EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS OVERVALUED

This is a must read interview with TBP contributor David Stockman. He holds nothing back. He has no agenda. He just tells it like it is and how it will happen. I believe his scenario is the most likely. This coming Fall could be the tipping point as we hit the debt ceiling and Bush’s tax cuts are scheduled to end. I love his investment advice at the end. Imagine a country with Ron Paul as President, Jim Grant as Federal Reserve Chairman, and David Stockman as Treasury Secretary.

The Emperor is Naked: David Stockman

Source: Karen Roche and JT Long of The Gold Report  (5/4/12)

David StockmanA “paralyzed” Federal Reserve Bank, in its “final days,” held hostage by Wall Street “robots” trading in markets that are “artificially medicated” are just a few of the bleak observations shared by David Stockman, former Republican U.S. Congressman and director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is also a founding partner of Heartland Industrial Partners and the author of The Triumph of Politics: Why Reagan’s Revolution Failed and the soon-to-be released The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy. The Gold Report caught up with Stockman for this exclusive interview at the recent Recovery Reality Check conference.

The Gold Report: David, you have talked and written about the effect of government-funded, debt-fueled spending on the stock market. What will be the real impact of quantitative easing?

David Stockman: We are in the last innings of a very bad ball game. We are coping with the crash of a 30-year–long debt super-cycle and the aftermath of an unsustainable bubble.

Quantitative easing is making it worse by facilitating more public-sector borrowing and preventing debt liquidation in the private sector—both erroneous steps in my view. The federal government is not getting its financial house in order. We are on the edge of a crisis in the bond markets. It has already happened in Europe and will be coming to our neighborhood soon.

TGR: What should the role of the Federal Reserve be?

DS: To get out of the way and not act like it is the central monetary planner of a $15 trillion economy. It cannot and should not be done.

The Fed is destroying the capital market by pegging and manipulating the price of money and debt capital. Interest rates signal nothing anymore because they are zero. The yield curve signals nothing anymore because it is totally manipulated by the Fed. The very idea of “Operation Twist” is an abomination.

Capital markets are at the heart of capitalism and they are not working. Savers are being crushed when we desperately need savings. The federal government is borrowing when it is broke. Wall Street is arbitraging the Fed’s monetary policy by borrowing overnight money at 10 basis points and investing it in 10-year treasuries at a yield of 200 basis points, capturing the profit and laughing all the way to the bank. The Fed has become a captive of the traders and robots on Wall Street.

TGR: If we are in the final innings of a debt super-cycle, what is the catalyst that will end the game?

DS: I think the likely catalyst is a breakdown of the U.S. government bond market. It is the heart of the fixed income market and, therefore, the world’s financial market.

Because of Fed management and interest-rate pegging, the market is artificially medicated. All of the rates and spreads are unreal. The yield curve is not market driven. Supply and demand for savings and investment, future inflation risk discounts by investors—none of these free market forces matter. The price of money is dictated by the Fed, and Wall Street merely attempts to front-run its next move.

As long as the hedge fund traders and fast-money boys believe the Fed can keep everything pegged, we may limp along. The minute they lose confidence, they will unwind their trades.

On the margin, nobody owns the Treasury bond; you rent it. Trillions of treasury paper is funded on repo: You buy $100 million (M) in Treasuries and immediately put them up as collateral for overnight borrowings of $98M. Traders can capture the spread as long as the price of the bond is stable or rising, as it has been for the last year or two. If the bond drops 2%, the spread has been wiped out.

If that happens, the massive repo structures—that is, debt owned by still more debt—will start to unwind and create a panic in the Treasury market. People will realize the emperor is naked.

TGR: Is that what happened in 2008?

DS: In 2008 it was the repo market for mortgage-back securities, credit default obligations and such. In 2008 we had a dry run of what happens when a class of assets owned on overnight money goes into a tailspin. There is a thunderous collapse.

Since then, the repo trade has remained in the Treasury and other high-grade markets because subprime and low-quality mortgage-backed securities are dead.

