Care Costs Forced This Family to Choose Who Can Stay Insured
David and Maribel Maldonado seem the very definition of making it in America. David arrived in the U.S. from Mexico as a small child. His father supported the family by working long hours as a mechanic while his mother raised their 10 children. By the time David had a family of his own, his career as a salesman was flourishing. His wife Maribel, whose family is also from Mexico, worked as a hairstylist while caring for the couple's two children. David's annual salary reached about $113,000 by the time the children were in their teens. It was more than enough to live in a pretty suburban house outside Dallas, take family vacations, go to restaurants and splurge at the nearby mall. And to afford health insurance.
Then, in 2012, Maribel discovered she had breast cancer. "Your world comes crumbling down," David says. Read More
11.17.18- Potential Impacts of the Midterm Elections on Your Retirement
Now that the midterm elections are pretty much over, the Democrats control the House, and the Republicans control the Senate.
This may have several important impacts on your retirement over the next two years (and beyond, depending on policy adjustments). These potential impacts could be crucial because the economic foundation they influence appears to be on shaky ground.
In a peer-reviewed paper from the Indiana Legal Studies department, four authors collaborated and published an alarming discovery (emphasis ours): Read More
11.16.18- Does Any of This Make Sense?
Does any of this make sense? No. But it's so darn profitable to the oligarchy, it's difficult to escape debt-serfdom and tax-donkey servitude.
We rarely ask "does this make any sense?" of things that are widely accepted as beneficial-- or if not beneficial, "the way it is," i.e. it can't be changed by non-elite (i.e. the bottom 99.5%) efforts.
Of the vast array of things that don't make sense, let's start with borrowing from future income to spend more today. This is of course the entire foundation of consumer economies such as the U.S.: the number of households which buy a car or house with cash is near-zero, unless 1) they just sold a bubble-valuation house and paid off their mortgage in escrow or 2) they earned wealth via fiscal prudence, i.e. the avoidance of debt and the exultation of saving. Read More
11.15.18- Scum vs. Scum
There is perhaps no better illustration of the deep decay of the American political system than the Senate race in New Jersey. Sen. Bob Menendez, running for re-election, was censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from the Florida businessman Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Medicare of $73 million. The senator had flown to the Dominican Republic with Melgen on the physician's private jet and stayed in his private villa, where the men cavorted with young Dominican women who allegedly were prostitutes. Menendez performed numerous political favors for Melgen, including helping some of the Dominican women acquire visas to the United States. Menendez was indicted in a federal corruption trial but escaped sentencing because of a hung jury. Read More
11.14.18- Nikola Tesla's Wireless Energy Dream
Big things are happening in the world of wireless technology and power transmission. Here is TraderStef to break-down what it means for the future…
Wireless power technology recently became popular with its application in charging wireless-capable devices, (such as a smartphone) via a Powermat interface. There is one company currently building out a true wireless power supply without the need for an intermediary "pad," which could develop into an investment opportunity of a lifetime if it or another company successfully launches an IPO, not to mention the upstream manufacturing interface components. Read More
11.13.18- Reading the Second Amendment
The Second Amendment's syntax permits only one reasonable interpretation.
Is this sentence so hard to understand? Apparently so. Even some of its defenders don't like how it is worded because it allegedly breeds misunderstanding. Read More
11.12.18- How to Survive the "Deep State"
Almost everyone looks for a political solution to problems. However, once a Deep State situation has taken over, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn it around, and probably only in a small country.
Maybe you're thinking you should get behind somebody like Ron Paul (I didn't say Rand Paul), should such a person materialize. That would be futile.
Here's what would happen in the totally impossible scenario that this person was elected and tried to act like a Lee Kuan Yew or an Augusto Pinochet against the Deep State: Read More
11.10.18- It's a Fraud. A Pyramid scheme.
Many of us do think that something isn't quite right with the world economy. One in a million actually understands, where does it go wrong? Powers that be, do not want you to know about it as it's your ignorance which keeps them at the top of the financial food chain. I don't know of any other example in history where so many were looted by so few.
Modern banking system creates money faster than our hearts beat. However, they make it so complex & unintelligible that none but they alone, understand it. All economies work pretty much the same way but since most of the global transactions use US dollar, making it the majority of the world's currency, I will exemplify the US system. Read More
11.09.18- What Do We Make Of The Midterm Election?
Readers are asking for my thoughts about the midterm elections. Looking at this CNN map–it seems that except for thin areas of the northeast and west coasts and hispanic and black enclaves in the southwest and south, the country overwhelmingly voted Republican.
In my opinion, flyover America voted Republican because the "deplorables" want to defend Trump. They want to defend him for two reasons. One is that he spoke to their economic plight caused by the US corporations exporting their jobs, leaving the American workforce and middle class hard-strapped. The other is that the adoption of Identity Politics by the Democratic Party has made the Democrats the party that hates white people—especially white heterosexual males who are defined as the victimizer of minorities, homosexuals, and women. Read More
11.08.18- America, the Tyranny of the Stupid
People around the world are convinced that the United States is a nation run by criminal psychopaths and morons. A greater fear is that world leaders mistakenly assume that their American counterparts who do and say insane things continually are, in actuality, normal people operating inside some "master plan."
Then, when time and time again, no such plan materializes, and it is demonstrated that America has blundered into a diplomatic, economic or military morass, for some unknown reason, a "reset" occurs, and the wrong assumptions are again made.
At every level, humanity errs in assuming that those in command are there because of talent and worth or that, because America is so wealthy and powerful, that its people are such because of moral and intellectual superiority. Read More
11.07.18- How do we keep getting dragged into this electoral spectator sport?
Ah, elections…
Little more than a bare-knuckle boxing match. If you were to suddenly catch a glimpse of such a fight, you would see real blood, real punches, swollen lips, black eyes, and a final knockout.
It looks like a real spontaneous fight. But the match was planned, set up, with rules and parameters.
That's an election. Except that it is shoved in all of our faces, while they lie and tell us it wasn't a planned fight.
Not interested in seeing the blood and gore? Not interested in watching two people beat each other to a pulp? Well, you can turn off the boxing match, but good luck avoiding election coverage. Read More
11.06.18- Are You Prepared For Lockdown? How To Stay Safe When All Hell Breaks Loose In America
Tensions are incredibly high in the United States right now. I realized that over the past three years, I've written that they're "at an all-time high" far too many times. So, I'll just say, they're high enough that all hell could break loose at any moment given the right (wrong) application of fuel to the flame. The number one thing you can do for this situation to keep your family safe is to be prepared for lockdown.
Pretending that it isn't happening or hoping to hug it out is not a rational response to the chaos that is coming. I know that some cling to their misguided views on the way the world works with the ferocity of a mother bear protecting cubs, but for the rest of us, there's this thing called reality. When we accept it, we can prepare for it. Read More
11.05.18- The Fourth Turning and the
"In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action." – The Fourth Turning– Strauss & Howe Read More
11.03.18- This Radical Proposal for Social Security Underscores Its Desperate Future
The ever-controversial Alan Greenspan was Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, a period marked by relatively low interest rates and market self-regulation.
But the economic crisis that started in 2008 shed critical light on Greenspan's economic policy. He's 92 now, and as he promotes a new book, he's sharing some rather radical economic ideas. Read More
11.02.18- Politicians Are Creating The Worst Economic Crash In History
Politicians have totally and completely misunderstood the trends within the global economy and as a result, they are actually creating one of the worst economic debacles in history.
I have explained several times that the bulk of investment capital is tied up in two primary sectors – (1) government bonds and (2) real estate. Because of income taxes, real estate has offered a way to make money in capital gains without having to pay income taxes. Read More
Shock Claim: The Media Is Reporting That Some In The 2nd Migrant Caravan Have
A second migrant caravan has been attempting to breach Mexico's border with Guatemala, and the media is reporting that some migrants in that second caravan are armed with "guns" and "bombs". This is a very serious claim, and it needs to either be confirmed or retracted, because it is not helpful to have unconfirmed reports spreading like wildfire on social media. There have been endless discussions about these migrant caravans on all the major news networks in recent weeks, and they are getting so much attention that they are almost overshadowing the midterm elections which are going to happen next week. And if this latest report is true, concern about these caravans is certain to reach a fever pitch…Read More
10.31.18- Is America Finished?
