Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

https://deviantinvestor.com/

Downturns and Financial Crises – Sequence
Posted on February 20, 2019 by Gary Christenson

Miles Franklin sponsored this article by Gary Christenson, the Deviant Investor. The opinions are his.
Bond Market Turned Down & Interest Rates Up – Check!

1. Two-Year yield bottomed September 2011
2. Five-Year yield bottomed July 2012
3. Ten-Year yield bottomed July 2016
4. The 30+ year bond bull market is done.

Housing Market Turned Down – Check!

1. Mortgage rates bottomed in July 2016.
2. Mortgage applications have fallen hard.
3. London, Vancouver B.C. and Australian prices are down.
4. New York, San Francisco, and Dallas prices are down.
5. Housing Bubble 2.0 is correcting.

Stock Markets Turned Down—Check!

1. Chinese Shanghai peaked January 2018
2. German DAX peaked January 2018
3. U.K. FTSI peaked May 2018
4. U.S. NASDAQ peaked August 2018
5. U.S. Transports peaked September 2018
6. U.S. DOW peaked October 2018
7. All indices are off their highs. New lows lie ahead.

Debt Crisis In Progress—Check!

1. U.S. “official” national debt is $22 trillion
2. Global debt is about $250 trillion
3. Debt is growing exponentially and much faster than the economies which must support the debt. (Trouble ahead!)
4. Debt can’t be repaid unless dollars/yen/euros/pounds are devalued.
5. Default and/or hyper-inflation are visible on the horizon.
6. The coming recession will devastate tax revenues and worsen the debt crisis.
7. We can’t fix a debt problem with more debt.

Currencies Collapse—More Coming?

1. Venezuela, Argentina, and Turkey printed currencies that have collapsed or fallen. Others will follow.
2. The euro is vulnerable. Italian and Spanish debt is dodgy.
3. Deutsche Bank and several Italian and French banks may fail.
4. Trillions in U.S. “sub-prime” corporate debt may default.
5. Many countries seek dollar alternatives, which will weaken the dollar further.
6. The dollar is vulnerable as Washington politicians will need the 2019-2020 version of QE to continue their “out-of-control” spending.

Runaway Inflation—On the Horizon?

1. The U.S. inflation of the 1970s may look like a walk in the park on a warm sunny day compared to hyper-inflation created by irresponsible spending, debt creation, Fed policies and monetization.
2. Prices for food, energy, and services will explode if government fails to intelligently control spending. The prognosis is grim.
3. Loss of purchasing power will devastate savings and retirements for everyone but the top few percent if “they” create runaway inflation.
4. Will the coming reset occur in months or a few years?

Civil Disorder—Coming?

1. Arab spring disruptions
2. Riots in France and Europe today
3. U.S.A.?
4. Police and the military will use force to control outbursts.

Rise of Global Currency and Controls?

1. Global controls, New World Order and a global currency are planned by the “globalists.”
2. The IMF and BIS want more power over global economies.
3. This is a dangerous scenario.

Speculations, Guesses and Worries!

1. Recession and trauma during 2019-2020. Voter unrest.
2. Stock markets, housing markets, auto sales, and retail sales fall further.
3. Political polarization and “fake news” will intensify.
4. Several mid-west Republican states in 2016 will fall to the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential election.
5. Florida may swing Democratic.
6. Not much of “the swamp” will be drained.
7. The House may impeach President Trump but the Senate should acquit. Chaos and depressing social mood ahead.
8. A “hard left” Democrat will win the 2020 election, and will advocate Universal Basic Income, higher taxes, larger deficits, free tuition, infrastructure spending, Medicare for all, student loan forgiveness and more as Democrats expand their desired “free” list. More giveaways will be implemented, debt will rise and will further weaken the dollar.
9. A Democratic President may “print” trillions to bail out insolvent public and private pension funds, expanding a costly precedent begun in 2009.
10. Government and The Fed will attempt to solve another debt crisis with more debt. When will they learn?
11. Watch gold and silver soar as the dollar collapses.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. The bond market and housing market have turned downward.
2. U.S. and global stock markets rolled over in 2018.
3. A debt/credit crisis could arrive soon. There is little (as in no) political will to reduce spending, deficits, and debt.
4. Some currencies have already collapsed. Others may follow. Fiat currencies are vulnerable.
5. Currency collapses lead to runaway consumer price inflation!
6. Breakdown of social structures, civil disorder and riots follow runaway inflation and the ensuing loss of confidence in government, currencies, and banks.
7. The globalists will “never waste a crisis” and will use the unrest to increase their controls.
8. A New World Order is a dangerous answer to the problems created by corrupt politicians, central bankers and globalists working to destroy nations.
9. The sun will still shine. Many will be “sadder but wiser” by 2025.