TGR: Walk us through a hypothetical. What happens when the fast-money traders lose confidence in the Fed’s ability to keep the spread?

DS: They are forced to start selling in order to liquidate their carry trades because repo lenders get nervous and want their cash back. However, when the crisis comes, there will be insufficient private bids—the market will gap down hard unless the central banks buy on an emergency basis: the Fed, the European Central Bank (ECB), the people’s printing press of China and all the rest of them.

The question is: Will the central banks be able to do that now, given that they have already expanded their balance sheets? The Fed balance sheet was $900 billion (B) when Lehman crashed in September 2008. It took 93 years to build it to that level from when the Fed opened for business in November 1914. Bernanke then added another $900B in seven weeks and then he took it to $2.4 trillion in an orgy of money printing during the initial 13 weeks after Lehman. Today it is nearly $3 trillion. Can it triple again? I do not think so. Worldwide it’s the same story: the top eight central banks had $5 trillion of footings shortly before the crisis; they have $15 trillion today. Overwhelmingly, this fantastic expansion of central bank footings has been used to buy or discount sovereign debt. This was the mother of all monetizations.

TGR: Following that path, what happens if there are no buyers? Do the governments go into default?

DS: The U.S. Treasury needs to be in the market for $20B in new issuances every week. When the day comes when there are all offers and no bids, the music will stop. Instead of being able to easily pawn off more borrowing on the markets—say 90 basis points for a 5-year note as at present—they may have to pay hundreds of basis points more. All of a sudden the politicians will run around with their hair on fire, asking, what happened to all the free money?

TGR: What do the politicians have to do next?

DS: They are going to have to eat 30 years worth of lies and by the time they are done eating, there will be a lot of mayhem.

TGR: Will the mayhem stretch into the private sector?

DS: It will be everywhere. Once the bond market starts unraveling, all the other risk assets will start selling off like mad, too.

TGR: Does every sector collapse?

DS: If the bond market goes into a dislocation, it will spread like a contagion to all of the other asset markets. There will be a massive selloff.

I think everything in the world is overvalued—stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies. Too much money printing and debt expansion drove the prices of all asset classes to artificial, non-economic levels. The danger to the world is not classic inflation or deflation of goods and services; it’s a drastic downward re-pricing of inflated financial assets.

TGR: Is there any way to unravel this without this massive dislocation?

DS: I do not think so. When you are so far out on the end of a limb, how do you walk it back?

The Fed is now at the end of a $3 trillion limb. It has been taken hostage by the markets the Federal Open Market Committee was trying to placate. People in the trading desks and hedge funds have been trained to front run the Fed. If they think the Fed’s next buy will be in the belly of the curve, they buy the belly of the curve. But how does the Fed ever unwind its current lunatic balance sheet? If the smart traders conclude the Fed’s next move will be to sell mortgage-backed securities, they will sell like mad in advance; soon there would be mayhem as all the boys and girls on Wall Street piled on. So the Fed is frozen; it is petrified by fear that if it begins contracting its balance sheet it will unleash the demons.

TGR: Was there some type of tipping that allowed certain banks to front run the Fed?

DS: There are two kinds of front-running. First is market-based front-running. You try to figure out what the Fed is doing by reading its smoke signals and looking at how it slices and dices its meeting statements. People invest or speculate against the Fed’s next incremental move.

Second, there is illicit front-running, where you have a friend who works for the Federal Reserve Board who tells you what happened in its meetings. This is obviously illegal.

But frankly, there is also just plain crony capitalism that is not that different in character and it’s what Wall Street does every day. Bill Dudley, who runs the New York Fed, was formerly chief economist for Goldman Sachs and he pretends to solicit an opinion about financial conditions from the current Goldman economist, who then pretends to opine as to what the economy and Fed might do next for the benefit of Goldman’s traders, and possibly its clients. So then it links in the ECB, Bank of Canada, etc. Is there any monetary post in the world not run by Goldman Sachs?