The refusal of the Democratic Party and the military/security complex to accept the results of the 2016 US presidential election and the misuse of their positions of power to prevent Donald Trump from exercising presidential powers is a revolutionary step, well described by Angelo Codevilla here.
Americans are now so polarized that they "no longer share basic sympathies and trust, because they no longer regard each other as worthy of equal consideration." Codevilla blames the progressives and their attitude of moral superiority, but his explanation is independent of who is to blame. I blame both sides. The Constitution and our civil liberties took a major hit from the "conservative" Republican regime of George W. Bush. Read More
10.30.18- A Perfect Storm Is Brewing
Will we someday look back on October 2018 as the turning point? As the month began, people were generally feeling pretty good about things, and the U.S. stock market quickly set a new all-time high. But from that point on, the wheels fell off for Wall Street. We just witnessed the worst October for U.S. stocks since the financial crisis of 2008, and at this point more than 8 trillion dollars of global wealth has been completely wiped out. But it isn't just the stock market that is being shaken. The horrific violence in Pittsburgh is just the latest in a string of events that have rattled the entire nation. Sometimes I feel like I am literally watching the fabric of our society come apart right in front of my eyes. It is almost as if there is a tangible presence of evil in the air, and it seems to be getting stronger over time. Read More
10.29.18- End of the World – Part Two
Part one discussed the "what" and "why" of unpayable debt, an inevitable "reset" or the end of the current financial world. Part two addresses when.
10.27.18- What a bunch of idiots
Tell me this isn't crazy–
A few days ago the creator of the most famous consumer 'credit score' in the United States announced a major overhaul in how it rates borrowers.
Consumers live and die by this 'FICO score'. A high FICO score means that it's easy to obtain loans at lower interest rates.
And a bad FICO score (in theory) means that you have a history of not paying your debts… hence making it difficult to obtain loans. Read More
10.26.18- Deep State Rolls out Staged "Bomb" Attack on CNN Headquarters, Just as Mike Adams and Alex Jones Publicly Predicted on Multiple Video Broadcasts
Exactly as publicly predicted by myself and Alex Jones, the anti-American globalists are now running pipe bombs false flags against CNN. This is not merely similar to what we publicly predicted would take place before the mid-term elections; it is exactly what we publicly predicted would take place. We even named CNN as the most likely target to be selected by the globalist operatives running the operation. Read More
10.25.18- Will there ever be a "freedom loving" majority? And do we even need there to be?
The good old days never existed.
People like to romanticize a time when America was more wholesome… when everyone got along and put petty differences aside to fight wars and such.
A time when political campaigns were more civil… like in the Presidential election of 1800.
That was when a pro-Adams newspaper said that "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced," if Jefferson was elected.
And the Jefferson supporters responded by claiming that Adams was more like a hermaphrodite than a man or woman. Read More
10.24.18- The Average Stock Is Overvalued Between Tremendously And Enormously
My business is to constantly look for new stocks by running stock screens, endlessly reading (blogs, research, magazines, newspapers), looking at the holdings of respected investors, talking to a large network of investment professionals, attending conferences, scouring through ideas published on value investor networks, and finally, scouring a large (and growing) watch list of companies to buy at a significant margin of safety.
With all of that, my firm is having little success finding solid companies at attractive valuations. Read More
10.23.18- Weaker Dollar Helps Set Silver Prices for a Breakout
This week, Your News to Know rounds up the latest stories involving precious metals and the overall economy. Stories include: Silver prices are set for a breakout as the dollar falls, gold buyers return after two-quarter absence, and gold could surge near $1,280 an ounce in the short term.
Why silver prices are set for a breakout as the dollar falls
With gold having recaptured much of its losses earlier this month, silver could be next in line for a breakout on the back of a weaker dollar reports Money Morning. As columnist Peter Krauth notes, silver moved as the stock market went through a tailspin and ultimately ended higher at $14.28 an ounce. Read More
10.22.18- Who's financing the "spontaneous" migrant caravan trekking towards the United States? Here are some clues
(Natural News) On his nationally syndicated talk show Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh discussed the growing migrant "caravan" currently making its way towards the United States.
In particular, Limbaugh talked about what it would take for hundreds and thousands of people to make such a long journey on foot, and through a number of countries after the caravan originated in Honduras. Read More
10.20.18- End of the World – Part One
Predicting the end of the world, physical or financial, is seldom helpful. If the prediction is correct, how do you profit from the insight? If the prediction is wrong and the "end of the world" is delayed (typical), you lose credibility.
An estimate of risk versus reward based on an analysis of current information is more useful. Read More
10.19.18- How to Make a Fortune in the Gold-Backed Crypto Revolution
For thousands of years, gold has been the safe-haven asset. No government can easily confiscate, nationalize, freeze, or devalue it at the drop of a hat.
It's simply the best way to preserve wealth over the long term.
Now, with the advent of cryptocurrencies and decentralized blockchain technology, people have a complementary tool for advancing their financial freedom. Read More
10.18.18- 4 Ways the Skyrocketing Budget Deficit Could Wreck Your Retirement
In many ways, the current U.S. budget deficit represents uncharted territory.
Investopedia defines a budget deficit when "expenses exceed revenue and it is an indicator of financial health." Referring to the U.S. they added "Accrued government deficits form the national debt."
According to an official statement released by Steve Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney at the Treasury, the FY 2018 budget deficit rose 17% over the previous period to $779 billion. Read More
10.17.18- "When the bubble bursts, America will experience an economic crisis much greater than the 2008 meltdown or the Great Depression"
The bigger they come, the harder they fall. Currently, we are in the terminal phase of an "everything bubble" which has had ten years to grow. It is the biggest financial bubble that our country has ever seen, and experts are warning that when it finally bursts we will experience an economic downturn that is even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. Of course many of us in the alternative media have been warning about what is coming for quite some time, but now even many in the mainstream media have jumped on the bandwagon. Read More
10.16.18- UN Climate Change Report: A Choice between "Mad Max and Hunger Games"
Humanity, we're essentially told, is doomed lest people concede their freedom to the experts, lawmakers, and bureaucrats who can save us.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week released a special report detailing all the ways climate change is predicted to wreak havoc on humans.
The report is about 800 pages long, so I'll offer a summary to save you some time: Read More
10.15.18- International relations:
All international problems are currently suspended, awaiting the results of the US mid-term elections. The partisans of the old international order are gambling on a change of majority in Congress and a rapid destitution of President Trump. If the man in the White House holds fast, the protagonists of the war against Syria will have to admit defeat and move on to other battle fields. On the other hand, if Donald Trump should lose the elections, the war on Syria will immediately be revived by the United Kingdom. Read More
10.13.18- The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did as Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today
With all of the ridiculous new regulations, coddling, and societal mores that seem to be the norm these days, it's a miracle those of us over 30 survived our childhoods.
Here's the problem with all of this babying: it creates a society of weenies.
There won't be more rebels because this generation has been frightened into submission and apathy through a deliberately orchestrated culture of fear. No one will have faced adventure and lived to greatly embroider the story. Read More
10.12.18- Dow 40,000 is coming, but only after 'a large panic event' passes, analyst warns
Back in January 2016, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.15%was trading around the 16,000 level, Yves Lamoureux, president of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co., said the blue-chip index would topple 25,000 within three or four years. It didn't take that long.
Now, with the Dow clinging to a 500-point cushion above that milestone, Lamoureux is standing firmly behind another bullish call: Dow 40,000.
Oh, but there's a catch... Read More
10.11.18- The Human Drive for Inequality
At the Foundation for Economic Education Conference (FEECON) in 2017, I met Bill Frezza. He's been teaching a critical lesson about equality, learned from the horrors of the AT&T telephone monopoly. What follows, I mostly learned from him.
After the invention of the telephone in the mid- to late-1800s, innovators produced great accomplishments as they strived to improve the technology to. Read More
10.10.18- The Cracks In The Market's Floor Grow Wider
"The only time we've ever seen a confluence of risk factors anywhere close to those of today was the week of March 24, 2000, which marked the peak of the technology bubble." – John Hussman, Hussman Funds, in his October Market Commentary
The yield on the 10-yr Treasury has broken out, hitting its highest level since July 2011:
By the end of June 2011, the Fed had only reached its half-way mark in money printing. It was shortly thereafter that the Fed had implemented its "operation twist." Operation twist consisted of selling the Fed's short term holdings and using the proceeds plus extra printed money to buy Treasuries at the long-end of the curve – primarily 10-yr bonds. Read More
10.09.18- The Biggest Threat to US National Security Is the US Government
A dictatorship does not represent the public but only the aristocracy that, behind the scenes, controls the government.
