The truth comes out. That’s what busts are for. You can’t make people richer by printing more pieces of paper or lowering their interest rates. Those truths are only whispered softly at the beginning.
When the "crash" comes everyone will feel some pain, some more than others. Very few stocks, a lot of cash on hand, and a lot of than old useless yellow metal we little people have been told is useless most of our lives, will allow us to eat and sleep well. We, the readers of BPR, just have to remain calm and not panic as this crazy story unfolds ,,,,,, and it will!
The next crash will unfold. The unknown is whether it will unfold while the majority of us are still alive.
Remember Doug Casey, who started this with Crisis Investing in 1979, and wrote on its introduction page:
“To those who used to wonder why everything is ‘different’ today, then figured out the reason.”
He spawned a multi-million-dollar contrarian viewpoint newsletter from “figuring it out.”
That was almost two generations ago.
Twenty-somethings today don’t even remember 9/11. They weren’t old enough — or weren’t even born. I was researching Pearl Harbor in my teens in the ’70s. Many twenty-year-olds today would rather binge the next Reacher series.
You are correct about the timing of things.... always a crap shoot. With respect to Casey's writings and Bill Bonners', both have done a good job of keeping the destruction of the USD front and center. For those of us who "listened" a little, we have prepared for what "is" coming. We may not live long enough to see the next crisis but we will leave something behind for those we care about. And yes, the younger crowd will have to learn the lessons of history the hard way.
I hit like. But, When things go so bad , try to by an apple with your microscopic piece of gold.
Remember the movie Dr Zhivago? If not,check it out. The bad guy , shows up with a tablespoon of sugar or salt in his palm looking foe quarter. It's slapped away. If it was gold , they probably will be just kill him. That reality was not too far in our rearview mirror. And we have asshatted politicians , wanting to bring it back
I fear that this will be the norm with our current socialist tendencies in the West.
"How dare you profit from accurately predicting that humans are flawed and will mess ot uo. You must share your good fortune with the collective and go to the gulag for penance" (if youre lucky).
I love financial advice, especially the complicated kind, thousands of analysts, economists, strategists, portfolio managers, quantitative researchers, financial television, newsletters, algorithms, supercomputers, and Bloomberg terminals costing thousands of dollars.
All working around the clock to eventually produce the breathtaking conclusion:
BUY GOOD SHIT WHEN IT’S CHEAP, AND SELL IT WHEN IT’S EXPENSIVE.
THAT’S IT?!
Wall Street built the Large Hadron Collider of finance…to rediscover the yard sale. Grandma knew this! Grandma didn’t have a Bloomberg terminal, grandma had a purse containing seventeen Kleenexes and a Werther’s Original.
She’d walk into Sears:
“Twenty dollars?!”
Walk out.
Six weeks later:
“Eight dollars?”
“GIMME TWO.”
Warren Buffett Baby!
And apparently the strategy is so simple you can write it on your palm, fantastic.
BUY LOW, SELL HIGH.
Unfortunately, three hours later the investor looks at his palm: BUY HIGH, PANIC, SELL LOW, BLAME FED.
Because people don’t invest with mathematics, they invest with the same brain that sees fourteen people standing outside a restaurant and thinks: “THE FOOD MUST BE GOOD.”
Now we’re trying to avoid something Bill coined as The Big Loss.
That’s excellent branding.
Not market correction, not portfolio drawdown, not capital impairment.
THE BIG LOSS.
Sounds like a bowel movement following Thanksgiving dinner.
“Honey, where’s Frank?”
“Bathroom.”
“How long?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Big Loss?”
“Big Loss.”
And apparently the Big Loss arrives like a sheriff with a summons. Of course it does.
KNOCK KNOCK.
“Who is it?”
“Sheriff.”
“What do you want?”
“You bought Nvidia at 94 times earnings while refinancing your house.”
“Wrong address.”
“I can see you through the window.”
“No you can’t.”
“You’re holding a Robinhood statement.”
“THAT’S MY WIFE’S.”
The great beauty of bubbles is everybody knows bubbles eventually pop, everyone, nobody disagrees.
The disagreement is simply:
WHEN?
And that’s unfortunate because…
THAT’S THE ONLY F*CK*NG PART YOU NEED TO KNOW!
“There’s going to be an earthquake.”
“When?”
“Eventually.”