The point is, this is not the free market at work. This is central bank money printers and their Wall Street cronies perverting what used to be a capitalist market.

TGR: Does this unwinding of the Fed and the bond markets put the banking system back in peril, like in 2008?

DS: Not necessarily. That is one of the great myths that I address in my book. The banking system, especially the mainstream banking system, was not in peril at all. The toxic securitized mortgage assets were not in the Main Street banks and savings and loans; these institutions owned mostly prime quality whole loans and could have bled down the modest bad debt they did have over time from enhanced loan loss reserves. So the run on money was not at the retail teller window; it was in the canyons of Wall Street. The run was on wholesale money—that is, on repo and on unsecured commercial paper that had been issued in the hundreds of billions by financial institutions loaded down with securitized toxic garbage, including a lot of in-process inventory, on the asset side of their balance sheets.

The run was on investment banks that were really hedge funds in financial drag. The Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys did not really need trillion-dollar balance sheets to do mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions do not require capital; they require a good Rolodex. They also did not need all that capital for the other part of investment banking—the underwriting business. Regulated stocks and bonds get underwritten through rigged cartels—they almost never under-price and really don’t need much capital. Their trillion dollar balance sheets, therefore, were just massive trading operations—whether they called it customer accommodation or proprietary is a distinction without a difference—which were funded on 30 to 1 leverage. Much of the debt was unstable hot money from the wholesale and repo market and that was the rub—the source of the panic.

Bernanke thought this was a retail run à la the 1930s. It was not; it was a wholesale money run in the canyons of Wall Street and it should have been allowed to burn out.

TGR: Let’s get back to our ballgame. What is to keep the U.S. population from saying, please Fed save us again?

DS: This time, I think the people will blame the Fed for lying. When the next crisis comes, I can see torches and pitch forks moving in the direction of the Eccles building where the Fed has its offices.

TGR: Let’s talk about timing. On Dec. 31, the tax cuts expire, defense cuts go into place and we hit the debt ceiling.

DS: That will be a clarifying moment; never before have three such powerful vectors come together at the same time— fiscal triple witching.

First, the debt ceiling will expire around election time, so the government will face another shutdown and it will be politically brutal to assemble a majority in a lame duck session to raise it by the trillions that will be needed. Second, the whole set of tax cuts and credits that have been enacted over the last 10 years total up to $400–500B  annually will expire on Dec. 31, so they will hit the economy like a ton of bricks if not extended. Third, you have the sequester on defense spending that was put in last summer as a fallback, which cannot be changed without a majority vote in Congress.

It is a push-pull situation: If you defer the sequester, you need more debt ceiling. If you extend the tax expirations, you need a debt ceiling increase of $100B a month.

TGR: What will Congress do?

DS: Congress will extend the whole thing for 60 or 90 days to give the new president, if he hasn’t demanded a recount yet, an opportunity to come up with a plan.

To get the votes to extend the debt ceiling, the Democrats will insist on keeping the income and payroll tax cuts for the 99% and the Republicans will want to keep the capital gains rate at 15% so the Wall Street speculators will not be inconvenienced. It is utter madness.

TGR: It is like chasing your tail. How does it stop?

DS: I do not know how a functioning democracy in the ordinary course can deal with this. Maybe someone from Goldman Sachs can come and put in a fix, just like in Greece and Italy. The situation is really that pathetic.

TGR: Greece has come up with some creative ways to bring down its sovereign debt without actually defaulting.

DS: The Greek debt restructuring was a farce. More than $100B was held by the European bailout fund, the ECB or the International Monetary Fund. They got 100 cents on the dollar simply by issuing more debt to Greece. For private debt, I believe the net write-down was $30B after all the gimmicks, including the front-end payment. The rest was simply refinanced. The Greeks are still debt slaves, and will be until they tell Brussels to take a hike.

TGR: Going back to the triple-witching hour at year-end, if the debt ceiling is raised again, when do we start to see government layoffs and limitations on services?