Jonathan H. Adler, Professor at Case Western University School of Law, noted, regarding George W. Bush's secret policy for the NSA to access everyone's phone-records, that "The metadata collection program is constitutional (at least according to Judge Kavanaugh)," and he presented Judge Kavanaugh's entire published opinion on that. Kavanaugh's opinion stated that the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution could be shoved aside because he thinks that the 'national security' of the United States is more important than the Constitution. Kavanaugh wrote: Read More
10.08.18- With corruption like this, it's no wonder so many pension funds are insolvent
Last week, the head of a New York state pension fund found herself a new job.
Vicki Fuller, the former head of New York's $209 billion fund, now earns $275,000 per year working part time for a natural gas group called The Williams Companies– good work if you can get it.
It's noteworthy that when Ms. Fuller ran her state pension fund, she invested $110 million of taxpayer money to buy bonds issued by none other than The Williams Companies.
Bear in mind that Moody's, the credit rating agency, downgraded Williams' financial outlook to "negative" because of the company's high leverage and risk. Read More
10.07.18- Ask yourself: Why are there no prescription medications
The reason there are no prescription medications available today where the side effects aren't worse than the ailment being treated is because Big Pharma will not treat or heal anything without creating several new issues that keep their "customers for life" coming back for more. Most Americans do not want to stop eating junk food, fast food, corporate franchise restaurant food, microwaveable food, prepared food bar "stuff," and "diet" food that's mostly chock full of synthetic sweeteners, GMOs and MSG. Read More
10.06.18- Weekend Rant: Think You're Prepared For The Next Crisis? Think Again.
Even the best-laid preparations have failure points
Scottish poet Robert Burns aptly penned the famous phrase: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft a-gley." (commonly adapted as "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.") Read More
10.05.18- The World Is Quietly Decoupling From the U.S. – And No One Is Paying Attention
Blind faith in the U.S. dollar is perhaps one of the most crippling disabilities economists have in gauging our economic future. Historically speaking, fiat currencies are essentially animals with very short lives, and world reserve currencies are even more prone to an early death. But, for some reason, the notion that the dollar is vulnerable at all to the same fate is deemed ridiculous by the mainstream.
This delusion has also recently bled into parts of the alternative economic movement, with some analysts hoping that the Trump Administration will somehow reverse several decades of central bank sabotage in only four to eight years. However, this thinking requires a person to completely ignore the prevailing trend. Read More
10.04.18- The Tyranny of the U.S. Dollar
The incumbent international currency has been American for decades. Is it time for regime change?
There's a paradox at the heart of global finance. The U.S. share of the world economy has drifted lower for decades, and now President Trump is retreating from the American chief executive's traditional role as Leader of the Free World. Yet the U.S. dollar remains, as the saying goes, almighty. "American exceptionalism has never been this stark," Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets and chief global strategist for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said at a Council on Foreign Relations symposium on Sept. 24. Read More
10.03.18- How America Can
Wall Street owns the country. That was the opening line of a fiery speech that populist leader Mary Ellen Lease delivered around 1890. Franklin Roosevelt said it again in a letter to Colonel House in 1933, and Sen. Dick Durbin was still saying it in 2009. "The banks—hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created—are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill," Durbin said in an interview. "And they frankly own the place."
Wall Street banks triggered a credit crisis in 2008-09 that wiped out over $19 trillion in household wealth, turned some 10 million families out of their homes and cost almost 9 million jobs in the U.S. alone. Yet the banks were bailed out without penalty, while defrauded home buyers were left without recourse or compensation. Read More
10.02.18- Imaginary Monsters
The Kavanaugh hearing underscored another eerie condition in contemporaryUSA life that offers clues about the combined social, economic, and political collapse that I call the long emergency: the destruction of all remaining categorical boundaries for understanding behavior: truth and untruth, innocent and guilty, childhood and adulthood, public and private. The absence of real monsters to slay, has become the party devoted to sowing chaos, mainly by inventing new, imaginary monsters using the machinery of politics, the way the Catholic Church manufactured monsters of heresy during the Spanish Inquisition in its attempt to regulate "belief." Read More
10.01.18- Empire of Lies: Are 'We the People' Useful Idiots in the Digital Age?
"Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was "useful idiots" and it applied to a good many people who should have known better. I now propose a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites. That's you and me, folks, and it's how the masters of the digital universe see us. And they have pretty good reasons for seeing us that way. They hear us whingeing about privacy, security, surveillance, etc., but notice that despite our complaints and suspicions, we appear to do nothing about it. In other words, we say one thing and do another, which is as good a working definition of hypocrisy as one could hope for."—John Naughton, The Guardian Read More
09.29.18- Gold Investors:
Here is a question for any and all of you that have ever purchased a lottery ticket or played the slots or bet on a horse: If you had proof that the outcomes were all rigged, would you still play? If someone showed you a video of pit bosses stacking decks or tampering with dice, would you ever enter that establishment again? If your wife or mother or employer knew that you would constantly blow your paychecks in a rigged casino, would you ever be able to face them? The answer to all of the above-mentioned scenarios is a resounding "NO!" Yet millions of people (albeit that figure is rapidly shrinking) are still committing many hundreds of millions of dollars every week to the Crimex Casino, which has now proven that every single input into determining prices for gold and silver (Bitcoin, too) is completely controlled by the bullion banks, the Crimex bosses and the regulators. Read More
09.28.18- Investors Have Fallen Into a False Sense of Security
25In January 2018, two significant market events occurred nearly simultaneously. Major U.S. stock market indexes peaked and volatility indexes extended one of their longest streaks of low volatility in history. Investors were happy, complacency ruled the day and all was right with the world.
Then markets were turned upside down in a matter of days. Major stock market indexes fell over 11%, a technical correction, from Feb. 2–8, 2018, just five trading days. The CBOE Volatility Index, commonly known as the "VIX," surged from 14.51 to 49.21 in an even shorter period from Feb. 2–6. Read More
09.27.18- The Real Reason the Government Won't Hold Big Tech Accountable
The villagers are marching with their torches and pitchforks. Big tech companies are in trouble.
The government is coming to regulate them.
Someone leaked a draft of an executive order from President Trump. It calls on various agencies to use all current laws to look into possible anticompetitive practices by Facebook and Google.
In fact, the EU already fined Google $5 billion in July for "abusing the market dominance of Android." And now they've set their sights on how Amazon uses customer and seller data. Read More
09.26.18- Insider Selling Soars: Fastest Pace Of September Sales In Past Decade
One month ago, we reported that insider selling reached $450 million daily in August, the highest level this year; on a monthly basis, insiders sold more than $10 billion of their stock, the most of any month this year and near the most on record.
The Montreux Casino was going up in flames.
And along with it went the recording studio which a famous rock band had booked for a free session the next day.
The members of the band watched in horror as the flames leapt into the night sky.
It was 1971 and the fire in the sky and the smoke that hung over the waters of a nearby lake would soon inspire the band's most famous song.
As some of you might have already guessed, the band was Deep Purple and the song was Smoke on the Water. Read More
09.24.18- These Three Items Will Be Hit The Hardest Thanks To Trump's Tariffs
The Trump administration's insistence on a trade war will affect three items the most. Americans will be footing the bill for president Donald Trump's trade war and tariffs, and vacuums, tires, and computer parts will be the items hit the hardest.
By now, hopefully, Americans have put two and two together and figured out that it isn't the Chinese government that will pay for Trump's tariffs, but the Chinese consumer. Much like the American government will not pay for China's tariffs, it will be the American consumer. Those costs are passed on directly to the public in the form of higher cost of goods. Read More
09.22.18- "The News Just Ain't The News No More"
Two thirds of Americans get at least some of their news on social media. Google and Facebook receive well over 70% of US digital advertising revenues. The average daily time spent on social media is 2 hours. Just a few factoids that have at least one thing in common: nothing like them was around 10 years ago, let alone 20. And they depict a change, or set of changes, in our world that will take a long time yet to understand and absorb. Some things just move too fast for us to keep track of, let alone process. Read More
09.21.18- There's a New Crash Coming
Skyrocketing debt, Wall Street deregulation, a fraying social safety net, and a diminished dollar could soon leave the United States looking like Greece.