“Should I leave?”
“Possibly.”
“When?”
“Before.”
“Before what?”
“The earthquake.”
“WHEN IS THAT?”
“Eventually.”
Thank you, Professor.
That’ll be $750 for the advice Sir.
But on a serious note, I’ve always liked bubbles, they contain optimism. Nobody blows a bubble expecting trouble.
You blow it because you want it bigger. That’s also apparently how finance works.
“How large should it become?”
“Larger.”
“When should we stop?”
“Before it bursts.”
“When will that happen?”
“After we should have stopped.”
I see, very useful. Apparently when bubbles collapse, bad investments disappear, that’s actually healthy because bad businesses fail, bad ideas vanish, and bad debt gets written off.
It’s called creative destruction. People who lose their jobs sometimes use a different term, but economists prefer creative destruction. It sounds nicer.
If your employer says:
“Norman, we’re creatively destroying your position,”
“People postpone their vacation plans. They shove plans for a beach house into the desk draw.”
Truth. And in the last 40 years, an indicator of this has been airline bookings. Airline travel is the first “luxury” that Mom&Pop cut.
Every downturn I’ve observed has coincided with airlines announcing dropping advance bookings. Then when the downturn hits, you see lots of empty seats and tickets from Atlanta to Los Angeles for $149. You couldn’t drive past the next state for that.
However, at this point flights are packed. Oversold. Demand off the charts. Ticket prices rising. Huge industry profits. Fat labor contracts. So yes, sure, at some point the “Big Loss” will happen (and the sun will burn out in four or five billion years, give or take several hundred million), but it sure doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen anytime soon.
But, when you start seeing the airlines cancel plane orders, furlough announcements, fire-sales on tickets, and empty middle seats…look out below!
Can you still rely on airline bookings as an economic indicator? Over the last 40 years consumer debt has increased from $3 trillion to almost $19 trillion. How many of those passengers are drowning in debt?
Could be even more applicable now, as credit card debt hits record highs.
Hmmm…cards almost maxxed out: “Honey, groceries or airline tickets, what do you think? I mean, I say airline tickets. I’m a fatass, babe, and could use dropping a few pounds.”…so maybe not a good metric ;-)
Speaking of metrics, car repos are closing in on the highs from the 2008/09 records and US auto debt has doubled since then. Might be a good time to be a Repo Man or to rewatch the 1984 film Repo Man with the great Harry Dean Stanton.
Once home loan defaults happen on a large scale, foreclosure sales, at that point the recession will be in full swing. Actually, I’m waiting on this; hopefully snag a good deal from a bank-owned property.
35 years in the industry. This marker always seemed to indicate the trend of the nation’s economic health, IMO. Like the canary in the coal mine. When family budgets needed to be tightened, airline travel was the first to go. Drive to the beach or Disney World instead of fly. Then when “pass riding”, hey, look at all the empty seats!…but they don’t generate a penny of revenue. Then earnings forecasts adjusted downward. Then new jet orders were deferred or canceled. Then layoffs announced. Uh oh…
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Let's hope that includes freedom from self-serving insiders and their nefarious cronies.
I am sure that Bill hopes that this all happens in the next two years so that he can blame it all on DJT. But even so, I think we are going to be hearing about the ills of DJT long past the days when I am gone in this missive. It is so funny that you hardly hear a thing about old babbling Joe Biden.
I do believe there is going to be a correction, but I do not believe it is going to start in the United States. There are a lot of countries limping along that are in worse shape than the United States. When you see the dominos start falling, then the fights and wars will escalate, then you will see the crisis increase, then you will see the panic, then you will see the fall.
We have been poorly served by every president this century and by each Congress.
I'm beginning to wonder more and more if there is truth to the nostrum that empires last 250 years more or less.
But, I also don't foresee the social collapse Bill envisions just because the cost of credit increases. Slowdown sure, but not the unraveling of the strings that bind us.
More impactful will be the impending reductions in Social Security and Medicare benefits in sixty months, more or less.
I can't argue with much you said here. I think they'll remove the cap on Social Security and increase the tax rate on Medicare to avoid the benefit reductions. It's like that old bit that Limbaugh used to play where a guy imitating Andy Griffith's drawl was going down a list of all the great things about government and said, "And you got your Social Security benefits right up until you need them".