DS: Defense purchases and non-defense purchases will be hit with brutal force by the sequester. As we go into 2013, there will be a shocking hit to the reported GDP numbers as discretionary government spending shrinks. People keep forgetting that most government spending is transfer payments, but it is only purchases of labor and goods that go directly into the GDP calculations, and it is these accounts that will get smacked by the sequester of discretionary defense and non-defense budgets.

TGR: I would think to unemployment numbers as well.

DS: They will go up.

Just take one example. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report, there are 650,000 or so jobs in the U.S. Postal Service alone. That is 650,000 people who pretend to work at jobs that have more or less been made obsolete and redundant by the Internet and who are paid through borrowings from Uncle Sam because the post office is broke. Yet, the courageous ladies and gentlemen on Capitol Hill cannot even bring themselves to vote to discontinue Saturday mail delivery; they voted to study it! That is a measure of the loss of capacity to rationally cognate about our fiscal circumstance.

TGR: In the midst of this volatility, how can normal people preserve, much less expand their wealth?

DS: The only thing you can do is to stay out of harm’s way and try to preserve what you can in cash. All of the markets are rigged or impaired. A 4% yield on blue chip stocks is not worth it, because when the thing falls apart, your 4% will be gone in an hour.

TGR: But if the government keeps printing money, cash will not be worth as much, either, right?

DS: No, I do not think we will have hyperinflation. I think the financial system will break down before it can even get started. Then the economy will go into paralysis until we find the courage, focus and resolution to do something about it. Instead of hyperinflation or deflation there will be a major financial dislocation, which means painful re-pricing of financial assets.

How painful will the re-pricing be? I think the public already knows that it will be really terrible. A poll I saw the other day indicated that 25% of people on the verge of retirement think they are in such bad financial shape that they will have to work until age 80. Now, the average life expectancy is 78. People’s financial circumstances are so bad that they think they will be working two years after they are dead!

TGR: Finally, what is your investment model?

DS: My investing model is ABCD: Anything Bernanke Cannot Destroy: flashlight batteries, canned beans, bottled water, gold, a cabin in the mountains.

TGR:Thank you very much.

David Stockman is a former U.S. politician and businessman, serving as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan 1977–1981 and as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan 1981–1985. He is the author of The Triumph of Politics: Why Reagan’s Revolution Failed and the soon-to-be released The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy.

Stockman was the keynote speaker at last weekend’s Casey Research Recovery Reality Check Summit. This event featured legendary contrarian investor Doug Casey, high-end natural resource broker Rick Rule, New York Times bestselling author John Mauldin and 28 other financial luminaries. Over the three-day summit, they provided investors with asset-protection action plans and actionable investment advice.

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No Field Five
No Field Five

ABCD – lol!

Colma Rising
Colma Rising

Stockman reads TBP?

Hope he hasn’t been net-napalmed on accident!

Anonymous
Anonymous

“Gallows Pole”

Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
Think I see my friends coming, Riding a many mile.
Friends, did you get some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my dear friends, To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?

I couldn’t get no silver, I couldn’t get no gold,
You know that we’re too damn poor to keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
I think I see my brother coming, riding a many mile.
Brother, did you get me some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my brother, to keep me from the Gallows Pole?

Brother, I brought you some silver,
I brought a little gold, I brought a little of everything
To keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Yes, I brought you to keep you from the Gallows Pole.

Hangman, hangman, turn your head awhile,
I think I see my sister coming, riding a many mile, mile, mile.
Sister, I implore you, take him by the hand,
Take him to some shady bower, save me from the wrath of this man,
Please take him, save me from the wrath of this man, man.

Hangman, hangman, upon your face a smile,
Pray tell me that I’m free to ride,
Ride for many mile, mile, mile.

Oh, yes, you got a fine sister, She warmed my blood from cold,
Brought my blood to boiling hot To keep you from the Gallows Pole,
Your brother brought me silver, Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard And see you swinging on the Gallows Pole

Swingin’ on the gallows pole!
http://afarcryfromdixie.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post.html

flash
flash

comment image

English Rose
English Rose

“flashlight batteries, canned beans, bottled water, gold, a cabin in the mountains”

Thanks RE.

