M2 data was released today — it is down -4.63% since last year, the fastest pace of money supply destruction since January 1933. The Fed eased at 100 mph, now it is slamming on the brakes and credit markets are about to fly through the windshield.
It is an acknowledged fact within the circle of Austrian Economists that the Central Banks have to continuously rely on and actively indulge in the propaganda of Voodoo Economics to hide the extreme imbalances that they have created in the world economy.
What lies in the decade ahead for much of the Western economies and most parts of the world is a prolonged period of high inflation combined with an economic depression. I should add that if one were to account for inflation correctly, even today, we are probably in stagflation (inflation + recession) already in most parts of the world. But the sleight of hand of Central Banks in the way they underreport consumer price inflation (CPI) will allow them to hide the reality for a few more months. If we draw a comparison between the stagflationary seventies (1970’s in which gold went from $35 to $850/oz, Oil from $3 to $40/barrel, etc.) and what lies ahead. In that, it’s a given that inflation is going to be substantially higher than what we had in the 1970s and the economic recessions much deeper.
Continue reading “Are We at the Inception of an Inflationary Depression?”
International Man: The government’s reaction to the global pandemic has led to an unprecedented economic, political, and social decline.
Can you talk about the financial risks you see unfolding in the months ahead? Are we headed for a debt crisis?
Doug Casey: It’s not just a crisis. It’s a depression, and it’s just starting. This is only the first out in a nine-inning ball game. It promises to be terrifying before it’s over.
Recall that it was close to four years from the time the stock market rolled over in 1929 to its bottom in 1933. And the stock market bubble of the 20s was much smaller than today’s. The amount of debt was vastly less. The amount of regulation vastly less. The level of State involvement in the economy vastly less. The US economy itself was much more self-contained. The currency was much sounder than today’s—although currency inflation was the cause of the bubble and the main cause of the last depression.
Continue reading “Doug Casey on Whether You Should “Buy the Dip””
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry
“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.” – Samuel Adams
After observing the reaction of the America people, over the last two months, to a virus that will not kill 99.97% of them, I wondered how could a country created upon the blood and courage of patriot farmers and leaders who knew they would hang if their revolution failed, have degenerated into an infantilized nation of obedient slaves to un-Constitutionalized authoritarianism. It saddens me that a country borne by revolutionary means against an overbearing authoritarian monarchy has turned into a nation of bed-wetters curled up in their basements sucking their thumbs, begging government overlords to protect them from a virus.
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising after decades of government public school indoctrination where U.S. History facts have been usurped by feelings, diversity and gender agendas pushed by less than mediocre teachers. Government controlled education hasn’t taught children to think critically or question authority, but to obey rules and allow emotions to drive their actions. When multiple generations have been programmed to feel, rather than think, using panic and fear to make them do as they are told isn’t a difficult task. This pandemic reaction is a testament to their decades long propaganda and misinformation campaign. Rather than developing herd immunity the country developed a herd mentality.
Continue reading “WHAT WOULD COOL HAND LUKE & VIRGIL HILTS DO?”
Editor’s note: Regular readers know our founder, Doug Casey, has warned that a Greater Depression is on the horizon. And while it might be easy to blame any economic crisis on the coronavirus pandemic, Doug is convinced that there are other culprits.
In part one of the latest Conversations With Casey, Doug explains why the virus is just a “manufactured scam”… and how the Deep State will use it to avoid any responsibility for the coming collapse…
Plus, he shares his insights on the action in commodities… including why oil prices recently went negative.
Read on below for Doug’s thoughts… and don’t miss part two of this conversation next week…
Continue reading “Doug Casey: The Feds Will Blame the Depression on Coronavirus”
From Birch Gold Group
Last September, the Fed’s emergency liquidity operation in the repo markets signaled serious distress in the economy. The topic deserved the attention that we gave it at the time, but looking back on it now, those actions are dwarfed by those that the Fed has taken in recent months.
In March, in order to stave off market panic, Federal Reserve Chair Powell fired most of his economic “bullets”, including initiating a new round of Quantitative Easing.
As a result, the Fed’s balance sheet went vertical, potentially igniting a powder keg of inflation.
Continue reading “Fed’s New QE Operations Could Be “Last Stop” Before a Deep Recession”
“At some point, America’s short-term Crisis psychology will catch up to the long-term post-Unraveling fundamentals. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on. Every slide in asset prices, employment, and production will give every generation cause to grow more alarmed.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
I’ve been writing articles about the Fourth Turning for over a decade and nothing has happened since its tumultuous onset in 2008, with the global financial collapse, created by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street co-conspirator owners, that has not followed along the path described by Strauss and Howe in their 1997 book – The Fourth Turning.