Donald Trump is the epitome of irrational exuberance.
You might remember that phrase from the 1990s. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve at the time, was describing how the tech boom was creating a bubble by generating enthusiasm way out of proportion to the actual value of the new companies. Read More
09.20.18- The Donald in Wonderland
Down the Financial Rabbit Hole With President Trump
Once upon a time, there was a little-known energy company called Enron. In its 16-year life, it went from being dubbed America's most innovative company by Fortune Magazine to being the poster child of American corporate deceit. Using a classic recipe for book-cooking, Enron ended up in bankruptcy with jail time for those involved. Its shareholders lost $74 billionin the four years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2001.
A decade ago, the flameout of my former employer, Lehman Brothers, the global financial firm, proved far more devastating, contributing as it did to a series of events that ignited a global financial meltdown. Americans lost an estimated $12.8 trillion in the havoc. Read More
09.19.18- Leave Home
As an increasing number of people realise that their home country is becoming a liability to them, the most common question I hear from them is, "What do I have to do to remain where I am and still be assured that I'll be able to retain both my wealth and my freedom?"
The simple (and tragic) answer to this question is that there is no such solution. The two objectives are mutually exclusive.
Throughout the ages, whenever an empire has begun its inevitable collapse, no country has ever woken up and reversed the process. In every case, the government rides the decline to the bottom. And, along the way, a series of policies is invariably undertaken to save those in government in the downward rush. These policies are always at the expense of the populace. Read More
09.18.18- "Lehman - Ten Years Later"
A Brief Review of Events
2008 had already had more than its share of financial turmoil. In the months leading up to 9/15/2008, Bear Stearns, Fannie/Freddie, and AIG had already had major blowouts. The stock markets were very itchy and everyone was on edge. Most who worked in the industry knew it was just a matter of time until something much more systemic took place. Up until this time, the contagion had been mostly limited to the US, with some minor external collateral damage. We were both heavily involved in the financial/economic landscape at this time. Andy was running his investment advisory and economic consultancy firm and Graham was a strategy analyst for a major G7 central bank. We had already both come to independent conclusions that this was going to be a long emergency as coined by James Kunstler. This was not going to be a 3 or 6-month event and then it would be roses and cherries and cream for the whole world. Read More
09.17.18- What Keeps Them Up at Night
"Government has coddled, accepted, and ignored white collar crime for too long. It is time the nation woke up and realized that it's not the armed robbers or drug dealers who cause the most economic harm, it's the white collar criminals living in the most expensive homes who have the most impressive resumes who harm us the most. They steal our pensions, bankrupt our companies, and destroy thousands of jobs, ruining countless lives." – Harry Markopolos Read More
09.15.18- California's War on the U.S. Dollar
You may have heard the saying, "As goes California, so goes the nation."
Californians have historically been on the cutting edge of social and political change.
Whether it was protesting the Vietnam War or advocating for free speech or civil rights, California has always been among the first states to get involved.
And it's on the front lines once again.
Its opponent: the federal government. Read More
09.14.18- America's False History
David Ray Griffin writes books faster than I can read them. Therefore, I am going to borrow Edward Curtin's review of Griffin's history of the United States: The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? which Curtin suggests should have been titled: A Diabolic False Flag Empire.
Griffin's book is a humdinger and will certainly upset brainwashed American super-patriots, but it throughly documents how Washington's aggression toward other lands is covered up by politicians, media, and court historians with moral verbiage. In my view the hubris, arrogance, and ignorance of "American exceptionism" has the world locked on a trajectory to its extinction in nuclear Armageddon. Read More
09.13.18- Pandemic scare brewing
A pandemic scare is looming as airplanes in multiple countries reported to be full of "diseased" people are landing and being put in quarantine. However, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) sources say the incidents all appear to be fake ones involving crisis actors.
The pandemic scare comes as the execution of U.S. Senator John McCain sent shock waves through Khazarian mafia ranks, who are now activating all their resources in a desperate move to save themselves. Thus, this pandemic scare may be something like a schoolboy calling in a bomb threat to his school in order to avoid an exam. Read More
09.12.18- The World Is Ganging up Against the Dollar
The U.S. has been highly successful at pursuing financial warfare, including sanctions. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
As the U.S. wields the dollar weapon more frequently, the rest of the world works harder to shun the dollar completely.
I've been warning for years about efforts of nations like Russia and China to escape what they call "dollar hegemony" and create a new financial system that does not depend on the dollar and helps them get out from under dollar-based economic sanctions. Read More
09.11.18- How to Purge the Rot
09.10.18- Why Most Investors Fail to Beat
You probably keep hearing about how this bull market is now the longest on record. To me, it's an interesting tidbit, but it doesn't really mean much.
For one thing, we don't own "the market" – which, in these contexts, usually means the S&P 500 Index. We own individual stocks. As I always like to remind people, the ups and downs of those stocks can be very different from those of "the market."
For example, here are the 10 best-performing S&P 500 stocks for the first half of the year: Read More
09.08.18- The pension crisis is bigger than the world's 20 largest economies
If your retirement plans consist entirely of that pension you've been promised, it's time to start looking elsewhere.
As you probably know, pensions are giant pools of capital responsible for paying out retirement benefits to workers.
And right now many pension funds around the world simply don't have enough assets to cover the retirement obligations they owe to millions of workers.
In the US alone, federal, state, and local governments, pensions are about $7 TRILLION short of the funding they need to pay out all the benefits they've promised. Read More
09.07.18- The 10 most important lessons in finance from a legend in the field
[Editor's note: Tuesday, we published a podcast we recorded with the legendary financial commentator, Jim Grant.
Jim is the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer – one of the most-respected and followed financial publications in the world. In his 35 years writing Grant's, Jim has seen a financial cycle or two.
And he's amassed a network of many of the most important people on Wall Street (who often share their insights in his publication). Read More
09.06.18- Amazon is Far More Dangerous and Powerful Than You Want to Admit
The sneaky thing about Amazon's increased dominance in so many key aspects of our lives is that much of the perniciousness is hidden. No one's going to tell you about all the retailers who have gotten pressured or destroyed via its tactics while you're happily clicking "add to cart" and smiling about 2-day free shipping. In this sense, it can be best compared to the evils of factory farming. Most people just simply have no idea about the immense damage going on behind the scenes as they indulge in incredible convenience and what looks like a good deal.
– From my November 15, 2017 post: Amazon Poses a Serious Threat to Freedom and Free Markets Read More
09.05.18- How People Become
The question often arises in liberty movement circles as to how we get to the point of full blown tyranny within a society. There are numerous factors that determine this outcome, but through all the various totalitarian systems in history there are common denominators – elements that must be there for tyrants to prevail. When we can identify these common elements in an objective manner, we make it far more difficult for despotic structures to stand.
This is a very complex issue, but I'll break it down as best as I'm able…
The Psychology Of The Tyrant Read More
09.04.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Terrifying Paintings by ArtificiaI Intelligence
Witness the Birth of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Art, art produced by algorithm.
And its one hell of a mutilated abortion. Words that spring to mind: monstrous, from hell, distorted, terrifying, soulless…
Its like self-portraits of a family of aristocrats if they were each and every one of them a soul-sucking demon.
If this is what Artificial Intelligence has to offer in terms of art, if these images are the seeds of that future, count me out. A French art collective, selling these little monsters at Christie's for beaucoup bucks, fine.Read More
09.03.18- Progressives: The Real World vs. Neverland
09.01.18- Forget who takes the mid-terms: Here's how to personally repeal Obamacare
If the US government doesn't act quickly, Americans may be stuck with years more of deteriorating healthcare and skyrocketing medical bills.
Back in 2010, Congress and President Obama completely overhauled the US healthcare system with the "Affordable" Care Act (aka Obamacare). Their intention was to provide all US citizens with access to healthcare.