Bart, from what you now know. "Was starting the Iran war a smart decision or a dumb decision?
I think it was an absolutely stupid decision. I also, say this stupid decision was made by the "Commander in Chief" in office when the decision was made. One cannot change jockeys during the race, and I don't think we are going to win the "roses".
We don't talk about or blame bumbling Biden, as the legacy press does the talking and they don't denigrate their own. However, the otherside i.e., Trump et.al. gets 99% negative press. To your point regarding the economy of other countries being in a better position to pop the bubble and then the domino effect will do the rest, I believe that will be the case.
Well, that’s one thing—uncovering the reality brought about by 70 years of warmongering—is something we can be grateful to Trump for accelerating. Who every dreamed he would destroy some of America’s strongest and most promising industries—for a world becoming exponentially more prosperous and exciting (like our top education institutions and tourism) AND traditional US stalwarts like agriculture and international trade—all in exchange for the most costly and incompetent military in our history? Fortunately for humanity the new world leader, China, actually believes in and practices real PEACE.
As I've mentioned before, the people in charge keep finding newer and more novel ways of keeping the circus rolling along. They give us new shiny things to take our attention elsewhere, more sports teams, more entertainment to watch — be it in person or on the telly.
But one day, there will be no more novel ways.
One day, the circus will run out of acts.
One day, the ringleader's stories will be too much for even the most adept sword swallower to, er, swallow. And we will question his/her story. So much so that the seams holding the entire tent together will begin to show their wear, struggling to hold back the rain from those sheltered inside.
The tent will come down.
And the circus will be shown the way out of town.
Stocks will be sold by investors. Or sold for them on margin calls, by their brokers. Long leveraged ETFs will rebalance, mechanically following the trend into the abyss. Puts will be bought and ridden like toboggans to the bottom of the hill. Options dealers will hedge — some adding fuel to the descent, others leaning against it. Some market makers will survive, as they always have in the past. Some will not.
Memories will fade over time.
And a new travelling circus will one day grace the borders of our towns. The excesses of the past, the horrors that the last circus visited upon the old guard, will be forgotten.
And the new circus — perhaps the old one, with a new name — will be re-invited into town.
To entertain the new generation — the ones who have forgotten the trials and tribulations of generations past.
I've written about these financial instruments and more as I try to understand how the next meltdown will happen, in my latest series, The Cliff Is Moving.
Needless to say, Bill and Co. have been great inspirations in opening my eyes.
When did it all change; Lincoln and Rockefeller were born in a log cabin; some, on the plains, were still in sod huts and land was free in some places.
America was different. It was not a feudal society, average people had opportunity.
Now, it is all destroyed, the five percent own everything, they own the government, the people are an afterthought.
It failed in 1929, the government stepped in; it worked and expanded till “government became the problem”, but Reagan increased it; government was no longer for the people of the people.
Divide and conquer, confusion reigns, money buys power and power is the few.
It might all come tumbling down. It is surprising how many insurrections there were in the 11th century, how much blood was spilt, but the king, the nobles, always won, the people remained peasants.
You even had the reign of terror in France, in Russia, and it always reverts to the same dreary thing. Bastards control. Now they do it completely, digitally. It is a brave new world; the depravity goes on and on, exponentially faster, like the rise of technology. The end, nuclear, is near. One last big explosion. It will put us out of our ever-increasing misery. The last “dot “
those many 'trolls' that comment on this page enjoy your self infatuated pomposity and please wear your RED hat so we can recognise you .. the joy will be ours as all your stupid dreams and conspiracies come to a just end along with the great destroyer of the once short US empire RIP
Bill writes that when the debt bubble pops, "people lose their jobs and their incomes." (Finally, Bill mentions "jobs," which he rarely does.) But near the end of his essay, he writes why he believes the Fed and Congress will jump in during this crisis: "Their aim is to protect the big banks...and make sure that neither they, nor their insider cronies, take the losses they deserve. And then…it’s a whole new ballgame." No, they--mostly--jump in with trillions of digitized phony money to protect depositors and millions of jobs. This will result in inflation, probably hyper-inflation.
Henry Paulson & Ben Bernanke said in 2008 during the last U.S. financial crisis, that the phony-money-pumping was to--mostly--protect depositors and jobs. Of course, privately, it was about protecting their cronies and other bigwigs, who could avoid taking huge financial losses (and few were ever prosecuted for their nonsense); but, politically it was to keep the folks financially pumped up. U.S. presidential candidates Obama and McCain did not argue against it for political reasons.