Read: Chris Marcus: “Will the Next Silver Rally Exceed the 2011 Highs?”
Call Miles Franklin at 1-800-822-8080 to purchase silver and gold.
Everyone needs insurance!
The Deviant Investor
Posted in Gold | Leave a comment

https://larouchepac.com/20190220/lyn...%20Self-Esteem


Green Fascism
Stop WWIII
Lyndon LaRouche and America's Self-Esteem
https://larouchepac.com/sites/defaul...?itok=kq-BM56Y
Lyndon LaRouche seen here attending a Schiller Institute Conference in Bad Soden, Germany. July 2018 (Michelle Rasmussen/EIRNS)

Following the Feb. 12 death of LaRouchePAC founder Lyndon LaRouche and the Feb. 16-17 international Schiller Institute conference which celebrated his life and work (portions of which are already available for viewing on our site), it has become evident that LaRouche’s passing is awakening and deeply moving people around the world to discover what Abraham Lincoln referred to as "the better angels of our nature." That is a force for the good which can help Americans regain a sense of self-esteem—largely lost over the 16 years of the Bush and Obama presidencies—and succeed in the central strategic tasks defined at that Schiller Institute conference: Get President Donald Trump to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche, and bring the U.S. fully into the New Paradigm that is being built internationally around China’s Belt and Road Initiative.


The central strategic mission of getting the United States to join the New Paradigm is in fact in sight. President Trump and Chinese President Xi are negotiating a broad economic agreement that can break loose from the British Empire’s collapsing financial architecture—despite the British efforts to use the Huawei issue to poison the prospects. President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be meeting Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, where the "Singapore Model" can advance greatly towards putting an end to the entire system of British geopolitics in international relations. And the British coup d’état against President Trump stands exposed in broad daylight, with the Andrew McCabe statements and the brazen defense of their sedition by Jim Clapper, Jim Comey, and others.


On the key issue of LaRouche’s science of physical economy, and the need to defeat the incompetent and genocidal Green New Deal, consider the report of a new NASA study, which confirms that mankind improves the biosphere, as Lyndon LaRouche and Vladimir Vernadsky have long told us. New satellite evidence shows that mankind has been creating a greener Earth over the past decades.


China's CGTN TV network reported that NASA satellite imagery shows that our planet is greener today compared with 20 years ago—with 5.17 million square kilometers of new vegetation, "equivalent to another Amazon rainforest." It is reported that China and India account for "more than one-third of the greening," and nearly half of China’s contribution came from programs to expand forests. As CGTN concludes, "This comprehensive study has broken a long-standing prejudice held by Western media that industrialization in developing countries will make the global environment more vulnerable."


Although not mentioned by CGTN, it has been recently demonstrated in a 2016 study that the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have also played a major role in the greening of the planet in recent decades—most significantly in regions of high water stress, where the higher CO2 levels ensure the plants are more efficient with the water available. In addition to increasing natural plant growth, this has improved agricultural yields.