AWD

Sorry to say, but I can’t wait until the bond market, therefore the financial markets collapse. It’s going to be high entertainment. The criminals in Washington will be running around with their hair on fire. The FSA might miss cash deposits or SNAP benefits. The criminals on Wall Street will lose most or all of their ill-gotten gains. Obama will finally be exposed as the massive fraud he is, as are all the democrats. Reality is going to be a miserable bitch for these crooks. It’s just amazing it hasn’t happened yet. The only thing keeping the plates spinning is the Fed buying 63% of treasuries. It’s a ponzi scheme on a scale not seen on this planet yet. It will unravel. Good luck when that happens. Hope you bought enough ammo.

http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples_resource/image/13087

sensetti
sensetti

TGR: But if the government keeps printing money, cash will not be worth as much, either, right?

DS: No, I do not think we will have hyperinflation. I think the financial system will break down before it can even get started. Then the economy will go into paralysis until we find the courage, focus and resolution to do something about it. Instead of hyperinflation or deflation there will be a major financial dislocation, which means painful re-pricing of financial assets.

This is exactly the outlook I have held for years, we will never see hyperinflation, and everything is going to hit the ground first. This is the reason I soak my money into my farm and buy a little silver coin just to trade with, everything is going to crash. Food is going to be in short supply and you better know hordes of hungry people will tear the infrastructure down trying to get at it. Being able to produce and sell everyday necessities will carry the day after the crash.

Admin I totally agree with you, “I believe his scenario is the most likely”

Colma Rising
Colma Rising

A cabin in the woods…. stocked with amo.

It’ll stick out like a sore thumb with an infrared look as the drone passes unseen at 35000 feet… My how it will look after a hellfire is deposited in it’s fron door.

The only chance will be if someone wants to save those preperations for the NWO Soldier to snack on… otherwise, it’ll be Chinese New Year in the woods.

If a prep cabin blows up and nobody is left alive to hear it, does it really make a sound?

sensetti
sensetti

To my above post I might add, I hope like hell David Stockman is right. I bet everything, an entire life’s work on it.

prtrb'd
prtrb'd

sensetti-
who will have ‘money’ to buy your produce with, and what good will it be? soak your assets into farm and tools yes, and on the off chance metals return to their historic role then that cache might pay off.

My way of thinking is aim to be entirely self sufficient- as much as possible anyway, and the capable neighbors may want to swap services or food with you for what you don’t have. Always have been independent anyway, no real change in sight for me.

Remote farm country may be a good place to hunker down, 50 miles or more from urban areas. Why would you want to be anywhere else anyway, even in good times such as right now? Comes down to it tho, when the shit hits we’ll be dependent on our ability to adapt and make do.

IndenturedServant

Stupid question of the day…….Stockman said “I think everything in the world is overvalued—stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies.”

Seems like commodities like gold and silver will get clobbered? True? Or, are they the exception?

Then he said: “My investing model is ABCD: Anything Bernanke Cannot Destroy: flashlight batteries, canned beans, bottled water, gold, a cabin in the mountains.”

So, what role do gold and silver play?

My thought has been that PM’s will get hammered initially then rise as billions or even trillions of dollars go looking for safety in a sea of devastation. I have not been on the hyperinflation bandwagon myself but I do believe we will see some astounding interest rates for a time. I think hyperinflation could happen but its not likely as total financial collapse will not benefit the monied interests behind the central banks.

How do yous guys see it playin’ out?
I_S

sensetti
sensetti

prtrb’d says:

who will have ‘money’ to buy your produce with, and what good will it be?

I really have never thought about making money with a 52 acre farm that only has horse drawn equipment , a guy could sell or trade the extra produce he has I guess but that would be minimal in the scope of everything, remember everyone will have a garden. The on time delivery of food from afar off will cease once the bottom falls out. I am attempting to have a way to go for 50 to 100 people, like the old Hippie commune if you will. If I survive the crash I will worry about making money after that.

