Blowing bubbles is fun for the participants and profitable for a few until the bubble crashes.
“Wall Street on Parade is not buying the narrative that the $3 trillion that the New York Fed has pumped out to the trading houses on Wall Street since September 17 is part of routine open market operations that the Fed is legally allowed to do.”
The United States should have allowed banks to fail in 2008. Perhaps the U.S. should allow banks to fail in 2019 instead of creating $3 trillion or $30 trillion (QE plus “not QE”) and devaluing existing dollars.
SO WHAT?
Bail out several banks, print $10 or $50 trillion… so what? Consider:
a)
Moral hazard
. Wall Street takes risks, increases profits, boosts bonuses, and lets the taxpayers suffer if the bets in the Wall Street casino go bad.
b)
More debt
: History shows that excessive debt leads to disaster. It will not be different this time.
c)
More dollars
in circulation push consumer prices higher.
d)
Larger bubbles
: The 2008 bubble was larger and more destructive than the 2000 bubble. Expect the 2020-2024 bubble implosion to create more damage than the 2008 crash.
e)
Poor and middle-class
Americans are hurt worse than the political and financial elite. Imploding bubbles, diminished savings, lost jobs and foreclosed homes devastate many. Fudged statistics and payoffs to Wall Street reduce trust in government.
f)
Privatize profits
but socialize losses. Wall Street might have said, “Let the taxpayers pay for Wall Street bonuses and failed gambles.”
“With annual debt payments already accounting for most of the US budget deficit and that deficit getting larger, any rise in dollar interest rates would be ruinous for federal government finances. Eurozone governments are in a similarly precarious financial position.
Governments are ensnared in a classic debt trap.”
A credit excess inflates bubbles. Debt increases. The leverage makes a few wealthy and crushes many. The assets disappear, but debt remains. Someone pays interest on the debt. The bubble seldom increases productivity or real wealth.
A good example of a current bubble is sovereign debt. Why loan currency units to a government that must borrow to repay past debt plus interest? They roll over the original debt and never extinguish it. This nonsense can’t continue forever, so many will suffer when the defaults occur. Speculation and front running partially explain the craziness.
“An estimated $17 trillion of global bonds are negative yielding, which is unprecedented. This is a market distortion so extreme that it cannot be normalized without widespread financial disruption and debtor destruction. There is no exit from this condition.”
Repeat: “There is no exit from this condition.”
From Sven Henrich (tweet):
“Central banks are the enablers of the largest debt expansion in human history and insist on perpetuating what Jay Powell has called an unsustainable path.”
“The answer is of course: It won’t be paid back. And since every debt is someone else’s asset, you can imagine what that ultimately means. A great many people are a lot less wealthy than they think.
It is all phantom wealth that can disappear in an eyeblink.”
[Pater Tenebrarum]
Repeat: “It is all phantom wealth that can disappear in an eyeblink.”
That explains the Fed’s need to create $trillions in “printed” currency units—they must delay imploding the bubble.
You can run, but you can’t hide. You can delay the inevitable, but you can’t prevent it. Bubbles will implode.
“Suffice to say that the negative-yielding bonds are going to crash like something not witnessed since 1931. While a complete default is not likely prior to 2025/2026
, we are going to witness the start of the collapse in 2020.”
The “plan” is INFLATE OR DIE! Then (speculating) “extend and pretend” for another eleven months, drop interest rates to near zero, reelect President Trump, and let stocks and sovereign debt implode after the 2020 election. Fiat currencies will crash in purchasing power and congress will seek someone to blame as a distraction. Suggestions for blame:
a)
China
b)
Russia
c)
The other political party
d)
High frequency trading
e)
The latest war
f)
European banks
g)
Impeachment proceedings
h)
Climate change
Not on the “blame” list (but should be):
a)
The Fed
b)
Congress
c)
Excessive spending
d)
The administration
e)
Keynesian economic nonsense
“If this monetary experiment has proven anything it is that lower rates and higher liquidity are not tools to help deleverage, but to incentivize debt.”
From Christoph Gisiger:
“When it comes to science and technology, man learns, but when it comes to love, war and finance, he makes the same mistakes over and over again.”
[Bill Bonner quote]
“At the end of the day, central banks are not all powerful. They are not immune to the laws of economics
.” [An important stimulus for the current bubbles is the mistaken belief that The Fed is powerful enough to inflate the bubbles further and prevent a crash. Wrong in the past, wrong now, and wrong in the future…]
“My thesis is that when this bubble bursts, gold should rally, while bonds and stocks should crash.”
A Thought Experiment:
In round numbers, global debt has expanded by $82 trillion from $173 trillion to $255 trillion in the past 11 years. In that time global gold reserves have increased by 30,000 to 35,000 tons, or by about one billion ounces. If that new debt had been backed by gold, it would have required a gold price of $80,000.
The price of gold is about $1,500, less than 2% of what would be necessary to back the global debt increase since 2008.
The world has a global debt problem.
This suggests the banking cartel created too much debt (a bubble!) and the price of gold is too low in our debt-driven economy.
The crash of “the everything” bubble will reset stock and bond prices lower, and gold prices higher—perhaps to $5,000 to $10,000 during the next decade.
A western central banker might see it differently; gold is useless, and no amount of debt is excessive. Time will show this viewpoint is nonsense.
“As of November 18
th
, sentiment for the S&P futures and the Nasdaq Index is approaching nosebleed territory… The DSI at 90 for the S&P and 91 for the Nasdaq Index suggests a top is coming soon. Not today but soon.”
CONCLUSIONS:
- Global debt exceeds $250 trillion. Much of it will not be repaid.
- Bubbles are fun while they last. But they always implode and leave many in tears.
- The reset will be near when the mainstream media screams accusations at obvious scapegoats.
- Sentiment suggests a stock market top is close. Watch out below.
- Negative interest rates are a central bank created trap (black hole). Expect massive losses in sovereign bonds – someday soon.
- Gold prices, compared to new debt since the 2008 crash, are far too low. Expect a significant price rise in 2020 – 2024 as financial conditions deteriorate.
Call
Miles Franklin
at 1-800-822-8080 to convert digital dollars to real money – gold and silver bars and coins.
Gary Christenson