Bill doesn't like to go this far in his analyses because he likes to make himself feel morally superior by virtue-signaling about the national debt by wanting the budget balanced in a short time frame, which he knows would lead to a depression via millions (tens of millions?) of jobs being wiped out in short order. So of course this is why he rarely goes deeper about financial issues.
Haha — That is a lot of projection when you call me an angry little man. Only top 3%? Yes, you are a serf. Fat as well by the sounds of it. And no, eating biscuits is not the same as working out…
If they had lost control then stocks would be collapsing. They're not, so they have not lost control. How long have you been saying they have lost control? That's how long you have been wrong.
If you think I like big government or any government then you are the fool because you could not be more wrong. The fed/gov will do everything to protect their backers and cronies which amounts to doing everything to protect asset prices. Have fun betting against the fed, serf.
I almost forgot. I have since seen Peter Schiff and Martin Armstrong say the Fed has lost control of rates. Now come back and say something nasty because you are safe, my angry little man.
Well, I happen to be in the top 3% net worth in the country. So if I am a serf to you, you must be a very wealthy man. Congratulations. By the way, I am 6'5" and weigh 255 lbs. I work out 6 days a week. Please know that when you call me names you would not do that to my face. I know your kind well. You are an angry little man. So now you will come back with some more nastiness. You are the typical telephone tough guy/keyboard warrior. Angry little man.
When the "crash" comes everyone will feel some pain, some more than others. Very few stocks, a lot of cash on hand, and a lot of than old useless yellow metal we little people have been told is useless most of our lives, will allow us to eat and sleep well. We, the readers of BPR, just have to remain calm and not panic as this crazy story unfolds ,,,,,, and it will!
Jim Marshall
The next crash will unfold. The unknown is whether it will unfold while the majority of us are still alive.
Remember Doug Casey, who started this with Crisis Investing in 1979, and wrote on its introduction page:
“To those who used to wonder why everything is ‘different’ today, then figured out the reason.”
He spawned a multi-million-dollar contrarian viewpoint newsletter from “figuring it out.”
That was almost two generations ago.
Twenty-somethings today don’t even remember 9/11. They weren’t old enough — or weren’t even born. I was researching Pearl Harbor in my teens in the ’70s. Many twenty-year-olds today would rather binge the next Reacher series.
The distractions abound.
But hope springs eternal.
Draft: Human Edit: AI
You are correct about the timing of things.... always a crap shoot. With respect to Casey's writings and Bill Bonners', both have done a good job of keeping the destruction of the USD front and center. For those of us who "listened" a little, we have prepared for what "is" coming. We may not live long enough to see the next crisis but we will leave something behind for those we care about. And yes, the younger crowd will have to learn the lessons of history the hard way.
Jim Marshall
I hit like. But, When things go so bad , try to by an apple with your microscopic piece of gold.
Remember the movie Dr Zhivago? If not,check it out. The bad guy , shows up with a tablespoon of sugar or salt in his palm looking foe quarter. It's slapped away. If it was gold , they probably will be just kill him. That reality was not too far in our rearview mirror. And we have asshatted politicians , wanting to bring it back
I fear that this will be the norm with our current socialist tendencies in the West.
"How dare you profit from accurately predicting that humans are flawed and will mess ot uo. You must share your good fortune with the collective and go to the gulag for penance" (if youre lucky).
I agree, that's why I have bags of PRE 1965 silver coins, enough to last a LONG time.
Jim
I love financial advice, especially the complicated kind, thousands of analysts, economists, strategists, portfolio managers, quantitative researchers, financial television, newsletters, algorithms, supercomputers, and Bloomberg terminals costing thousands of dollars.
All working around the clock to eventually produce the breathtaking conclusion:
BUY GOOD SHIT WHEN IT’S CHEAP, AND SELL IT WHEN IT’S EXPENSIVE.
THAT’S IT?!
Wall Street built the Large Hadron Collider of finance…to rediscover the yard sale. Grandma knew this! Grandma didn’t have a Bloomberg terminal, grandma had a purse containing seventeen Kleenexes and a Werther’s Original.