“I estimate it would take a disruption of food for 72 hours before America (or any of the first world countries) would collapse into complete disorder, chaos and lawlessness. We are three days from anarchy*.“
Michael B., Survivalist

“Morality and hunger are inversely proportional. In times of crisis, when food is scarce, be afraid of men and women with young children.“
Ryan Oiseau, Garage Think Tank

“It’s too late, Good Luck!”
Jim Quinn, The Burning Platform

ASIG
ASIG

“ABCD: Anything Bernanke Cannot Destroy: flashlight batteries, canned beans, bottled water, gold, a cabin in the mountains”
I would expand on that idea to include investing in your ability to be productive. That would include acquiring additional skills as well as tools. As an example I have all the tools one would need to build a house from the ground up. Learn to butcher an animal, Weld, rebuild an engine. Invest in personal transportation as in bicycles and get use to riding. Just yesterday I went on a 30Mil ride on my mountain bike with a total elevation change of over 600ft., and I’m an old guy in my late 60s.

sensetti
sensetti

I_S
If you can feed and protect yourself having gold, silver or anything of value will enable you to buy whatever you want regardless of the price of the PM.

DS: The only thing you can do is to stay out of harm’s way

But what do I know! I am just playing it the way I see it. I may lose in the end and be overrun by some band of zombie crack heads. But taking a bullet is preferable to starving to death for this hard headed Irishman.

Oh dont forget your health, get your teeth fixed and get in shape. Stock up on any meds you need.

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

The new Bolsheviks will keep things going by force; even after the financial fallout. The Bolsheviks have worked on this for years. They have infiltrated all levels of our government system. Remember when we were told by a certain Soviet offical that we will take you over without even a gunshot? Well it has happened. Why? Because we were so engulfed in our prosperity and money making that we failed to protect our system.

When the financial system finally crashes the Bolsheviks will come out in full force and force everyone to conform to their new system. And they will have the force to do it. And much of the 99% will go along with it.

It is going to be a hot summer. Our Sun is being affected by other factors around our solar system and causing it to act up. This is nothing new in our evolutionless human history. Many think 2012 will bring destruction to our earth by outside forces, but the destruction coming is not coming from direct action of nature; but rather by indirect action in the human mind that is being affected also by this distrubance coming from our Sun. It already is happening in Egypt; as it has started around that area many times in the past. The Arab spring is coming to Europe and America this year.

Yes, we are again entering into a time of mutual human reciprical destruction of everything we have come to rely on for tranquility. This means political systems, governments, building, institutions, and human life. We are craving for it and the Bolsheviks will accomodate it. Look at how badly many want to invade Iran or go to war with North Korea? Unconsciously, people are craving freedom from the bondage of our controlled legal/economic system. This is going to happen by the destruction of it; by us. People all over the world are revolting from the chains of the military/political/economic systems enslaving them; just like they did from the 40 or so dynasties of the Egyptian era. History repeats itself and since our modern population forgot history we are doomed to repeat it. How sad we forgot about the Bolsheviks of the past that many will meet again. It is not going to be a pleasant experience but hey, there is a flip side to Dancing with the Stars; it is the painful reality that we have to always be on guard against those that want to control us; and practice loving our neighbors as ourselves. Since we have not practiced loving others as ourselves, but instead developed a legal system to deal with our neighbors without love, we won’t be able to trust anyone during this time of upheval. We are not a loving society.

Humanity has always been affected subconsciously by the Sun, moon, and planets of the solar system. Electro/Magnetic impulses and gravity has always had an effect on our mind. And this time is no different. To bad our scientific community shitcanned the ancient study of the stars that recorded these effects on us over the ages. Now many will suffer in fear what is unfolding simply because their minds are unprepared for the change.

Hideouts and hording of goods and gold may help, but it is the mental destruction of minds not prepared that is going to hurt. A new era is coming. Are you prepared mentally?