But, the result of government interference in markets was – surprise – rising costs and lower quality service. Read More
08.31.18- Economic Doom Returns: Emerging Market Currencies Collapse To Record Lows As Global Financial Chaos Accelerates
After a little bit of a lull, the international currency crisis is back with a vengeance. Currencies are collapsing in Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey and other emerging markets, and central banks are springing into action. It is being hoped that the financial chaos can be confined to emerging markets so that it will not spread to the United States and Europe. But of course the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, and a massive wave of debt defaults in emerging markets would inevitably have extremely serious consequences all over the planet. Read More
08.30.18- Making It in the United States: The Harsh Realities Americans Face
Forget the porn star scandals and possible Russian collusion in an election over fifteen months ago. Most Americans don't give a damn about either but from turning on cable news, you would think that's all that is happening in the world. Cable news is out for ratings and those kind of things sell. What you won't see much of are some of the harsh realities facing Americans and preventing us from becoming truly great. Read More
08.29.18- Evade Market Weakness in the Summer by Shifting Your Perspective
Alternating Seasonal Patterns
In the last issue of Seasonal Insights we have talked to you about biotech and pharmaceutical companies as industries that withstand the traditional summer weakness in stock markets. Six weeks ago, we have shown that gold is an asset one can purchase in the summer months to offset this phenomenon.
Warning: don't let the media mesmerize you in the summer months – the stocks of media companies are a veritable seasonal minefield in August to October. Read More
08.28.18- How the Socialism of Imperial Rome Ushered in Feudalism
In years of peace, Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic decay. To overcome depression and prevent revolution, he substituted a managed economy for the law of supply and demand. He established a sound currency by guaranteeing to the gold coinage a fixed weight and purity which it retained in the Eastern Empire till 1453. He distributed food to the poor at half the market price or free, and undertook extensive public works to appease the unemployed. To ensure the supply of necessaries for the cities and the armies, he brought many branches of industry under complete state control, beginning with the import of grain; he persuaded the shipowners, merchants, and crews engaged in this trade to accept such control in return for governmental guarantee of security in employment and returns. Read More
08.27.18- Most Americans Don't Understand This Problem… Here's Why You Should
My rich dad used to enjoy working in his garden.
Though he was wealthy and didn't need to, he said he liked the work because it reminded him that no matter how rich you are, you're never too good to get your hands dirty.
He also liked gardening because it was a metaphor for how he saw the world. Read More
08.25.18- Weekend Rant: Services Rendered
Here we have a standard credit card receipt from a coffee shop.
The diner understands that he's not obligated to order anything that he doesn't want to receive, but that, for whatever he does order, he must pay the price on the menu.
The subtotal is printed in large type on the charge slip. He may then decide whether or not the service he received was of particular value to him. Diners typically choose to pay somewhere between 10% and 20%, depending on the value they feel they've received. Read More
08.24.18- Why Do People Assign Value
Demand for a good arises because of its perceived benefit. For instance, people demand food because of the nourishment it offers them. This is however not so, with regard to the pieces of paper we call money — why do we accept them?
Following the view of Plato and Aristotle, economists regard the acceptance of money as an historical fact introduced by the government decree.1 It is government decree, so it is argued, that makes a particular thing accepted as the general medium of the exchange, i.e., money. Read More
08.23.18- Why You Should Forget School and Let Kids Play
Breaking news: kids need to play, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Seriously, it took the American Academy of Pediatrics to let us know that?
Better yet, the doctors now recommend that parents even get involved in playing with their children, especially before they turn two.
"This may seem old-fashioned, but there are skills to be learned when kids aren't told what to do," said Dr. Michael Yogman, a Harvard Medical School pediatrician who led the drafting of the call to arms. Whether it's rough-and-tumble physical play, outdoor play or social or pretend play, kids derive important lessons from the chance to make things up as they go, he said. Read More
08.22.18- Most People Struggle Financially Because They Don't Know This…
Money. It's what makes the world go 'round.
Yet we hear countless stories about the multi-million dollar athlete who is homeless 10 years later. Or the guy who won the lottery only to soon find himself penniless.
It's not how much money you make. But how much money you keep.
I cringe whenever I hear people ask me how to get rich quicker, or where they should start. I often hear, "I need to make more money."
I hate hearing any of that, because more money will often not solve the problem. Read More
08.21.18- How to Protect Your Money from Financial Warfare
There are many bad actors out there who are preparing to inflict as much damage as possible to the power grid and other critical infrastructure, including the stock market.
I would put Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and a few others at the top of the list. Russia and China at the top of the list but Iran certainly has good cyber-warfare capability.
They're employing what they call Cyber Brigades that spend all their time basically hacking into the critical infrastructure systems I described above. It's a good bet that all of these systems have already been penetrated. Read More
08.20.18- The Telltale Signs of Imperial Decline
Nothing is as permanent as we imagine--especially super-complex, super-costly, super-asymmetric and super-debt-dependent systems.
Check which signs of Imperial decline you see around you: The hubris of an increasingly incestuous and out-of-touch leadership; dismaying extremes of wealth inequality; self-serving, avaricious Elites; rising dependency of the lower classes on free Bread and Circuses provided by a government careening toward insolvency due to stagnating tax revenues and vast over-reach--let's stop there to catch our breath. Check, check, check and check.
Sir John Glubb listed a few others in his seminal essay on the end of empiresThe Fate of Empires, what might be called the dynamics of decadence: Read More
08.18.18- The West Continues to Rot at the Core as it Obsesses Over the Short-term
The stock market, by and large, is a farce.
This is not to say that it does not have a purpose, because undoubtedly it does. This cannot and will not be denied, except by those who identify themselves as having anarchist traits.
Yet, it is still a farce. It is corrupt, it is short-sighted and it is riddled with problems. But in our "semi" capitalistic system, it is what we have. And we have to make the best of it. Read More
08.17.18- Turkey: A Glimpse of America's Future
POITOU, FRANCE – Coming into focus is a fuller picture of the worldwide financial crisis.
This week, we began looking at Turkey, but only because Donald Trump sent an extraordinary tweet last Friday.
In it, the president broke with tradition and common sense in a remarkable way. He used a crash in the Turkish lira to justify a new attack in the trade war.
Instead of soothing words that might have calmed the crisis situation, his tweet made it worse. And instead of coming to the aid of an ally in difficulty, he piled on. Read More
08.16.18- A traditional plant native to Thailand effectively manages obesity,
Broken bones tree (Oroxylum indicum), a traditional plant native to Thailand, can potentially be used to manage obesity, according to a study published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
For the study, researchers from Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand derived the extract of broken bones from the fruit pods of the plant. They looked at the effects of broken bones plant extract on the adipogenic and biomolecular change in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. They used the cell line 3T3-L1 to establish the potential toxic effects of broken bones plantextract during adipogenesis, the differentiation of pre-adipocytes into adipocytes. Read More
08.15.18- Generation Z: The Intolerant Ones
The post-millennials have arrived. As the oldest millennials turn 37, demographers have designated a new generation for those born after 1996, Generation Z. The oldest members of this cohort just graduated from college and had their first (legal) alcoholic beverages. As they wind their way through college, post-millennials will change higher education, just as previous generations did.
Generation Z is racially diverse, increasingly secular, and very much online. Non-Hispanic whites make up just over half of this cohort, compared with 72 percent of Baby Boomers. In religious terms, 13 percent of Generation Z identifies as atheist, compared with only 7 percent of millennials. Read More
08.14.18- The Law As Weapon
08.13.18- Pater Familias
Pater Familias is Latin for "father of the family or eldest male in a family or owner of the family estate". This past week having just turned 60 I am reminded of my role as head of my little family. My own father, partner and friend died a little over 6 years ago but somehow turning 60 has reminded me of the responsibility I have for my family as well as my extended family. As my regular readers know I just returned from Tartas France a couple of months ago where I traced my family back 9 generations. For some reason the older I get the more important family history becomes. A lot of responsibility goes with the being the pater familias. Read More
08.11.18- Experts Warn That The "Scariest" Stock Market Signals Are Flashing Red
So many top professionals in the financial industry are sounding the alarm about a coming stock market crash right now. And there certainly have been rumblings in 2018 – not too long ago we had a three day stretch that was called "the tech bloodbath", and during that time Facebook had the worst day for a single company in stock market history. But we haven't seen the really big "crash" yet. Many have been waiting for it to happen for several years, and some people out there are convinced that it is never going to come at all. Read More
08.19.18- This Time Is Different — No, Really
"Experience keeps a dear school," said Ben Franklin, "but fools will learn in no other."
The wise man remembers. The fool forgets.
The wise man listens. The fool talks.