Like molten lava bursting forth from a long dormant (80 years) volcano, the core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to flow along channels of distress, long ago built by bad decisions, corrupt politicians and the greed of bankers. The molten ingredients of this Crisis have been the central drivers since 2008 and this second major eruption is flowing along the same route. The core elements are debt, civic decay, and global disorder, just as Strauss & Howe anticipated over two decades ago.
Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING ACCELERATING TOWARDS CLIMAX”
Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
Trump can make the case that while China was the origin of the Wuhan virus that killed scores of thousands of Americans, it was Donald J. Trump who led us through the tragedy, and he is leading us forward, once again, to a new prosperity. What will be Joe Biden’s argument to lead America, after having sat out the worst crisis since World War II in his basement?
After Pearl Harbor, FDR declared that his role of “Dr. New Deal” had been superseded, replaced by his new role, “Dr. Win the War.”
Tuesday, President Donald Trump signaled that, in the war on the coronavirus pandemic, he, too, is executing a strategic pivot.
Where the medical crisis had been the central front, pulling the U.S. economy out of its coma is now his principal objective.
Trump is not unaware of the consequences of this decision.
Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
The people of this land have enough trouble in mind — what with livelihoods, careers, businesses, marriages, hopes and dreams circling the drain in the new insta-depression — but let’s hope they have just a little attention left over for the whirlwind denouement of the odious RussiaGate affair, now finally shredding the last defenses of the Deep State’s rogue Intel forces after years of deceit, treachery, and juridical depravity. The beginning of the end is at hand in the malicious prosecution of General Michael Flynn, and, as that’s revealed for the criminal plot it was, all the other threads in this vast tapestry of sedition will unravel.
Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
Politically, the Depression worked for the Democratic Party like no other event in history. After the Crash of 1929 under Herbert Hoover, the GOP held the House and Senate for only four of the next 50 years.
As of April 30, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 61,500 Americans in two months and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death toll.
The Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the deadliest pandemic in modern history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, a third of the planet’s population, and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including 675,000 Americans.
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman – Rogers Commission
“It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask “What is the cause of management’s fantastic faith in the machinery? … It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.” – Richard Feynman – Rogers Commission
The phrase “Throttle Up” jumped into my consciousness in the last week when Trump and his coronavirus task force of government hacks and bureaucrat lackeys announced the guidelines for re-opening America, as if a formerly $22 trillion economy, tied to a $90 trillion global economy, could be turned off and on like a light switch. Clap off, clap on. It just doesn’t work that way. The arrogance and hubris of people who think they can declare a global shut down for a virus and think they can easily deal with the intended and unintended consequences of doing so, is breathtaking in its outrageous recklessness and egotistical belief in their own infallibility.
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
Neiman Marcus Group is preparing to seek bankruptcy according to Reuters. I have warned that brick & motor stores are in trouble and this lockdown will ensure that people will not be returning to malls and restaurants as they did before. All of the major retail stores are facing credit downgrades. Forbes has warned many are on a credit-watch such as Dillard’s, J.C. Penney, Macy’s, and Nordstrom just to mention a few.
Continue reading “The 2020-2022 Great Depression Coming to Neighborhood Near You!”
Guest Post by Doug Casey
At some point, the economy is no longer controlled by individual citizens in the marketplace but by government “planners,” who find they have only one of two alternatives: stop “stimulating” and permit a full-scale credit collapse, or continue stimulating until the dollar loses all value and society breaks down.
Depending on which they choose, we will have a depression characterized by deflation or by hyperinflation.
This is the 1929-style depression, where huge amounts of inflationary credit are wiped out through bank failures, bond defaults, and stock and real-estate crashes.
Before 1913 (the inception of both the Federal Reserve and the income tax), having the dollar pegged to gold (at $20 an ounce) inhibited the scale of monetization.
When depressions of this type occurred, depositors acted quickly to collect their money; they had no illusion that the government would bolster their banks; once the banks ran out of gold, their bank accounts were worthless.
Their quick response and the fact that the federal government could not monetize its deficit spending as freely as it now can forced the market to correct distortions rapidly.
Until the 1930s, depressions were sharp but brief.
Continue reading “Will it be an Inflationary or Deflationary Depression?”
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
As we continue our national lockdown suicide cult to hell, I find myself getting angrier and angrier at the pathetic leadership displayed by politicians, government bureaucrats, so called medical “experts”, and intellectual yet idiot academics displaying their ignorance of facts, reality, history, and humanity. My nature is to be skeptical of everything I read or am told.
I most certainly disregard everything communicated to me by politicians, world leaders, central bankers, corporate CEOs, CNBC talking heads, the mainstream corporate fake news media, and lately – self-proclaimed medical experts who have distinguished themselves by not seeing the danger coming, downplaying the danger, not being prepared for the danger, incompetently handling the danger and righteously proclaiming the nation had to be brought to a full stop because their terribly flawed models said so.
Continue reading “THE ROAD TO PERDITION IS PAVED WITH EVIL INTENTIONS”