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

Not everything. Love is undervalued.

sensetti
sensetti

T-Bird
Now many will suffer in fear what is unfolding simply because their minds are unprepared for the change.

That sentence is a huge key in my thinking and the reason I think the free shit army will go insane and try and burn the world down. The dumb bastards can’t feed themselves now what will they do after a major crash.
I can’t figure out how the government can get in front of and stop a bunch of zombie youth. For example let’s take 300 hundred youth in a major city and give each one a gallon of gas and a bic lighter. Two questions- How would you stop them? And what would the town look like in the morning? They will coordinate the whole mess with cell phones like they did last summer in the riots at the Wisconsin State fair.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-black-mobs-attack-white-patrons-outside-wis-state-fair/

ThePessimisticChemist
ThePessimisticChemist

@T-bird:

“Humanity has always been affected subconsciously by the Sun, moon, and planets of the solar system. Electro/Magnetic impulses and gravity has always had an effect on our mind. And this time is no different. To bad our scientific community shitcanned the ancient study of the stars that recorded these effects on us over the ages. Now many will suffer in fear what is unfolding simply because their minds are unprepared for the change.”

=============================

At science’s core is repeatability. If something cannot be reliably repeated, then it is generally discarded (See: Cold Fusion). This doesn’t necessarily mean that the person putting forth the hypothesis is wrong, just that they inadequately described their experimental design.

In the case of astrology, it is readily apparent that SOMETHING is going on. I am not a dogmatic scientist, I do not walk around telling people “it cannot be so!” because science undergoes revelations so often that anyone with their ideas firmly locked in stone will be left behind quite quickly.

The problem with those studies is that they are generally not repeatable, or even predictable. Its a common belief that full moons cause crazy behavior. The same articles that support that claim often downplay another interesting thing their data shows: Apparently new moons cause just as crazy of behavior.

Also, there are massive amounts of data upon job performance and day of the week. As well as depression level and day of the week. (Never fire someone on a monday, and if you have to make sure its after lunch).

Human behavior is truly bizarre. In the social sciences data with a 70% confidence level is considered valuable, publishable data. For a frame of reference, the other “true” sciences typically won’t report something with less than 90% confidence level, and even then the goal is to hit 95%.

Social sciences and human behavior studies have to have that much lee way though, because the randomness of human action can totally disrupt a study.

Doing studies on the level you would need for astrology would be expensive, lengthy, and with little to no financial gain.

Hardcore scientists might stonewall that stuff, but I assure you not everyone has. Its just not as readily worth it in comparison to other things we could be doing with our time.

PS: You mentioned ancient records. Those are a good starting point, however this being a social issue one must take their data within context, because our society is most assuredly different from theirs.

==========================================

Another thing undervalued is common sense.

sensetti
sensetti

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ThePessimisticChemist
ThePessimisticChemist

A thief and a crook. Yet another example of the MSM totally ignoring real issues.

Stan
Stan

Build a Little House on the Prairie house. Get used to no comforts. No phones.

sensetti
sensetti

TPC
A thief and a crook
As we know, that’s a known knowns.

KaD
KaD

I think some things are still grossly undervalued. Honesty for one. Kindness. Generosity. Truth for sure.

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

To: ThePessimisticChemist, The solar system is experiencing tension right now. Particularly there is Sun-Moon tension going on right now that is affecting us. Just observe and see what comes out of this.

There is no profit in this physically, but metaphysical effects can bring great changes in the course of humanity and the human spirit. Since science does not consider metaphysical evidence it cannot see the nonphysical events that change the course of human actions. It can only record them.

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

Kad: Our legal system of law is replacing Love and forgiveness. These things are no longer valued which makes kindness irrevelant and truth relevant for prosecution.

Maddie's Mom
Maddie's Mom

David,

No toilet paper???

It’s another kind of “gold” ya know. 😉

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

The emperor has always been naked.

You just happen to see the clothes.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

I draw the line of making fun of Hawking, be it thru a desire to ridicule Obama, deserved or not, AWD.