It would seem that the entire biosphere has already voted for the "exoneration" of Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

Traditionally, when the Fed releases the Minutes for its most recent FOMC meeting, the sequence of events is that Bloomberg, Reuters and a handful of other news service blast flashing red headlines with the key highlights and soundbites, which are delivered to markets precisely at 2:00pm which then sets the market mood for the rest of the day, allowing algos to trade in kneejerk response to the initial information disclosure, and forcing analysts and strategists to goalseek their narrative to the market's reaction: if stocks spike, the minutes are more dovish than expected, conversely if stocks slide, the Fed snuck in a few extra hawkish points, and so on. In fact, by the time people actually finish reading the full minutes which takes, well, a few minutes (the December release was 28 pages, but of these only 3-4 truly matter), sentiment has already been set, ironically by just a couple of headlines and how the headline-scanning algos react to them.
Which means that initial handful of headlines is critical; and what is just as important, is that the initial narrative is compiled by several members of the financial press as the Fed provides members of accredited news organizations access to the minutes shortly ahead of the public release time at a central-bank facility, allowing the journalists time to prepare headlines and articles reporting the content also at 2 p.m. local time when the general embargo is lifted.
Today, however, there will be no headlines at 2pm.

Instead, the Federal Reserve said the record of the meeting will be posted on its website at 2 p.m., as scheduled, meaning that the press will have to comb through the minutes along with the rest of the market and investing public, looking for key highlights and key words; more importantly it means that momentum-igniting, headline-scanning algos will have no basis on which to spark either buying or selling in the milliseconds following 2pm, and instead will drift higher or lower depending on which way the groupthink shifts in the initial seconds after 2pm as a barrage of hot takes and interpretations of the minutes hit the tape.
In short, prepare for some brief market chaos and/or confusion today, just after 2pm as the market scrambles to digest what the Fed said three weeks ago.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

Authored by Elizabeth Lea Vos via Disobedient Media,
In the last few weeks, we have witnessed two pillars of the Russiagate narrative continue to disintegrate and erode. First, we heard that a bipartisan inquiry by the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted that they have yet to find evidence indicating that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential election. Secondly, new light was shed on the process by which the DNC Emails published by WikiLeaks may have been sourced, thanks to two reports: one authored by former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney and former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, with the other work penned by Disobedient Media's Adam Carter.


Of course, this does not entail that the establishment-backed media will stop promoting the neo-McCarthyist insanity that has held legacy press audiences captive for the last two and a half years.


No Evidence For Trump-Russia Collusion
A recent report from NBC related an admission from both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicating that they have discovered no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion to date. NBC's report reads in part:
"The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the 2016 election has uncovered no direct evidence of the Trump campaign conspiring with Russia, Democrats and Republicans on the committee told NBC News. But different parties' investigators in the probe, which is winding down, disagree over the implications of a pattern of contacts between Trump associates and Russians."


Let's review that again: the only thing the Democrats and Republicans disagree on is the significance of an alleged "Pattern of contacts between Trump associates and Russians."

Note: the "pattern" here does not specify that the "Russians" in question were associated in any sense with the Russian government. One should not have to stress the significance of differentiating between a nationality versus affiliation with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the characterization of "Trump associates" is entirely vague.

To conclude from such sentiments that anyone who so much as has "contacts" with "Russians" (again, not the same thing as contacts with proxies or employees of the Russian state) must be working at the behest of Putin would represent an intense strain of xenophobia, if not outright racism.

Independent journalist and comedian Jimmy Dore also commented on NBC's report, saying: "For two and a half years, [Rachel Maddow] has been an out-of-her-mind conspiracy theorist. She said that Russia is going to freeze you when it gets cold... These people are the biggest conspiracy liars in the world."


One does not have to rely on the statements of the Senate Intelligence Committee to understand that no shred of evidence of Trump-Russia collusion has yet been shown to the public. Last month, The Nation's Aaron Mate wrote:
"Not a single Trump official has been accused of colluding with the Russian government or even of committing any crimes during the 2016 campaign. As The New York Times recently noted, “no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia.”


In the wake of the latest news regarding such lack of evidence, Mate wrote via Twitter:
https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http...12.22%20PM.png


The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald also chimed in on NBC's report, writing via Twitter: "When even NBC, [Ken Dilanian] and Democrats (excuse the redundancy) are admitting this so clearly in the first paragraph of their article, it's time for people to start facing some facts about what they've been telling people."


