What is happening in the US? GDP figures tell us the economy is working well. Unemployment is near record lows. And the stock market is at record highs.
Having heard so much, recently, about how mis-leading and inaccurate CPI,PPE and a whole bunch of acronyms with dodgey and deliberately/malevolently massaged to suit the narrative I came with a possible new index that could compliment your Doom Index 2.0.
I call it the FILTH Index… its headline components are as follows:
F = FOOD
I = INSURANCE
L = LIBATIONS (‘could become increasingly important as we swirl towards the drainpipe)
T = TRANSPORTATION ( of all sorts)
H =Health costs
If you guys want to have a play around with quantifying these items into a useful index, please be my guest to have at it.
It would be fascinating to plot FILTH vs CPI/etc on a regular basis and to do a historical analysis since COVID.
Government spending (transfer payments) accounts for 30% of so-called GDP. Government produces nothing; it merely allocates, and does that poorly. So, take 30% of your GDP figure right off the top. Get government magically back to the level of 1899 and watch the USA blow the doors off the world once more. Keep doing what we're doing, and watch the USA disappear (already underway). Seems like an easy choice to me, but what do I know? I'm just an old, has-been, conservative, white, male Boomer, the lowest of the low. Best always. PM
Hardly PM, (last sentence) you’re not even close to standing in the gutter. We of our ilk are on the curb looking into the gutter.
The new holders for “the lowest” (participation trophy) title are some the U.S. Lower House of Reps stooping to “…bleached blond…bad butch body…” exercising their vocal chord cancel culture shout fest.
This today from Doug Casey’s International Man publication missive entitled “ An Empire Self-Destructs” by Jeff Thomas with this Editor’s Note:
• The US government is fast approaching the financial endgame. In short, it’s game over.
• They have no choice but to "reset" the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.
• I suspect it could all go down soon… and it won't be pretty.
• It could result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.
I opt-in for the solid, stable currency that cannot be manipulated, printed, is not a series of electrical I/0’s, and that which is recognized as a store of value through mankind’s turmoils for thousands of years.
And in addition, another thing which is valuable. Ed’s Red; a fine substitute adapted from Hatcher's Frankford Arsenal Cleaner No.18 which can become in short supply and high demand. Sort of like ol’ #78 on the periodic table, Pt. 30X’s more scarce than Au.
There comes a point in time in the deterioration of a thing when money no longer moves the needle. Take the IRS as just one example and then multiply that by your telephone number. The IRS is a hot mess. The building is on fire, has been, for a long time. What would you have if you tried to add 85,000 agents, of any stripe, to the current situation? It would get much worse. The delays and systemic errors, the screw ups, the grinding bureaucracy, the declining performance measures, they would all just get worse, much worse. What would happen if someone brilliant advised that a new computing system could fix the situation, say AI? Now the disaster becomes unmitigated. You see it takes more than money and technology and warm bodies to fix something that has gone badly wrong for the wrong reasons. This is true of everything under the sun. GDP is such a terrible measure at this juncture of our history because it is just a measure of money, and money can’t fix what they have destroyed. Indeed it often can only make a bad situation worse.
What you measure determines what you get. And managers and politicians tend to prefer to measure what is easy to measure, rather than what really matters. Especially if what they measure and how they measure it indicates that they are doing a good job and deserve more money or power.
I believe GDP is a better reflection of the economy when it is commodities-based rather than debt-based. For example, if the cost of a house is x and it is sold for 10x on debt, GDP will increase by 900%. However, it is difficult to argue that real wealth has increased by 900%. A debt-based economy can create such distortions, whereas a commodities-based economy cannot.
GDP (and the earlier GNP) made sense if the only thing being measured is total spending or production. It's not the best way to measure, because it doesn't consider the usefulness of the product. Or: Figures lie, and liars figure.
Early on you had to pay taxes to vote in the USA. That meant that only the people who paid taxes decided on what their money was spent.
47% of people here are on some government, non productive subsidy.
Taxes are by far the largest expense we have (65% of average gross pay when you add them all up).
And the government is 80% crooks.
No wonder honest hard working people are broke, the non productive are stealing their chance for wealth creation before it hits their pocket, a form of slavery. And unconstitutional
I reckon it’s time folks, to let some real wolves loose into our economic landscape and financially depopulated productive pastures and environments, before it’s too late.
Within a few years the dream is it could turn things around, like the real wolves did at Yellowstone… ( and that as many know, is a TRUE story not just a dream ) 😉
Argentina started out with a Lone Wolf last year and look painful as it must be change is underway…
Could the Fed’s stated goal to reduce the purchasing power of the dollar by no less than 2% a year play an outsize role requiring evermore of workers time to buy the essentials of life? Why 2% anyway?