He ignores both the living and the dead… the immemorial dead, whose whispers carry the distilled wisdom of history.
No — this time is different, comes the fool's eternal cry. Read More
08.09.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Students Say 'Young Democratic Socialists Of America' Not Socialist Enough
A student at Virginia Commonwealth University is running for Co-Chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America on the platform that the organization is not socialist enough.
08.08.18- Even Lefties Get it… Today's Housing Bubble About To Burst
Many of you likely enjoyed The Young Turks' meltdown the night of President Trump's victory in late 2016.
We are too some of those 3.5 million views.
Of course not many of us also enjoyed that same day's obvious record high volume, $100 gold market intervention swing. But we digress, to the reflated, now larger housing bubble ongoing.
Unlike the previous housing bubble of yore (the 2007 version). These now humbled, left ideologues can see the writing on the wall. Read More
08.07.18- Welcome to Bad Faith
Surely last week this foundering nation finally reached Peak Social Justice Warrior Bullshit with The New York Times hiring of genocide-for-white-people advocate Sarah Jeong, 30, as an op-ed writer on tech matters. Apparently, one angle of the tech world Sarah Jeong overlooked was the mile-wide Twitter trail of messages she left over the past ten years declaring that white people should be "canceled out," "made to live underground like groveling goblins," or this pungent one from the Reinhard Heydrich playbook: "Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men." Read More
08.06.18- Here's Why 3D-Printing Guns Are A Win For World Peace AndA Potential
As the debate continues about whether or not 3D-printed firearm plans should be banned, even the ostensible pro-2nd Amendment folks are worried that shooting rampages will occur as a result of these plans being published online. But the reality is far different.
For generations, advocates of private gun ownership have been fighting exhaustively through political channels to protect their right to keep and bear arms. Gun owners even have one of the strongest lobby groups in Washington, the highly disappointing NRA. Yet over the years, gun rights continue to diminish in America, despite the constant political campaigns by the NRA and politicians that claim to support gun rights. Read More
08.04.18- Here's What the "Doom Index" Is Telling Us Now…
Today, we check in on our Doom Index reading for the second quarter of 2018.
Regular Diary readers will remember that the Doom Index is made up of 11 key indicators. These indicators track the health of both the Main Street and Wall Street economies. [For a full review of the Doom Index, go here.]
After reviewing all the data from Q2, here are the results…
For the second quarter of this year – from the start of April through the end of June – the Doom Index level is at 6. That's down from 7, where the Doom Index ranked for Q1. Read More
08.03.18- Conservatives Banned From Social Media? Here's What They Can Do About It
The past two years have seen a rather aggressive change in corporate policies toward the very customers they used to covet. Not long ago, CEOs tended to keep their political views mostly in the closet. Companies remained publicly neutral because their goal was first and foremost to make money. When they wanted to influence politics or social norms, they bought politicians — you know, the good old-fashioned way. The big banks still do this by funneling cash to both Republicans and Democrats alike
However, in the wake of the social justice cult frenzy some companies have decided that ideology is more important than profit, and most of these companies are deeply involved in various forms of media. Read More
08.02.18- FALSE FLAG WARNING: 'Perfect Storm'
Mike Adams is issuing an ugent false flag warning for Saturday, August 4th. Here are the details including the most likely place for the event…
(Natural News) Today I've posted an urgent warning video, which you can see in full, below. This video — which would have been banned by YouTube and Facebook — is available exclusively on REAL.video.Read More
08.01.18- COURT DOCS: SPLC Co-Founder Accused of Trying to Molest Step-Daughter With Sex Toy
Editor's Note: It is unusual for "the Bear" to focus on non-financial issues. This story is revelant to your financial survival because of the depth of depravity that, not only Dees, but most, if not all of his associates participate. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a left wing control group that, in 2004, accused yours truely of running the only one man terrorist organization in the United States.
It has now been exposed that the organization is awash in pedophilia. George Clooney and his wife recently contributed $1,000,000 the the SPLC. Please take note of the number of Ashkenazi Jews that control the organization. The SPLC is an enemy of the Republic. - JSB
The SPLC is known for doling out bogus "hate group" labels. Read More
07.31.18- An Illustrated Glossary of
07.30.18- Why Americans Are About To Experience Sharply Higher Prices
A few weeks ago, SocGen asked what is arguably the most important question relating to the global trade wars: are tariffs inflationary or deflationary? While there were various nuances, its conclusion was simple: "Inflationary short term, disinflationary medium term."
It appears that the "short-term" part has now arrived, because after several rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs and retaliations between the US and China, American consumers are about to be hit with sharply higher prices as tariffs on industrial metals put pressure on U.S. manufacturers. Read More
07.28.18- The Treasonous Democratic Party
If America had more honest, fact-based journalists with integrity like Tucker Carlson, we would not be, as we are today, dissolving as a country.
In this one TV broadcast - Carlson shows that the Democrats have gone far beyond "lying through their teeth political partisanship" into deranged hatred of President Trump and the American people who elected him.
The Democrats' insane hatred of "Trump deplorables" has firmly allied the Democrats with the corrupt military/security complex in a plot to overthrow the elected President of the United States.
Carlson presents the former heads of US intelligence in the corrupt Obama regime accusing President Trump of treason against the United States for trying to normalize relations with Russia and endangering the United States for trying to make peace. Read More
07.27.18- Valuing Gold In A World
In this article I point to the pressures on the Fed to moderate monetary policy, but that will only affect the timing of the next cyclical credit crisis. That is going to happen anyway, triggered by the Fed or even a foreign central bank. In the very short term, a tendency to moderate monetary policy might allow the gold price to recover from its recent battering.
Unlike the last credit crisis when the dollar rose sharply in a general panic for safety, on the next crisis, the dollar is likely to fall substantially. The reason is that foreign ownership of dollar investments (typically in US Treasuries) appears greatly overextended, and an additional $4 trillion of liquidity is in the wrong (non-US) hands. This is likely to be unloaded during a general credit crisis, driving the dollar lower. Read More
07.26.18- Get Ready for the "100-Year Flood"
One of the long-standing reasons to own physical gold or invest in gold mining shares is to hedge geopolitical risk or the risk of natural disaster.
From the Black Death in the 14th century to the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century to the world wars of the 20th century, gold has been a reliable store of wealth. There is no reason to believe that such existential events are no longer a danger. Read More
07.25.18- The Lonely Road of the Free Thinker
A Free-Thinker – someone whose mind is not bound by any chain, free to explore the great abyss unhindered by fear, emotion, or ideology. In reality, it is outside the box free-thinkers, who are the engines of social change and ingenuity, often leading society into new directions not yet seen before. They represent a voice of authenticity and uniqueness in a world that is all too filled with conformity and linear thinking. While the achievements are applauded by future generations, in the present they are often looked down upon, feared, laughed at, and even seen as crazy for their unique perspectives on life. It is often a lonely road for that of a truly unleashed free-thinker. Read More
07.24.17- The Imperial Naivete of the American Public
The nation's premier corporate profit engines / social media giants are the ideal platforms for undermining the U.S. via the sowing of disintegration.
Whether it's stated or not, one source of the inchoate outrage triggered by Russian-sourced purchases of adverts on Facebook in 2016 (i.e. "meddling in our election") is the sense that the U.S. is sacrosanct due to our innate moral goodness and our Imperial Project: never mind that the intelligence agencies of all great powers (including the U.S.) meddle in the domestic affairs and elections of other nations, including those of allies as well as geopolitical rivals-- no other great power should ever meddle with U.S. domestic affairs and elections. Read More
07.23.18- What Happened To Our Country? These Are Not Our Values, This Isn't Who We Are
I think I've figured it out. There's multiple Americas. I don't mean North, Central and South. I mean multiple US of As. What other explanation could there possibly be. When I hear a windblown politician, a television yakking head, or the wholly ignorant in the streets making these comments I think: That's exactly what should be happening in our country! That is exactly what I value. That is exactly who I am. So, here we rest our weary hearts and minds. In a standoff across an ever-widening abyss. An abyss of wayward ideologies, ignorance, directionless baseless hatred, stupidity… multiple Americas. Read More
07.21.18- Four Obvious Areas for
"Make America great again!"
That was the slogan used by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and it propelled him to the most powerful and coveted job in the world – commander in chief of the United States. However, since Trump's inauguration there has been much blustering and many unpopular policies that don't seem to have been made with the promise of making America great again.