Of course, many have long pointed to evidence countering the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, expecting such contrary evidence to become the "death of Russiagate." Unfortunately for the sake of truth and sanity, it seems that this writer's opinion on the immortality of Russiagate is going to continue to prove true, as long as the saga serves the establishment's need for deflection from real election interference and other pressing domestic issues.


As this author opined last year:
"Standing on the shoulders of this methodical evidence, it seems at this point that no amount of contrary evidence, exposure or implosion will ultimately kill the undead Russiagate monster. If that were possible, the Thing would have been put irrevocably into the ground over a year ago. Or six months ago. Or a few weeks ago."


Russian Hacking Narrative Implodes
The Russian hacking aspect of the scandal was also severely discredited in recent days, in the wake of two new reports. One article was authored by Disobedient Media's Adam Carter, with a separate piece published by Bill Binney and Larry Johnson. Binney is a former NSA Technical Director; Johnson an ex-CIA analyst. Both are active members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).


The two articles discussed revelations arising from studies of the DNC Emails released by WikiLeaks in 2016. We remind our readers that, while Adam Carter, Disobedient Media, The Forensicator, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Stephen McIntyre, and others have regularly reported regarding documents published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona, the latest pieces focus instead on the DNC Emails as published days before the DNC convention.


Though this writer will not attempt to present every aspect or technical detail contained in the articles, we will endeavor to make our readers aware of the essential points which Carter, Binney, and Johnson have raised.

Carter's work suggests that the DNC Emails were originally accessed via a USB thumb drive or similar device, concluding: "The evidence strongly suggests that the first three batches of DNC emails were transferred via a USB storage device at some stage between acquisition and then subsequently being published by WikiLeaks."

As noted by Carter, such a scenario aligns with allegations made by former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, who claimed that he was the recipient of the files via an intermediary rather than the original source. Carter adds: "However, transfer speeds observed for the batches with last-modified dates matching the dates of acquisition indicate that they were transferred at approximately 3 megabits/second, a lot slower than we would expect if it were a local or LAN transfer, so the transfer we’re looking at likely involved a remote transfer at some point between acquisition and delivery."


Carter continued: "... It seems likely that the original emails were copied soon after acquisition... The (hypothetical) existence of an intermediary doesn’t tell us anything about the individual (or individuals) who originally acquired the emails. Thus, this scenario does not necessarily rule out the possibility of an insider acquiring the emails. If we contemplate the intermediate use of cloud storage, this could have been used as a method to decouple the acquisition of the emails from delivery to another party that subsequently delivered them to Wikileaks."


The article by Binney and Johnson also discusses the relevance of indications that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks were likely accessed via a storage device, rather than leaked. They state in part:
"An examination of the Wikileaks DNC files do not support the claim that the emails were obtained via spearphishing. Instead, the evidence clearly shows that the emails posted on the Wikileaks site were copied onto an electronic media, such as a CD-ROM or thumb-drive before they were posted at Wikileaks... We believe that Special Counsel Robert Mueller faces major embarrassment if he decides to pursue the indictment he filed--which accuses 12 Russian GRU military personnel and an entity identified as, Guccifer 2.0, for the DNC hack—because the available forensic evidence indicates the emails were copied onto a storage device."


Binney and Johnson conclude: "Taken together, these disparate data points combine to paint a picture that exonerates alleged Russian hackers and implicates persons within our law enforcement and IC taking part in a campaign of misinformation, deceit and incompetence. It is not a pretty picture."


The Real Cost Of Russiagate
Though Russiagate may be summed up as a never-ending theatrical performance designed to hold attention rather than prove itself, that ineffability does not mean that the saga has had no tangible effects in the real world. Regardless of what one makes of the legitimacy of Russiagate or any one of its sub-narratives, we can all agree that it has wreaked havoc directly and indirectly on many fronts.