Well, if the 542 people elected to US federal government positions were told by their constituents to pass Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, HR 8421 and the 542 did as they were told… we’d have an answer to the rhetorical question.
Rogue Economics’ Nomi Prins writes in full about a glorified accounting gimmick employed by the Fed as follows:
“I spent 15 years as an investment banker before I walked away from Wall Street for good. So it’s easy to forget that this is a part of the financial system that Wall Street likes to keep hidden.
I should have unpacked the reverse repo steps a bit more. Let me do that here.
First, let me explain what a reverse repo is for readers. It’s short for reverse repurchase agreement.
It is a short-term agreement to sell securities in order to buy them back at a slightly higher price a day later.
In a reverse repo between the Federal Reserve and banks, here’s what happens.
The Fed sells a security to a bank, with an agreement to repurchase it at a later time for a higher price. That security is typically a U.S. Treasury note. The Fed then uses the “money” from the sale to buy back the Treasuries from the bank a day later.
It’s really a glorified accounting gimmick.
The purpose is to make it look like liquidity is being drained from the system. That’s because if banks “give” the Fed money for that Treasury, technically they have less to loan to borrowers. That has the effect of tightening the money supply for that amount and brief period.
That transaction causes a loss for the Fed.
The loss occurs because the Fed is paying a higher repurchase price for the securities than it will receive in interest on them during that day.
And recently, the Fed has been paying a higher interest rate on its reverse repos than it has been earning on its excess reserves. Many of which were purchased when rates were much lower.
This goes back to something I’ve written about before: The Fed is operating at a loss. I did a deeper dive on this last year, so I won’t rehash all of it here (you can read that here).
But I will say that my advice for all of my readers remains the same. Diversify your portfolio into hard assets like gold. Sprinkle in a finite asset such as Bitcoin. And select commodities and stocks in sectors that provide real, lasting use value – such as in the energy sector.”
▫️That the Fed has a new target… except it hasn’t openly told anyone what it is… yet.
▫️ The **reframing** of what’s good and what’s bad.
▫️ This is where the markets start to allow themselves to be happy with what is really a pretty crappy number…
▫️ U.S. government debt is now around $34.7 trillion. It doesn’t want to repay that debt by just issuing new debt… doing it the hard way. Instead, it wants to juice its repayments by inflating the debt away.
Whew! That was a close call. Checked the coffee can buried underneath the apricot tree and the barbarous relics are still in the can. Now, aside from that fake news, there is this priceless 💎
Spoiler: MIT students stole $25M in seconds by exploiting ETH blockchain bug, DOJ The scheme was so sophisticated that is "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question."
Take all government spending ( including debt spending) out of the GDP and see what you get. You do know gov. spending is in the GDP right? Lies and more lies.
You have nailed it with this paragraph today Mr Bonner. Kudos. To reiterate…
“So how come the average person has to work twice as long just for a roof over his head and a set of wheels? Is it because ‘the system’ has been corrupted? It now delivers public policies that serve specific groups of people — normally, those with a good lobbying team in Washington and a lot of money to spread around the Capitol — at the expense of the public.”
The following ought not come as a shocker. File this essay under the “lesser dirty shirt in the filthy laundry”; although a small “win” for Ma & Pa Mainstreet.
Here is the revelation published on Wall Street On Parade written by Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 20, 2024 which has posted a new item entitled: “The Curious Money Trail…a Federal Agency that Wall Street Hates
Last Thursday, in a stunning 7-2 win for the little guys and gals in America, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau et al v Community Financial [...]
So long as the government chooses to selectively enforce what the SCOTUS decides, what they decide is less than compelling and likely irrelevant. The "reset" is merely ignoring the Constitution and getting away with it, because the people do nothing. Best always. PM
Bill and Dan,
Having heard so much, recently, about how mis-leading and inaccurate CPI,PPE and a whole bunch of acronyms with dodgey and deliberately/malevolently massaged to suit the narrative I came with a possible new index that could compliment your Doom Index 2.0.
I call it the FILTH Index… its headline components are as follows:
F = FOOD
I = INSURANCE
L = LIBATIONS (‘could become increasingly important as we swirl towards the drainpipe)
T = TRANSPORTATION ( of all sorts)
H =Health costs
If you guys want to have a play around with quantifying these items into a useful index, please be my guest to have at it.
It would be fascinating to plot FILTH vs CPI/etc on a regular basis and to do a historical analysis since COVID.
Best Regards,
Brian
Looks like nothing has changed. Rich people and Poor people benefit from the “Economy”.
And the Middle Class people PAY for it with TAXES AND LABOR.
It’s been this way for 66 years in my lifetime.