While the United States makes worldwide news for the President's tweets, other countries are implementing changes that are benefitting their citizens and helping to change the world positively. Read More
07.20.18- Russiagate Is Constructed of Pure Bullshit, No Facts
All day today the presstitute scum at NPR went on and on about President Trump, using every kind of guest and issue to set him up for more criticism as an unfit occupant of the Oval Office, because, and only because, he threatens the massive budget of the military/security complex by attempting to normalize relations with Russia. The NPR scum even got an ambassador from Montenegro on the telephone and made every effort to goad the ambassador into denouncing Trump for saying that Montenegro had strong and aggressive people capable of defending themselves and were not in need of sending the sons of American families to defend them. Somehow this respectful compliment about the Monenegro people was supposed to be an insult. The ambassador refused to be put into opposition to Trump. NPR kept trying, but got nowhere. Read More
07.19.18- What the Origins of Money Teaches Us About Spontaneous Order
Money has been around for most of human history. From Mesopotamia (or even earlier), all civilizations have employed some kind of medium of exchange to facilitate transactions regardless of their geographical locations, legal and economic systems, religious beliefs or political structures. Have you ever wondered why? In a brief essay entitled "On the Origins of Money," the nineteenth-century Austrian economist Carl Menger provides an answer to this question. Menger argues that money emerged spontaneously in different times and places to overcome the disadvantages of barter and facilitate the expansion of trade. Which disadvantages? Read More
07.18.18- Our Rules of the Game: US Constitution
Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement, leading to President Donald Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, has thrown progressives, the Democratic Party and the news media into an out-and-out tizzy. The online magazine Slate declared, "Anthony Kennedy Just Destroyed His Legacy as a Gay Rights Hero." The New York Times' editorial board said about a second Trump court appointment, "It is a dark moment in the history of the court and the nation, and it's about to get a lot darker."
It's indeed a "dark moment" for those who've for decades used the courts to accomplish what would have been impossible through federal and state legislatures — such as same-sex marriage, abortion and preferences with regard to race and sex. Read More
07.17.18- The Trade War Is Already Having A Huge Impact On The U.S. Economy
The trade war has barely just begun, and yet significant ripple effects are already being felt all across the U.S. economy. Once thriving businesses are on the verge of failure, workers are being laid off, and some sectors of the economy are witnessing enormous price hikes. Right now the mainstream media is absolutely fixated on the drama surrounding the recently concluded Trump-Putin summit meeting, but the consequences of this trade war will ultimately be far more important for the lives of most ordinary Americans. As more tariffs continue to be implemented, this will perhaps be the biggest disruption to the global economic system that we have seen in decades. Perhaps you have not been affected personally yet, but for many Americans this trade war has changed everything. For example, just consider the plight of soybean farmer Tim Bardole… Read More
07.16.18- Complete Idiocy Engulfs The U.S.
William Shakespeare at his creative pinnacle could not have written this screenplay:
The first time I watched this I thought it was a joke – product of National Lampoon. Then the reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks. Is this really a productive use of Congressional time? The entire U.S. system is hurling toward a debt-induced financial and economic apocalypse. At the same time the Deep State, using Trump as its hand-puppet, is alienating the U.S. from the EU/NATO, this country's last remaining allies. Read More
07.14.18- Hope and Change Are At Hand
It seems unfair that the earnest polymath Elon Musk should go broke in the electric car business while Kylie Jenner becomes a billionaire at age 20 hawking lip gloss on Snapchat, but that's how the American Dream rolls these late days of empire. Perhaps the lesson here, for all you MBA wannabes, is that Mr. Musk could switch his production facilities from cars to lip gloss. Of course, to successfully market his new line of cosmetics on social media, Elon might have to consider sexual "reassignment" surgery — unless he could persuade American men via Facebook and Twitter, that lip enhancement boosts male self-esteem almost as much as the purchase of a Ford F-450 pickup truck at a laughable fraction of the cost. Read More
07.13.19- Public Pensions:
State and local governments are running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history.
They've promised full pensions to their workers. But they aren't putting aside enough money — or generating high enough returns — to fulfill those future obligations. Soon, they'll have to cannibalize current workers' pension contributions to pay retirees. Young and middle-aged government employees will likely never receive the retirement benefits they're counting on.
It's too late to prevent this crisis. But there's still time to mitigate the financial fallout — by trimming benefits, raising contributions, and transitioning younger employees to 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans. Read More
07.12.18- The Uncivil Civil War: Economic and Market Implications of Political Transformation
07.11.18- Globalists Are Telling Us Exactly What Disasters They're Planning For The Economy
07.10.18- America Is Now A 3rd World Nation
I know it hurts, but the reality is painfully obvious: the USA is now a 3rd World nation.
Dividing the Earth's nations into 1st, 2nd and 3rd world has fallen out of favor;apparently it offended sensibilities. It has been replaced by the politically correct developed and developing nations, a terminology which suggests all developing nations are on the pathway to developed-nation status.
What's been lost in jettisoning the 1st, 2nd and 3rd world categories is the distinction between developing (2nd world) and dysfunctional states (3rd world), states we now label "failed states." Read More
07.09.18- Survival of the Richest
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor's salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of "the future of technology."
I've never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I'm asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig. Read More
07.07.18- Summer of Tough Love
07.06.18- Here's a great example of a company using Blockchain to solve a real problem
Today I just wanted to send you a quick note to highlight a great example of a company that's using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to solve a real-world problem.
I thought this would be important given that most of the noise in the crypto space these days is still almost invariably focused on the Bitcoin price.
A quick Google search for "Bitcoin" reveals headlines from CNBC to Fortune Magazine, all about whether or not Bitcoin can come out of its price slump: Read More
07.05.18- Would the Founding Fathers Recognize Modern America?
The metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one of the most remarkable things in nature. The animal apparently digests itself, using enzymes triggered by hormones. Then, from the pupa, a whole new animal develops – one with wings.
Time and growth produce changes in institutions, too. Sometimes, they merely get bigger and older. Sometimes, they go through a metamorphosis and change into something very different. Read More
07.04.18- Economic Collapse 101: Food Americans Ate To Stay Alive During The Great Depression
Here's some dishes that helped Americans survive and keep their bellies full in hard times. Number 5 is, well, interesting to say the least…
(Natural News) The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and continued until about 1939. It affected North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world. It was the most serious economic tragedy ever experienced by the industrialized Western world in modern history. Read More
07.03.18- A Turn for the Worse
07.02.18- How to Create Your Own Personal Gold Standard and Currency Reserve
Did you know that for 99.2% of recorded human history, money was backed by a gold standard?
And only for the last 47 years has the world largely moved away from the gold standard.
It is easy to feel like we are on top of the world in 2018. Technology has never been better or more easily accessible. The standard of living is rapidly rising.
But does that mean we should dispense with 5,000 years of monetary policy which led us to where we are today?
06.30.18- Libertarian? Conservative? Classic Liberal? Leftivists don't just believe you're a bad person - they WANT to believe it
Editor's note: The following comes from a longtime journalist who specializes in writing for major media outlets and private companies about robots, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
I'm not a social media person, but a few days ago, I posted my very first comment on Instagram, in response to a woman whose site I had read for years. Enraged by the border story, she had just posted an Instagram ordering those who didn't see the world her way to take a hike. Read More
06.29.18- How to Survive the Civil Unrest That's Coming to America
06.28.18- Media Creates Caricatures of Political Parties. And People Believe Them!
Political parties help us construct straw men of our opponents. They help us see our fellow Americans as opponents in the first place. They have us joining teams not because we like what they stand for, but because we hate what the other team stands for.
Or at least, we hate what we think the other team stands for. A poll asked Democrats and Republicans to estimate statistics about the other party. The answers we pure caricatures. Read More
06.27.18- The Danger Is Real: We Need a New Declaration of Independence for Modern Times
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."—Thomas Paine, December 1776
Imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.Read More
06.26.18- Things Just Went Nuclear In Our Trade War With China, And A Giant Shockwave Is About To Hit The U.S. Economy
It is difficult to find the words to describe just how serious America's trade war with China is becoming. As you will see below, the two largest economies on the entire planet are on a self-destructive course that almost seems irreversible at this point. The only way that this trade war is going to come to a rapid conclusion is if one side is willing to totally submit and accept an extremely bitter and humiliating defeat on the global stage, and that is not likely to happen. Read More
06.25.18- The Entire Western World Lives In Cognitive Dissonance
In this column I am going to use three of the current top news stories to illustrate the disconnect that is everywhere in the Western mind.