She’d walk into Sears:
“Twenty dollars?!”
Walk out.
Six weeks later:
“Eight dollars?”
“GIMME TWO.”
Warren Buffett Baby!
And apparently the strategy is so simple you can write it on your palm, fantastic.
BUY LOW, SELL HIGH.
Unfortunately, three hours later the investor looks at his palm: BUY HIGH, PANIC, SELL LOW, BLAME FED.
Because people don’t invest with mathematics, they invest with the same brain that sees fourteen people standing outside a restaurant and thinks: “THE FOOD MUST BE GOOD.”
Now we’re trying to avoid something Bill coined as The Big Loss.
That’s excellent branding.
Not market correction, not portfolio drawdown, not capital impairment.
THE BIG LOSS.
Sounds like a bowel movement following Thanksgiving dinner.
“Honey, where’s Frank?”
“Bathroom.”
“How long?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Big Loss?”
“Big Loss.”
And apparently the Big Loss arrives like a sheriff with a summons. Of course it does.
KNOCK KNOCK.
“Who is it?”
“Sheriff.”
“What do you want?”
“You bought Nvidia at 94 times earnings while refinancing your house.”
“Wrong address.”
“I can see you through the window.”
“No you can’t.”
“You’re holding a Robinhood statement.”
“THAT’S MY WIFE’S.”
The great beauty of bubbles is everybody knows bubbles eventually pop, everyone, nobody disagrees.
The disagreement is simply:
WHEN?
And that’s unfortunate because…
THAT’S THE ONLY F*CK*NG PART YOU NEED TO KNOW!
“There’s going to be an earthquake.”
“When?”
“Eventually.”
“Should I leave?”
“Possibly.”
“When?”
“Before.”
“Before what?”
“The earthquake.”
“WHEN IS THAT?”
“Eventually.”
Thank you, Professor.
That’ll be $750 for the advice Sir.
But on a serious note, I’ve always liked bubbles, they contain optimism. Nobody blows a bubble expecting trouble.
You blow it because you want it bigger. That’s also apparently how finance works.
“How large should it become?”
“Larger.”
“When should we stop?”
“Before it bursts.”
“When will that happen?”
“After we should have stopped.”
I see, very useful. Apparently when bubbles collapse, bad investments disappear, that’s actually healthy because bad businesses fail, bad ideas vanish, and bad debt gets written off.
It’s called creative destruction. People who lose their jobs sometimes use a different term, but economists prefer creative destruction. It sounds nicer.
If your employer says:
“Norman, we’re creatively destroying your position,”
You don’t feel unemployed, you feel avant-garde!
“People postpone their vacation plans. They shove plans for a beach house into the desk draw.”
Truth. And in the last 40 years, an indicator of this has been airline bookings. Airline travel is the first “luxury” that Mom&Pop cut.
Every downturn I’ve observed has coincided with airlines announcing dropping advance bookings. Then when the downturn hits, you see lots of empty seats and tickets from Atlanta to Los Angeles for $149. You couldn’t drive past the next state for that.
However, at this point flights are packed. Oversold. Demand off the charts. Ticket prices rising. Huge industry profits. Fat labor contracts. So yes, sure, at some point the “Big Loss” will happen (and the sun will burn out in four or five billion years, give or take several hundred million), but it sure doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen anytime soon.
But, when you start seeing the airlines cancel plane orders, furlough announcements, fire-sales on tickets, and empty middle seats…look out below!
Can you still rely on airline bookings as an economic indicator? Over the last 40 years consumer debt has increased from $3 trillion to almost $19 trillion. How many of those passengers are drowning in debt?
Use whatever metric you’re comfortable with. You do you.
Just asking if this historic level of consumer debt could have an effect on airline bookings.
Could be even more applicable now, as credit card debt hits record highs.
Hmmm…cards almost maxxed out: “Honey, groceries or airline tickets, what do you think? I mean, I say airline tickets. I’m a fatass, babe, and could use dropping a few pounds.”…so maybe not a good metric ;-)
Speaking of metrics, car repos are closing in on the highs from the 2008/09 records and US auto debt has doubled since then. Might be a good time to be a Repo Man or to rewatch the 1984 film Repo Man with the great Harry Dean Stanton.
Yes, I think car repos are also a good metric.