And no one has a better plan!
Government spending (transfer payments) accounts for 30% of so-called GDP. Government produces nothing; it merely allocates, and does that poorly. So, take 30% of your GDP figure right off the top. Get government magically back to the level of 1899 and watch the USA blow the doors off the world once more. Keep doing what we're doing, and watch the USA disappear (already underway). Seems like an easy choice to me, but what do I know? I'm just an old, has-been, conservative, white, male Boomer, the lowest of the low. Best always. PM
Hardly PM, (last sentence) you’re not even close to standing in the gutter. We of our ilk are on the curb looking into the gutter.
The new holders for “the lowest” (participation trophy) title are some the U.S. Lower House of Reps stooping to “…bleached blond…bad butch body…” exercising their vocal chord cancel culture shout fest.
This today from Doug Casey’s International Man publication missive entitled “ An Empire Self-Destructs” by Jeff Thomas with this Editor’s Note:
• The US government is fast approaching the financial endgame. In short, it’s game over.
• They have no choice but to "reset" the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.
• I suspect it could all go down soon… and it won't be pretty.
• It could result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.
• What exactly will the "reset" look like?
• What can the average person do about it?
For more on what precedes the note is here - https://internationalman.com/articles/an-empire-self-destructs/
I’m patiently waiting brother 🙏 in the meantime, buy more Bitcoin 🤑
Patience is a virtue. I am less virtuous.
I opt-in for the solid, stable currency that cannot be manipulated, printed, is not a series of electrical I/0’s, and that which is recognized as a store of value through mankind’s turmoils for thousands of years.
And in addition, another thing which is valuable. Ed’s Red; a fine substitute adapted from Hatcher's Frankford Arsenal Cleaner No.18 which can become in short supply and high demand. Sort of like ol’ #78 on the periodic table, Pt. 30X’s more scarce than Au.
There comes a point in time in the deterioration of a thing when money no longer moves the needle. Take the IRS as just one example and then multiply that by your telephone number. The IRS is a hot mess. The building is on fire, has been, for a long time. What would you have if you tried to add 85,000 agents, of any stripe, to the current situation? It would get much worse. The delays and systemic errors, the screw ups, the grinding bureaucracy, the declining performance measures, they would all just get worse, much worse. What would happen if someone brilliant advised that a new computing system could fix the situation, say AI? Now the disaster becomes unmitigated. You see it takes more than money and technology and warm bodies to fix something that has gone badly wrong for the wrong reasons. This is true of everything under the sun. GDP is such a terrible measure at this juncture of our history because it is just a measure of money, and money can’t fix what they have destroyed. Indeed it often can only make a bad situation worse.
What you measure determines what you get. And managers and politicians tend to prefer to measure what is easy to measure, rather than what really matters. Especially if what they measure and how they measure it indicates that they are doing a good job and deserve more money or power.
I believe GDP is a better reflection of the economy when it is commodities-based rather than debt-based. For example, if the cost of a house is x and it is sold for 10x on debt, GDP will increase by 900%. However, it is difficult to argue that real wealth has increased by 900%. A debt-based economy can create such distortions, whereas a commodities-based economy cannot.
Thank you for making this post public, allowing me to share it. The more voting members of the public we can educate, the better.
GDP (and the earlier GNP) made sense if the only thing being measured is total spending or production. It's not the best way to measure, because it doesn't consider the usefulness of the product. Or: Figures lie, and liars figure.
Early on you had to pay taxes to vote in the USA. That meant that only the people who paid taxes decided on what their money was spent.
47% of people here are on some government, non productive subsidy.
Taxes are by far the largest expense we have (65% of average gross pay when you add them all up).
And the government is 80% crooks.
No wonder honest hard working people are broke, the non productive are stealing their chance for wealth creation before it hits their pocket, a form of slavery. And unconstitutional
I reckon it’s time folks, to let some real wolves loose into our economic landscape and financially depopulated productive pastures and environments, before it’s too late.
Within a few years the dream is it could turn things around, like the real wolves did at Yellowstone… ( and that as many know, is a TRUE story not just a dream ) 😉
Argentina started out with a Lone Wolf last year and look painful as it must be change is underway…
If you don’t know the Yellowstone case study …
https://youtu.be/X8nyIyPZy68?si=yY6XtkaAcLde8h9r
Could the Fed’s stated goal to reduce the purchasing power of the dollar by no less than 2% a year play an outsize role requiring evermore of workers time to buy the essentials of life? Why 2% anyway?
What if there were no Fed?