Let us begin with the family separation issue. The separation of children from immigrant/refugee/asylum parents has caused such public outcry that President Trump has backed off his policy and signed an executive order terminating family separation.
The horror of children locked up in warehouses operated by private businesses making a profit off of US taxpayers, while parents are prosecuted for illegal entry, woke even self-satisfied "exceptional and indispensable" Americans out of their stupor. Read More
06.23.18- Social Security benefits buy 34 percent less than in 2000, study shows
06.22.18- The Dumbing Down of America Is Deliberate and Deadly
We hear the mantra quite often: The dumbing down of America. Former senior level education official in the Reagan administration, Charlotte Iserbyt, even wrote a book by a similar name.
Is America getting dumber? Is this presumption even measurable? The answer to both questions is an unqualified yes! Read More
06.21.18- I Remember When America Was A Free Country
I remember when America was a free country. You could get on an airliner without an ID. Driving licenses didn't even have photos. If a friend was coming through your city on a flight and had a few hours layover, you could meet them inside the airport for lunch or dinner. You could meet friends, children, and relatives at the gate or see them off at the gate. Parents could actually put children on the plane and grandparents could take them off.
Your flight ticket was good at any airline. If something happened to your flight or you missed it, you could use the ticket on another airline going to the same place. On international flights you were permitted two free stopovers prior to your destination. Read More
06.20.18- John McAfee Says He's No Longer Pitching ICOs "Due To SEC Threats"
The SEC crackdown on ICOs has, apparently, finally extended to one of the industry's most enthusiastic and prolific promoters: former software security pioneer John McAfee, who has earned a reputation for outrageous behavior (including promising in July 2017 to eat his dick on national television if bitcoin doesn't hit $500,000 in three years) in recent years.
McAfee, who hasn't been affiliated with his namesake company since 1994 and lost most of a fortune once worth $100 million in the years since the crisis, was at one point pitching a new ICO every day. And since before last year's boom, McAfee has been a regular on the cryptocurrency conference circuit and is part of what Bloomberg calls "a vast network of social media influences" who have helped ICOs raise billions. Read More
06.19.18- A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Après moi, le déluge
~ King Louis XV of France
A hard rain's a-gonna fall
~ Bob Dylan (the first)
As the Federal Reserve kicked off its second round of quantitative easing in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, hedge fund manager David Tepper predicted that nearly all assets would rise tremendously in response.
"The Fed just announced: We want economic growth, and we don't care if there's inflation... have they ever said that before?" Read More
06.18.18- Americans Need Plain Sight: The IG Report Hides the Truth
The FBI brass must have needed hazmat suits to scrub DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on agency misconduct in the 2016 elections, since the evidence of treason at the highest level of government was abundant. The truth is being hidden, and the result is a fiction representative of something out of Orwell's '1984'; and so, we must do everything within our power to force the issue in opposition to status quo voices in government and the media, who are not representing the U.S. Constitution and objectives based on our founding virtues, We must hold these criminals, these traitors, in the FBI, the DOJ and elsewhere within the government, accountable for illegally working to prevent Donald Trump from winning the election and afterwards trying to unseat him from power. Read More
06.16.18- Seven Huge Mistakes Real Estate Investors Make When Running Their Numbers
What's the big advantage of real estate over equities and other investments?
You can predict the returns!
Having said that, your ROI forecasts are only as good as the numbers you start with.
Here are the seven of the most common mistakes real estate investors make when running their numbers — and how to avoid them for a perfect win record in your investing.
We'll start with numbers that affect all real estate investors, then narrow our focus to rental investors and cash-flow forecasting. Read More
06.15.18- Currencies – Truth and Confidence
In 1967 the Jefferson Airplane sang
Restate this for global currencies and it becomes:
WHAT LIES? There have been many. Examples specific to the United States: Read More
06.14.18- Clock is Now "3 Minutes to Midnight" on Social Security and Medicare Benefits
A recent 270-page report put out by The Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds is shedding light on an alarming trend.
In it, the financial data indicates that both Medicare and Social Security could start "riding off into the sunset" sometime within the next two decades.
This is mainly due to the addition of millions of retirees aged 65 and older and reducing the average number of taxpayers that support each retiree on Medicare and Social Security. Read More
06.13.18- The most successful investor in modern history is selling… here's what it means for you
It's typically pretty hard to find anything exciting to say about drywall.
Yes, drywall… as in, the building material that's used for interior construction.
Drywall, also known as wallboard, is manufactured from rehydrated gypsum to produce a calcium sulfate plaster, that's later mixed with mildew-resistant foaming agent. . . hello? Are you still there?
Seriously, though, in this particular case, drywall is a big deal. Read More
06.12.18- Last Exit to the Road Less Traveled
We now stand where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one less traveled by—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
What's important to keep in mind in this quote from Rachael Carson's 56-year-old warning shot over the bow of corporate civilization is that there are two roads being traveled now. We are no longer at a fork. Read More
06.11.18- The Clock Is Ticking: "Modern Slaves Are Not In Chains, They're In Debt"
Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt. - Benjamin Franklin
What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience? - Adam Smith
There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt. - Dave Ramsey
Modern slaves are not in chains, they are in debt. - Anonymous Read More
Feeling Isolated?
If you answered "no" to these questions, you're not an outlier. In fact, the #1 most commonly-reported complaint we hear from Peak Prosperity readers is that they feel alone and isolated when it comes to the warnings delivered in The Crash Course. Read More
06.08.18- Are You The Fish?
There's an old saying in poker that if you sit down at a table and you can't figure out who the fish is, that means YOU'RE the fish!
The basic idea here is that you need to know your opponents. You need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. You need to know what type of edge you have over them. Read More
06.07.18- Cognitive Dissonance Will Not Save America From the Collapse of the Dollar
I know that most of you are probably tired of hearing about the endless predictions that the US economy is going to crash. Stock up now, buy survival gear, get your food, water, guns, gold, ammunition and medicine! Blah, blah, blah. We have all heard it before. Right?
The Inevitable End
I recently received that dreaded call "rush to the hospital, she only has a short time left, hurry!" So, you arrive at the hospital and the person hangs on, and hangs on, but everyone knows the final outcome is inevitable. The next day arrives and the person is still with us. Read More
06.06.18- When They Shall Say "Peace And Safety": Polls Show Americans Are The Most Optimistic They Have Been In A Very Long Time
06.05.18- Ten Ways the Democratic Northern Hemisphere Nations Became the Orwellian West
In his book, "1984", George Orwell envisioned a future crushed by the iron grip of a collectivist oligarchy. The narrative told of the INGSOC Party which maintained power through a system of surveillance and brutality designed to monitor and control every aspect of society. From the time of the book's release in 1949, any ensuing vision of a dark dystopia depicting variations of jackboots stomping on human faces, forever, has been referenced as being "Orwellian". This is because Orwell's narrative illustrated various disturbing and unjust conceptualizations of control, crime, and punishment. Read More
06.04.18- "Teen Culture" is the New Imperialism, and it is Destroying the World
Well, the same thing is happening today with Western "teen culture." It is being exported around the world with disastrous effects.
Preindustrial societies mostly exhibit a continuum from childhood to adulthood. There is generally no random cut off age where suddenly teens are given rights and expected to become adults. Children seamlessly and gradually integrate into adulthood, with puberty rites being the only major benchmark. Read More
06.02.18- Calling All Broke Millennials: Vermont Will Give You $10,000 To Move There And Work From Home
Governor Phil Scott approved the legislation on Wednesday (May 30) in hopes to bottom out the rapidly shrinking tax base, and, of course, sucker in those heavily indebted millennials from large cities. Read More
06.01.18- 'Three Wise Men' Warn Crash Coming, Own Gold
The men who have recently warned are Jim Rogers (video below), Martin Armstrong (blog below) and Tony Robbins (video below). Each come from somewhat different backgrounds and are respected experts in their respective fields.
Each has different views in terms of asset allocation and how best to weather the coming financial storm but all are united in believing that gold will act as a wealth preservation tool and will likely rise in value when other assets fall.Read More
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