ThePessimisticChemist
ThePessimisticChemist

@TB: “The solar system is experiencing tension right now. Particularly there is Sun-Moon tension going on right now that is affecting us. Just observe and see what comes out of this.

There is no profit in this physically, but metaphysical effects can bring great changes in the course of humanity and the human spirit. Since science does not consider metaphysical evidence it cannot see the nonphysical events that change the course of human actions. It can only record them.”

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I won’t disagree that strong forces and their influence upon human development/behavior is poorly understood.

Unfortunately (as I stated previously) the data set would be ridiculously complex, this is why science really doesn’t address these things.

I believe in ghosts. That being said I do not believe there are any truly repeatable experiments out there that would both satisfy my demand for scientific accuracy AND show with a reasonable amount of certainty that ghosts are real, or even plausible.

I believe that the four fundamental forces of nature have an incredible amount of influence upon organisms, both higher and lower order. That being said, I do not believe there are any truly repeatable experiments out there that would both satisfhy my demand for scientific accuracy AND show with a reasonable amount of certainty that these interactions are real.

The good news is that we might be closer on the metaphysical side of things than we are on the ghost thingy lol.

Zarathustra

Flash, is that photo of the two skeletons from Pompeii?

Admin, David Stockman and Paul Craig Roberts…two heroes from the Reagan administration.

Mary Malone

Great interview – going to send it to my contact list.

Regarding the bond markets – the ratings agencies are making moves that will force municipalities, states and countries; bond holders and public unions to the table now. Their goal is to get all parties to face the music – the party is over. Spread out the pain among all parties and maybe, just maybe you’ll have a chance of surviving the coming crash.

Also regarding toxic MBS that are not backed by mortgages at all…

NY State public pensions were loaded with MBS in 2007, 2008. In 2009, the MBS started to disappear – TBills increase exponentially. By 2011, MBS is nearly gone – pension fund is loaded with TBills – oodles and oodles of TBills.

Clearly, there was a bailout of NYS public unions by the Fed.

I haven’t had the time to scout out other Big Labor States like CA, IL but I wonder if all these AG’s laid down and failed to prosecute banks because they were promised state pension bailouts?

David’s analysis of TBills means they just got bought off by debt instruments – that may blow up soon.

If anyone has time, you may want to check out the other 49 state public pension holdings and see if there are similar patterns. Could be a very interesting story…

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

In the case of astrology, it is readily apparent that SOMETHING is going on -TPC

Something is always going around something, astrologically speaking.

Ron
Ron

Unless Ron Paul gets elected,our fearful leaders well put stuff off until its crazy bad.

flash
flash

Zara- is that photo of the two skeletons from Pompeii?

Older …..http://news.cnet.com/2300-11395_3-6158705.html

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

ThePessimistic Chemist says:

“I won’t disagree that strong forces and their influence upon human development/behavior is poorly understood. Unfortunately (as I stated previously) the data set would be rediculously complex, this is why science really doesn’t address these things.”

Cognition, or the act of knowing is done through perception from either the inner or outer senses. Science learns by perception from the outer senses only. The instuments science uses only augments our sense of perception.

What has ruined our ability to cognise on the metaphysical level is our educational system. Our parrot style learning system in the educational system instills in us automatic reason, which dumbs down our ability to distinguish new perceptions from the common ones we recieve everyday. There is such a thing as cosmic perceptions and cosmic substances that bombard us everyday from the universe. If one observes an infant that has not been influenced by parent influence to their first perceptions you would be amased at how much information becomes available for scientific research.

In my studies of human history it is evident that man has not evolved in all these 10,000 years of human history I have studied. We are the same. For some reason we love war and destruction. That is why so much of our history has been destroyed. If we could somehow stop the study of war and concentrate our studies on the universe around us then we could evolve. We could improve our system of learning. Then science would be able to penetrate into the world of the metaphysical.

ThePessimisticChemist
ThePessimisticChemist

“We could improve our system of learning.”

Well I certainly agree with this, though not so much the rest.

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