Well, if the 542 people elected to US federal government positions were told by their constituents to pass Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, HR 8421 and the 542 did as they were told… we’d have an answer to the rhetorical question.
https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1791216728728346721
Rogue Economics’ Nomi Prins writes in full about a glorified accounting gimmick employed by the Fed as follows:
“I spent 15 years as an investment banker before I walked away from Wall Street for good. So it’s easy to forget that this is a part of the financial system that Wall Street likes to keep hidden.
I should have unpacked the reverse repo steps a bit more. Let me do that here.
First, let me explain what a reverse repo is for readers. It’s short for reverse repurchase agreement.
It is a short-term agreement to sell securities in order to buy them back at a slightly higher price a day later.
In a reverse repo between the Federal Reserve and banks, here’s what happens.
The Fed sells a security to a bank, with an agreement to repurchase it at a later time for a higher price. That security is typically a U.S. Treasury note. The Fed then uses the “money” from the sale to buy back the Treasuries from the bank a day later.
It’s really a glorified accounting gimmick.
The purpose is to make it look like liquidity is being drained from the system. That’s because if banks “give” the Fed money for that Treasury, technically they have less to loan to borrowers. That has the effect of tightening the money supply for that amount and brief period.
That transaction causes a loss for the Fed.
The loss occurs because the Fed is paying a higher repurchase price for the securities than it will receive in interest on them during that day.
And recently, the Fed has been paying a higher interest rate on its reverse repos than it has been earning on its excess reserves. Many of which were purchased when rates were much lower.
This goes back to something I’ve written about before: The Fed is operating at a loss. I did a deeper dive on this last year, so I won’t rehash all of it here (you can read that here).
But I will say that my advice for all of my readers remains the same. Diversify your portfolio into hard assets like gold. Sprinkle in a finite asset such as Bitcoin. And select commodities and stocks in sectors that provide real, lasting use value – such as in the energy sector.”
Rogue Economics § “This is the Fed’s Real Plan” here - https://www.rogueeconomics.com/inside-wall-street/the-inflate-up-is-here/ entitled The “Inflate-Up” Is Here by Kris Sayce 20 May 2024 published on Inside Wall Street With Nomi Prins
Spoiler Excerpts:
▫️That the Fed has a new target… except it hasn’t openly told anyone what it is… yet.
▫️ The **reframing** of what’s good and what’s bad.
▫️ This is where the markets start to allow themselves to be happy with what is really a pretty crappy number…
▫️ U.S. government debt is now around $34.7 trillion. It doesn’t want to repay that debt by just issuing new debt… doing it the hard way. Instead, it wants to juice its repayments by inflating the debt away.
GF: That's why they will Never go away!
Whew! That was a close call. Checked the coffee can buried underneath the apricot tree and the barbarous relics are still in the can. Now, aside from that fake news, there is this priceless 💎
MIT students stole ETH in seconds - https://tinyurl.com/23hhw86r
Spoiler: MIT students stole $25M in seconds by exploiting ETH blockchain bug, DOJ The scheme was so sophisticated that is "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question."
Hey, Gone Fishin’! You’re on fire today. Thank you so much for all your time and expertise. I really enjoyed all of your comments.
Thanks Will. You’re welcome. Keep doing your part as you already are.
If someone only has time for a few daily reads; bombthrower, zerohedge & 321gold are good.
I plan on having more dinner dates with rainbow trout as my luck and skills allow.
Regards,
Mark
People are better off! Just the "best" people. Deplorables don't count.
De-prole-ables
Take all government spending ( including debt spending) out of the GDP and see what you get. You do know gov. spending is in the GDP right? Lies and more lies.
Good stuff today Bill. And you're picking on the Nazis instead of the Jews. Like it. LOL
You have nailed it with this paragraph today Mr Bonner. Kudos. To reiterate…
“So how come the average person has to work twice as long just for a roof over his head and a set of wheels? Is it because ‘the system’ has been corrupted? It now delivers public policies that serve specific groups of people — normally, those with a good lobbying team in Washington and a lot of money to spread around the Capitol — at the expense of the public.”
The following ought not come as a shocker. File this essay under the “lesser dirty shirt in the filthy laundry”; although a small “win” for Ma & Pa Mainstreet.
Here is the revelation published on Wall Street On Parade written by Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 20, 2024 which has posted a new item entitled: “The Curious Money Trail…a Federal Agency that Wall Street Hates
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/05/the-curious-money-trail-behind-the-supreme-court-clarence-thomas-decision-to-rescue-a-federal-agency-that-wall-street-hates/ ~
Last Thursday, in a stunning 7-2 win for the little guys and gals in America, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau et al v Community Financial [...]
So long as the government chooses to selectively enforce what the SCOTUS decides, what they decide is less than compelling and likely irrelevant. The "reset" is merely ignoring the Constitution and getting away with it, because the people do nothing. Best always. PM