Gee, do you think I'm a little gloomy this morning?
Jim Chanos, an investor, said something the other day with regard to his short position in Tesla stock. He cut back his position in that company as it's shares have soared 800% this year in a new Tulip Bulb bubble mania in the US stock "market." Robinhood-ers have ironically made Elon Musk the 2nd most wealthy man on the planet by showering him with money! (Hey Robinhooders, you're not supposed to steal from the poor and give to the rich! Geez, can't we get anything right in this country??)
We have the most manipulated, jaw-boned, fraudulent markets EVER, especially Tesla. Chanos said that we're in "The Golden Age of Fraud." It's so true and it applies to not only the stock market, but virtually every aspect of our country now: the lying media, the lying government, the lying Democrats/ RINOs, the phony election, etc.
Our Golden Age of Fraud
With the election drama playing out, we're seeing some of the extent of widespread fraud in the recent election. It's really just a small part of the shocking and widespread dishonesty, cheating and depravity unfolding in our country. It's no exaggeration to say that we're losing our country in one generation.
Ronald Reagan said that it was possible to lose your country in one generation. Mr. Trump who, with all his faults is, like Reagan, an elderly remnant of the Golden Age of America, when it was populated by the "greatest generation:" a generation forged by the Great Depression and the sacrifices of turning back the evil forces of fascism in WWII.
Trump's a less polished version of Ronald Reagan but both championed the essential foundations of the unique cultural foundations of America: family, faith, freedom, immigration from Northern Europe (Yes, intelligent, cultured, self-sufficient, self-organizing white persons of faith), personal responsibility, small government, vibrant free-market Capitalism, the wisdom of a strong defense and sound education that include Civics(!)
All of these values are under attack in this country. And all we have left in the West is a golden age of fraud.
Our country's decline really started in earnest in the fateful year of 1971, when Nixon abandoned the Bretton Woods arrangement which linked the US dollar to gold. Almost immediately, a sequence of events began --- whose effects are now truly threatening our country. In my post, 1971: The Beginning of the End--Massive Monetary Disorder, I said the following:
...in 1971, Nixon ended the [Bretton Woods] monetary arrangement which ended gold-backed money. It was done at that time to enable the government to run deficits to fund the Viet Nam war without raising taxes to pay for it. As an immediate result, the US dollar plunged in value and our national debt and inflation began to skyrocket. A falling dollar soon caused the oil exporting countries to sharply raise oil prices in 1974 igniting a budgetary and inflationary spiral.
Thereafter came decades of huge, unsustainable global imbalances in trade and debt, inflation, falling living standards, inequality, monetary disorder, instability, the rise of China, the Petro-dollar, endless wars, the massive military-industrial complex, a leviathan surveillance state, mega corporate monopolies, massive US government growth, government malfeasance and corruption, national de-industrialization, wealth inequality, the Eurodollar rise and fall, widespread US intervention and manipulation in nearly every global nation -- continuing to the present day--- All fueled by easy (unsound) money enabling out-of-control spending (debt).
Rising debt, budget deficits, trade deficits, financial asset inflation, repeated bubbles and the resulting instability (collapsing bubbles) and deep recessions have serially eroded our economy and culture since 1971 really, but especially since 2001. The result, in part, is that our society, our culture, our civic order, our work ethic, our moral bearings have all decayed and diminished due to ongoing economic stagnation for most citizens. Our social contract has also been torn asunder. It's not just in the US, but all over the world.
The perpetual trade deficits, enabled by unsound money, ultimately caused the rise of Japan and China and a major de-industrialization of the USA (and Europe) that continues to this day. This is called "Globalism" and is mostly responsible for lousy job markets and low worker pay in recent decades. More debt at all levels hid the evidence of that cancer for a long time. And lower and lower interest rates also kept the game going for a long time. Other wreckage of the Extremes in Unsound Money and Finance:
We live in a time of nothing but massively unsound money and finance thanks to the failures of our Central Bank and the corrupted government. Even our current concept of money is completely corrupted. It's as if no one alive even knows or remembers what sound money or sound finance is. Maybe that's why there are somewhat regular society-wide and world-wide crises happen about every 80 years as described in The Fourth Turning by Howe and Strauss. (We're due for a major bust)
We have massive corruption in all elements of government and the moral and intellectual decay of our population. We have a massive and expensive surveillance state, weaponized police and government departments, massive wealth inequality, massive financial deficits and debt with nothing to show for it, bloated money supplies, a hollowed-out economy stripped of entire industries and well-paying jobs, corrupted and lying media outlets spreading nothing but political propaganda and persecution of Conservatives.
Everything in Washington is broken and failed. Nothing is fixed. Much of Washington is plotting to illegally and unconstitutionally overthrow the Trump administration and has been from (before) day one. Despite all the spending, our infrastructure and military has decayed. Our government is interfering with and manipulating virtually every foreign country -- yet half of our nation was obsessed with a largely non-existent influence of Russia in ours.