Journalist and award-winning author Patrick Lawrence wrote a ground-breaking article with The Nation in August of 2017, covering a Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) memorandum to President Trump. The memo, and Lawrence's article, indicated that the Guccifer 2.0 persona had published documents that were likely accessed locally, rather than hacked remotely.

The repercussions for Lawrence - professional, financial, personal - continued for many months. In an interview, Lawrence told Disobedient Media: "My working principle from the first is that disagreements and other such matters internal to a publication - any publication - shouldn't be aired outside the newsroom door. When I was trained, you'd be summarily fired if you went public with such a stunt. I thought this at the time my article came out, and on that same principle, I won’t comment now." Lawrence concluded: "I should add I have no reason to retract a single syllable of what I wrote."


A hit-piece authored last year by Duncan Campbell saw the doxxing of Disobedient Media's Adam Carter, putting his livelihood in jeopardy and conflating anonymity with wrongdoing, among other things. Campbell's text received much criticism from this outlet and others for its disastrously inaccurate depiction of the opinion of Bill Binney and other VIPS members.

NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake was also quoted in the piece, comparing CIA veteran and VIPS co-founder Ray McGovern with George W. Bush's politicization of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http...14.02%20PM.png


https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http...13.57%20PM.png


Most readers do not require the reminder that McGovern and other members of VIPS were strongly opposed to the faulty intelligence used by the Bush administration as a pretext for the 2003 war in Iraq. This history makes Drake's comparison particularly odious and is additionally damaging because like McGovern, Drake is a respected member of VIPS. Disobedient Media reached out to Drake for comment on this point and others, to which we received no reply by the time of publication.

McGovern spoke with Disobedient Media, saying:
"I knew Tom Drake to be a straight shooter, an impression strengthened by our teamwork in Moscow presenting Ed Snowden with the Sam Adams integrity award that Tom himself had won two years before. I normally cut Tom some slack, in view of all he has been through. But when he belatedly took issue with the key VIPS memo of July 24, 2017 on “Russian hacking,” and made claims unsupported by evidence (claims strongly challenged by his fellow NSA "alumni" in VIPS), I, as chair of that memo, had to call him out of order. He reacted poorly and seems now to be in for further embarrassment."


Disobedient Media also spoke with Bill Binney, who told this author:
"Tom has been a friend of mine for about 20 years. During that time he has demonstrated sound analytic judgment on technical issues with the exception of one.

That is the issue of Russiagate and association with the Trump campaign and administration. In this case, I believe he has allowed himself to be diverted by the rather large hoard of emotionally motivated who are intent on associating the Russians with Trump to form the basis for impeachment.

They have and continue to convict Trump based on statements made by large numbers of people - as if that were proof of anything. So, on this issue, a good chunk of the US population have lost their objectivity and instead of demanding proof based on observable facts (available to be inspected) they accept assertions generated by emotion. The true test will be in a court of law where all these assertions would be treated as hearsay and inadmissible as none are first-hand observers."


Disobedient Media has been separately smeared by entities like Media Bias Fact Check, whose report appraising this outlet laughably alleged that we have been a "defender" of the Guccifer 2.0 persona. While such an absurd statement would carry no weight with even the most cursory of Disobedient Media's readers, it is nonetheless noteworthy in that it specifically uses a false neo-McCarthyist narrative to attempt to assassinate the credibility of this outlet.

When asked about the real-world implications of Russiagate thus far, Ray McGovern - who, as we remind our readers, is a former CIA analyst with decades of experience during the cold war period - expressed deep concern, saying:
"I worry about what conclusions President Putin may draw from attempts to demonize him and to make Russia a pariah. Inflammatory rhetoric can be prelude to war. Worse still, the temperament and hubris of President Trump’s advisers are a far cry from the sage, sober advice Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, for example, gave President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Shattered, at this point, is any residual hope Putin may have harbored that Trump would be able to improve ties with Russia. Trump is not his own man. Putin, thus, must prepare for the worst. This is the most serious damage from the Russia-gate narrative so far."