Once home loan defaults happen on a large scale, foreclosure sales, at that point the recession will be in full swing. Actually, I’m waiting on this; hopefully snag a good deal from a bank-owned property.
I happened to own a used car business at that time. People in the industry loved it!
Of course it does.
Never looked at airlines before . I do think You are on to a new way to I.D. the bust.
35 years in the industry. This marker always seemed to indicate the trend of the nation’s economic health, IMO. Like the canary in the coal mine. When family budgets needed to be tightened, airline travel was the first to go. Drive to the beach or Disney World instead of fly. Then when “pass riding”, hey, look at all the empty seats!…but they don’t generate a penny of revenue. Then earnings forecasts adjusted downward. Then new jet orders were deferred or canceled. Then layoffs announced. Uh oh…
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Let's hope that includes freedom from self-serving insiders and their nefarious cronies.
I am sure that Bill hopes that this all happens in the next two years so that he can blame it all on DJT. But even so, I think we are going to be hearing about the ills of DJT long past the days when I am gone in this missive. It is so funny that you hardly hear a thing about old babbling Joe Biden.
I do believe there is going to be a correction, but I do not believe it is going to start in the United States. There are a lot of countries limping along that are in worse shape than the United States. When you see the dominos start falling, then the fights and wars will escalate, then you will see the crisis increase, then you will see the panic, then you will see the fall.
We have been poorly served by every president this century and by each Congress.
I'm beginning to wonder more and more if there is truth to the nostrum that empires last 250 years more or less.
But, I also don't foresee the social collapse Bill envisions just because the cost of credit increases. Slowdown sure, but not the unraveling of the strings that bind us.
More impactful will be the impending reductions in Social Security and Medicare benefits in sixty months, more or less.
I can't argue with much you said here. I think they'll remove the cap on Social Security and increase the tax rate on Medicare to avoid the benefit reductions. It's like that old bit that Limbaugh used to play where a guy imitating Andy Griffith's drawl was going down a list of all the great things about government and said, "And you got your Social Security benefits right up until you need them".
On this, Jimm, I 100% agree with you. Well said.
Bart, from what you now know. "Was starting the Iran war a smart decision or a dumb decision?
I think it was an absolutely stupid decision. I also, say this stupid decision was made by the "Commander in Chief" in office when the decision was made. One cannot change jockeys during the race, and I don't think we are going to win the "roses".
We don't talk about or blame bumbling Biden, as the legacy press does the talking and they don't denigrate their own. However, the otherside i.e., Trump et.al. gets 99% negative press. To your point regarding the economy of other countries being in a better position to pop the bubble and then the domino effect will do the rest, I believe that will be the case.
Well, that’s one thing—uncovering the reality brought about by 70 years of warmongering—is something we can be grateful to Trump for accelerating. Who every dreamed he would destroy some of America’s strongest and most promising industries—for a world becoming exponentially more prosperous and exciting (like our top education institutions and tourism) AND traditional US stalwarts like agriculture and international trade—all in exchange for the most costly and incompetent military in our history? Fortunately for humanity the new world leader, China, actually believes in and practices real PEACE.
I realize that I'm just responding to a Chinese bot, but the only "peace" China gives a 💩about is the RIP kind.
As I've mentioned before, the people in charge keep finding newer and more novel ways of keeping the circus rolling along. They give us new shiny things to take our attention elsewhere, more sports teams, more entertainment to watch — be it in person or on the telly.
But one day, there will be no more novel ways.
One day, the circus will run out of acts.
One day, the ringleader's stories will be too much for even the most adept sword swallower to, er, swallow. And we will question his/her story. So much so that the seams holding the entire tent together will begin to show their wear, struggling to hold back the rain from those sheltered inside.
The tent will come down.
And the circus will be shown the way out of town.
Stocks will be sold by investors. Or sold for them on margin calls, by their brokers. Long leveraged ETFs will rebalance, mechanically following the trend into the abyss. Puts will be bought and ridden like toboggans to the bottom of the hill. Options dealers will hedge — some adding fuel to the descent, others leaning against it. Some market makers will survive, as they always have in the past. Some will not.
Memories will fade over time.
And a new travelling circus will one day grace the borders of our towns. The excesses of the past, the horrors that the last circus visited upon the old guard, will be forgotten.
And the new circus — perhaps the old one, with a new name — will be re-invited into town.