It's all become this way because we are told nothing but lies by politicians, corporate chieftains, Big Media and other elites that everything is fine even though it's obvious that everything is broken. Only Trump was able to say the obvious truth much to the delight of one-half of the nation who were tired of lies.
The US financial system had a near-death experience in 2008 when the Great Mortgage Debt Fraud unraveled and the entire world financial system came to a standstill along with world trade. Even more extraordinary monetary inflation (debt) was applied (most notably from China) and things smoothed out. All financial markets soared thanks to more easy money (unsound money not backed by anything) but economic and wage growth slowed further leaving more people behind.
The emergency measures of zero, negative or extremely low interest rates, and "quantitative easing" have been the norm since then.. But zero or negative rates continue to erode the very foundations of capitalism itself; hurting pension plans, the banking system, savers, insurers and retirees all while creating financial market bubbles which enrich the already-wealthy and perpetuating an increasing number of "zombie" companies--that should have failed. Internal and international imbalances (trade and debt) continue to build to preposterous levels. It is now known that all sovereign debt can never be paid back. Interest rates can never rise due to debt levels.
The end result of this chain of events listed above is economic stagnation for the bottom 80% of US citizens with fabulously wealthy top 1% and 0.1% who have made $100s of Billions in the fraudulent, bubbly equity markets that give the illusion of economic health. Meanwhile, poverty is expanding rapidly in most countries and in the USA. Wealth inequality is ominously back to 1929 levels.
Fast forward a few years to the Repo Crisis of September 2019, just last year, when multiple financial entities were failing here and/or abroad and were secretly bailed-out through a vast expansion Central Bank (Repo) money (at least 1/2 Trillion dollars). Read about it in my posts: Rising Risk of Financial and Economic Chaos Part 1 and Rising Risk of Financial and Economic Chaos Part 2.
To this day, no one is allowed to know which financial entities were failing and rescued by our Central Bank. It's another crisis averted, but for how long?? The crises are becoming more and more frequent. The secrecy is a another problem in itself.
From GSN Economics: "Central Banks, in their efforts to “save” the world economy since 2009, have created a monster: a dysfunctional, extremely-speculative and highly-leveraged financial sector. All that is needed for it to unravel are rising rates in an some important, if obscure, corner of the capital markets—just like the Repo-markets."The 2nd Great Depression
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It doesn't feel like it, with all our luxurious trappings, that we're literally living on borrowed time (and money). We're also literally at the edge of Revolution in the US and Europe. We have the "appearance" of prosperity -- all funded by debt. After $3 Trillion of deficit spending and $4 Trillion of money created out of thin air at the Federal Reserve just this year alone, we now have an awakening of inflation (stagflation). The US dollar has begun to 'crash'. The stock markets are soaring to new highs as the economy is still in a Depression. Our wealthy and big Oligarchs are richer than ever.
Young people entering the workforce are now unable to afford their own apartment or a house, a car, a college degree or their own health insurance based on $10 or $15 or even $20 per hour pay. Hell, the only thing they can look forward to is an Uber ride and an I-Phone. It's no wonder why so many people are pissed off! A young person today can be excused for considering Socialism as an alternative to our failed crony capitalism. Zero rates and big government spending/lending caused this.
Now, we're hearing calls for a "Great Reset' or "Build Back Better" or people begging for the highly deceitful and nonsense "Green New Deal." which are all nice-sounding slogans for an outright Communistic, Big Government takeover of our economy. It's all because our hopelessly corrupted capitalism is failing. But it isn't just capitalism that's been corrupted and is failing due to unsound money excesses, it's also massively corrupted big governments that are ruining everything: our society, our culture, and the true engine of wealth creation: capitalism.
But notice these recommended solutions slogans for the problems created mostly by big government is BIGGER, MORE FASCIST GOVERNMENT!!? Huh? The Green New Deal is an enormous Bolshevik Power Grab. It's Communism 3.0. It's what Klaus Schwab and the Davos crowd want for our country and the world. So far, they're winning. Only Trump and his supporters are in their way. Trump may be ousted in the most corrupt US election of all time giving the Davos crowd a green light to promote their communist "new world order" where you own nothing but you'll be happy.
That's where we are as a country. The presidential election is currently being stolen by shadowy, evil forces of the radical Left, who is nearly successful in seizing the Government here and has already seized the EU government. We're literally in yet another attempted coup against Mr. Trump (and the culture that he and his supporters unabashedly champion). Everything is a lie now. The corrupt media and Big Tech are leading the charge in manipulation and lying. We're a "Nation Drowning in Lies: Massive Lies and the Largest Fraudulent Election in History."
Everyone is lying to you (as Communists always do). Judges, the Bidens and many corporations and government officials are paid-off by China's communists.
Our country, a worldwide beacon of hope for 100s of years, is being destroyed at a breathtaking rate of speed. Maybe it had to happen. Nothing lasts forever. If we aren't teaching our Constitutional, free market system to our young people, which we really don't have now, then we really are doomed.
Good article - the sad truth of our current situation
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