Patrick Lawrence also appraised the damage done by Russiagate in a piece published via Consortium News, writing: "Numerous sets of sanctions against Russia, individual Russians, and Russian entities have been imposed on the basis of this great conjuring of assumption and presumption."

As described by McGovern and Lawrence, the tensions raised between two major nuclear powers is perhaps the most important real-world result of over two years of neo-McCarthyist fervor in the US. However, the smearing of members of the independent press and the worsening division amongst VIPS members comprise additional serious damage stemming from a scandal-that-never-was.

In terms of the larger political picture, Russiagate has been endlessly hyped to deflect from public outrage that rightfully erupted in response to overt election interference by the Democratic Party in the 2016 primary season. It has been used in an attempt to mask the failure of the Democrats and specifically Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...jacket_1_1.jpg


As long as the legacy press continues to use Russiagate to gaslight the public from focusing on ongoing domestic election interference, it remains imperative to point out that Russiagate, to date, has no basis whatsoever in fact. For that reason, Disobedient Media will continue to report on the subject as it develops.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ng-to-explode/


Blog/Pension Crisis
Posted Feb 21, 2019 by Martin Armstrong
https://d33wjekvz3zs1a.cloudfront.ne...on-Savings.jpg


At the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, yields an annual income of only $15,080. This is below the annual poverty line. It also reflects something that most people are unaware of — in Illinois, there are more than 19,000 retired teachers who get OVER $100,000 per year in their pension. According to the latest data, nearly 1.5 in ten federal employees are eligible to retire RIGHT NOW, and in five years the number will hit three in 10 or about 30%. The Housing and Urban Development Department in the federal government has the highest rate of employees eligible to retire right now of any major agency in government, which stands at a shocking 24%.


Under U.S. law, there are two broad types of retirement plans: defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DC) plans. The Defined-benefit plan has been mostly abandoned in the private sector because they were rapidly revealing how they failed to work. The DB plan use to come with a gold watch and ensured you some level of benefit for the rest of your life. This was all part of how to prevent another Great Depression. Typically, your employer would invest part of your compensation in the plan based on some formula. In some cases, you, the worker, might have added more money to the pot. The employer was required to send your defined benefit each month or quarter to a fund. Typically, this was in the form of a fixed-dollar amount, sometimes with periodic cost-of-living adjustments. That scheme ran into trouble that set standards for private-sector pension plans and defined their tax benefits under federal law because government wanted a piece of the action due to income taxes.

Most state and local government employees, actually 87% of those working full time, participate in a defined benefit (DB) pension plan. They contribute nothing but are simply guaranteed a pension on top of what they earned. These plans typically provide pensions based on members’ years of service and average salary over a specified period before retirement. On top of that, most members also receive cost-of-living adjustments that help maintain the purchasing power of their benefits during retirement.

In the private sector, where defined contribution (DC) or 401(k)-style plans dominate, only 19% of full-time workers belong to DB plans. This is the real PENSION CRISIS. Government workers generally contribute nothing and demand tax increases to fund their pensions.

The DC plans emerged when the DB plans were showing signs of economic stress. The handwriting was on the wall. As taxes rose, the standard of living declined and governments wanted to regulate pensions to prevent too much money going into tax-free vehicles. The 401K is a kind of defined-contribution plan (as are various types of IRAs/Keogh/SEP plans, etc.) which emerged under the DC plan structure.

Government regulations govern who puts money into the plan and how much. Typically, it’s you and your employer. Your employer also has to give you some reasonable investment options, but it’s up to you to use them wisely. Good luck. Most people have discovered nothing but losses. The advice for the general public has been biased, subject to conflicts of interest, and fragmented. This is because we have fragmented agencies (i.e. SEC & CFTC). The CFTC is regarded as the unqualified regulator. The lawyers there are the people who generally are turned down by the SEC. But the real crisis is that the regulations under the SEC and CFTC are exactly opposite. If you managed money under one agency’s rules, you went to jail under the other. This resulted in the development of offshore hedge funds where you paid a manager to make all the decisions, whereas domestically, a manger in stocks could not also advise on commodities. This resulted in conflicts of interest and has seriously harmed average people in understanding how to manage their own 401K.

