Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Poitou, France...
Gradually, painfully, slowly…
… the “Inflate or Die” trap grips the Fed.
Here’s Thomas Hoenig, former Fed governor, The Hill:
The Fed is now in a vise. Inflation is rising faster than the Fed believed it would even a few months ago, with higher prices for gas, goods and automobiles being fueled by the Fed’s unprecedented money printing programs. This comes after years of the Fed steadily pumping up the price of assets like stocks and bonds through its zero-percent interest rates and quantitative easing during and after Hoenig’s time on the FOMC. To respond to rising inflation, the Fed has signaled that it will start hiking interest rates next year. But if that happens, there is every reason to expect that it will cause stock and bond markets to fall, perhaps precipitously, or even cause a recession.
“There is no painless solution,” Hoenig said in a recent interview. “It’s going to be difficult. And the longer you wait the more painful it will end up being.”
This week we are looking at the big stories of 2021 that never appeared in the newspapers… and the big questions reporters never asked.
“How is the Fed going to get out of its ‘inflate or die’ trap” is probably the most important of them. We now have inflation officially at 6.8%... the highest rate in 40 years. And by the time the press gets around to asking the question, the inflation rate will probably be 50%.
If it seriously tries to fight inflation – as it did in 1980 – the stock market will crash… bonds will be wiped out… and the economy will go into a recession/depression mode. The richest 10% – who incidentally control Congress and the Fed – will lose an estimated $30 trillion.
But if the Fed continues to ‘print’ money, consumer prices will go higher and higher… leading to an even bigger economic disaster, probably accompanied by social upheavals, riots, military takeover, dictatorship, or something else equally disagreeable.
Just the Facts, Ma’am!
But the press no longer reports the facts or raises its hand to ask the difficult questions. Instead, it recites White House press releases… passes along the latest politically-correct claptrap… and turns away from any story that might call into question America’s deciders or their elite agenda.
This morning, for example, comes news of a verdict in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. Even a casual follower of the trial story could see that there was something very fishy going on. Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexually molesting under-aged girls, hung himself his cell.
Hmmm...
He had been taken off ‘suicide watch.’
Hmmm...
His CCTV was turned off... And the guard was AWOL...
Hmmm... and Hmmm...
Epstein had the best lawyers money could buy… and friends in the highest places – such as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and even Bill Gates. He probably had compromising video on all of them.
The press covered the case as a ‘sex trafficking’ story. But wasn’t anyone curious about where Epstein got his fortune, reported to be $500 million? Or why he was shuttling major world leaders back and forth across the Atlantic… or down to his Caribbean paradise island? What actually happened aboard his private plane - the Lolita Express? And why would Ms. Maxwell want to recruit young women for Epstein et al?
Ms. Maxwell, by the way, is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, widely believed to be an Israeli spy. When he died, Israel gave him a state funeral… at which none other than the stepfather of our current Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, recited the Kaddish. Pure coincidence!
Spy-vs-Spy
If we were a reporter, we’d be trying to connect the dots. And if we were the prosecutor we’d want some help from Bill Clinton. Flight logs show he took the Lolita Express 26 times. It was as if he were commuting to work on it. And since he has a proven history of taking advantage of young, foolish women… mightn’t he have some evidence to share… some tidbit of insight or recollection that would help the judge and jury understand what was up? How come the prosecutor didn’t call him to testify?
Oh my… another coincidence! The prosecutor is another elite insider, Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey, former head of the FBI who pushed the “Russian interference” fantasy to undermine the 2016 election results.
Ms. Comey, like Ms. Maxwell, seems willing to go above and beyond the call of duty. She apparently ‘lost’ the video footage of the hallway outside Epsteins’s cell the night he had suicide committed on him.
Most likely, Mr. Epstein was involved in the shady world of spy-vs-spy. And most likely he had a lot of dirt on a lot of people. Who exactly done him in, we don’t know. But neither the media nor the prosecutors have any intention of finding out.
The Affair Epstein/Maxwell is of little interest to us. We take it for granted that many US leaders are corrupt. They have their axes to grind, their secrets to hide, and their accounts to fatten.
But the press’s lack of interest – in what should be a bombshell story of sex, power, intrigue, betrayal, money – just shows us how far it will go to avoid asking tough questions.
How, exactly, can the Fed fight inflation… when the whole economy… and the fortunes of the elite who control it… depend on money-printing and super-low interest rates?
How, exactly, are we going to transition away from fossil fuels, when they support 7.8 billion people?
Why are the feds still pushing vaccines and lockdowns when they seem to have done little good?
Curious minds want answers. But they can count on the mainstream media not to ask.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
P.S. Here's a private note we got from our colleague, Dan Denning. Dan's been taking a short break over the holidays. But he and Tom Dyson will publish their first weekly bulletin over the weekend for the new subscribers to our service. Dan writes:
Bill, take a good look at the chart below. The total net worth of Americans has increased by $85 trillion since the QE era began (from $60 trillion to $163 trillion, or 171%). The S&P 500 is up 800% in that time, an annualized return of 19% for thirteen years. Total net worth is up $52 trillion since the pandemic began in March 2020 (from $111 trillion to $163 trillion, or 43%).
If you want to know where inflation started, there it is. Dollar devaluation began in financial assets. Only it looked like a lot of people getting rich in everything.
If the dollar were a stock, you'd short it with gold. But the purpose of that trade is not to get rich in gold terms (if you need to spend your gold, things are going to be worse than you can possibly imagine). The purpose is to preserve savings and purchasing power... and then deploy it into productive assets AFTER this 'everything' bubble has burst. Energy is one such asset, or at least a subset of natural resources and 'real' assets.
A quick note from the Dyson Family...
Hi, this is Dusty. My Dad asked me to write to you today because he’s busy working on his monthly issue. Here he is…
*** Greetings from West Palm Beach, Florida…
We are at my grandparents’ house. We are visiting them for Christmas. My cousins are here too. We haven’t seen each other in three years because we have been traveling so much. It’s great to see them. We’ve been swimming, biking, and skateboarding together. I can’t believe how much they’ve changed since I last saw them.
Here we are together in front of the Christmas tree…
*** It’s my birthday today. I turned 14 years old. We’re having a red velvet cake, which is my favorite type of cake. And then tonight all of us are going to the driving range and we’re going to play golf together.
We’re saying goodbye to my grandparents and leaving West Palm Beach tomorrow. We’re going to drive to New York and see my Grandpa one more time, then we’re going back to London.
I’m really looking forward to being back in London. For one thing, the cricket season starts again soon, and I can’t wait to play for my team at Chiswick Cricket Club.
For another thing, I’m really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. For the last three months we’ve been in the US, I’ve either had to share a bed with my brother or sleep on the floor…
Dusty
P.S. People ask us if we still have to do schoolwork over Christmas. The answer is “yes.” As homeschoolers, we do school all year around. Except for our birthdays. Whenever one of us has a birthday, we get the day off school.
Good job Dusty!
My thoughts exactl;y. Where are the recordings of who went to the "island" and I personally don't think Epstein is dead!!!