To entertain the new generation — the ones who have forgotten the trials and tribulations of generations past.
I've written about these financial instruments and more as I try to understand how the next meltdown will happen, in my latest series, The Cliff Is Moving.
Needless to say, Bill and Co. have been great inspirations in opening my eyes.
I'm just following the trend.
Draft: Human. Edit: AI
When did it all change; Lincoln and Rockefeller were born in a log cabin; some, on the plains, were still in sod huts and land was free in some places.
America was different. It was not a feudal society, average people had opportunity.
Now, it is all destroyed, the five percent own everything, they own the government, the people are an afterthought.
It failed in 1929, the government stepped in; it worked and expanded till “government became the problem”, but Reagan increased it; government was no longer for the people of the people.
Divide and conquer, confusion reigns, money buys power and power is the few.
It might all come tumbling down. It is surprising how many insurrections there were in the 11th century, how much blood was spilt, but the king, the nobles, always won, the people remained peasants.
You even had the reign of terror in France, in Russia, and it always reverts to the same dreary thing. Bastards control. Now they do it completely, digitally. It is a brave new world; the depravity goes on and on, exponentially faster, like the rise of technology. The end, nuclear, is near. One last big explosion. It will put us out of our ever-increasing misery. The last “dot “
Interesting that now the topic of conversation is now "when the bubble will pop" and it's considered legitimate in all the forums I read.
those many 'trolls' that comment on this page enjoy your self infatuated pomposity and please wear your RED hat so we can recognise you .. the joy will be ours as all your stupid dreams and conspiracies come to a just end along with the great destroyer of the once short US empire RIP
Bill writes that when the debt bubble pops, "people lose their jobs and their incomes." (Finally, Bill mentions "jobs," which he rarely does.) But near the end of his essay, he writes why he believes the Fed and Congress will jump in during this crisis: "Their aim is to protect the big banks...and make sure that neither they, nor their insider cronies, take the losses they deserve. And then…it’s a whole new ballgame." No, they--mostly--jump in with trillions of digitized phony money to protect depositors and millions of jobs. This will result in inflation, probably hyper-inflation.
Henry Paulson & Ben Bernanke said in 2008 during the last U.S. financial crisis, that the phony-money-pumping was to--mostly--protect depositors and jobs. Of course, privately, it was about protecting their cronies and other bigwigs, who could avoid taking huge financial losses (and few were ever prosecuted for their nonsense); but, politically it was to keep the folks financially pumped up. U.S. presidential candidates Obama and McCain did not argue against it for political reasons.
Bill doesn't like to go this far in his analyses because he likes to make himself feel morally superior by virtue-signaling about the national debt by wanting the budget balanced in a short time frame, which he knows would lead to a depression via millions (tens of millions?) of jobs being wiped out in short order. So of course this is why he rarely goes deeper about financial issues.
‘Inflate or Die’ Bill calls it.
‘Debasement or Die’ Tom called it recently.
I’ve come to think of it as ‘soft default or hard default’. Either way it’s a default.
Thanks as always BPR.
They won’t allow asset prices to crash
Haha — That is a lot of projection when you call me an angry little man. Only top 3%? Yes, you are a serf. Fat as well by the sounds of it. And no, eating biscuits is not the same as working out…
😂😂😂😂😂 How will they stop it? The Fed has lost control. Completely. I do admire your optimism, though.
If they had lost control then stocks would be collapsing. They're not, so they have not lost control. How long have you been saying they have lost control? That's how long you have been wrong.
When the Fed gives cash to a foreign nation that is losing control, you are just another status fool who loves big government.
If you think I like big government or any government then you are the fool because you could not be more wrong. The fed/gov will do everything to protect their backers and cronies which amounts to doing everything to protect asset prices. Have fun betting against the fed, serf.
I almost forgot. I have since seen Peter Schiff and Martin Armstrong say the Fed has lost control of rates. Now come back and say something nasty because you are safe, my angry little man.
Well, I happen to be in the top 3% net worth in the country. So if I am a serf to you, you must be a very wealthy man. Congratulations. By the way, I am 6'5" and weigh 255 lbs. I work out 6 days a week. Please know that when you call me names you would not do that to my face. I know your kind well. You are an angry little man. So now you will come back with some more nastiness. You are the typical telephone tough guy/keyboard warrior. Angry little man.