Therefore, regulations have prejudiced the private sector while the public sector is predominantly under DB plans where government workers have no decisions they confront. This stark difference is coming to a head. Before 2032, there will be more people on retirement from government than actual workers. Taxes have NOWHERE to go but up dramatically because nobody is willing to look at reform. The new Modern Economic Theory is their answer — just print.


Categories: Pension Crisis
Tags: defined benefit pensions, Pension Crisis, Retirement

Dear Readers
Posted February 17th, 2019 at 12:17 PM (CST) by Jim Sinclair & filed under General Editorial.
Dear readers,
I believe in the following nine rules as fundamental truths.
1/ Foundation of law is the Constitution of the Nation.
2/ Law rises from the Constitution.
3/ Rule of law is the key ingredient to National success.
4/ Free markets are an absolute must.
5/ Free markets must eliminate unfair computer games and manipulators, plus front runners, especially the standing government.
6/ The Federal Reserve is the major manipulator in all things now.
7/ Free markets are the basis of capital creation, not casino.
8/ Without Free Markets capital creation dies.
9/ Without capital creation the nation dies.
I am not a capitalist. That notion eventually kills the creation of capital as above explained.
Economics is natural law and can never be eliminated but, yes, delayed.
Delaying the economic natural law destroys the fabricate of business.
Destruction of the fabric ate of business results in very long term consequences.
Democracy is a dream of the Greeks that has never happened there or anywhere else.
This is my personal belief, and does not necessarily reflect the beliefs of my associates.
Regards,
Jim Sinclair
Executive Chairman
[email protected]

https://gnseconomics.com/en_US/2019/...story-repeats/

Manias, Panics and Crashes. History repeats.
The stock market has been rallying lately. It has been supported by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), which started its liquidity operations in mid-December, and the Federal Reserve (Fed), which changed to a much more ‘dovish’ tone in January. But, is the rally sustainable?

We consider, with rather high certainty, that it is not. This is for three reasons:

 

1. The global economy and markets have been on ‘life support’ (stimulus) for the past 10 years,
2. The effectiveness of these stimulus measures is fading fast, and
3. Leading indicators are indicating a downturn in economies across the globe.

Yet somehow, the stock markets seem to be ignoring all these signs. What is going on?


Manias
Financial history is riddled with asset market manias. Their features are not identical, but they do follow similar patterns. They tend to occur in expansions, partly driving them by the euphoria that also grips real economic agents (households and non-financial firms). Credit is plentiful, and investment and consumption spending surges. There’s a sensation that “We never had it so good!” During manias, asset prices tend to decline immediately after they stop accelerating. A ‘Minsky Moment‘ occurs. This happens unless something forces the frenzy to continue.


After the victory of President Trump, the U.S. stock market shifted into high gear. During the next 15 months the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose by an astonishing 31 percent from already elevated levels, breaking previous records. The rise was fueled by massive global injections of artificial central bank liquidity (QE -programs) and tax breaks by the Trump administration. Credit eased, the U.S. economy and corporate earnings boomed and unemployment dropped to multi-decade lows. America had the “best economy ever”. A mania took hold.


However, change arrived in early 2018. The balance sheet reduction (QT) program of the Fed accelerated in January 2018. Between January 27 and 31 the balance sheet of the Fed fell by €22 billion—it’s biggest short-time reduction in history (till then). Then, on February 4thth, markets cratered, and the DJIA posted its biggest daily point-wise decline, ever.

Things calmed down for few months, supported by the stock buybacks and profit frenzy created by the tax breaks of President Trump. But then the contraction of central banking’s global balance sheet (QT), commenced in September. In its wake, markets fell into a complete tailspin. Global QT lasted until the middle of December, when the Bank of Japan (BoJ) and especially the PBoC pushed the global CB balance sheet into expansion again with their ‘liquidity operations’. In late January, a panicky Fed caved in to the markets, cancelling already-scheduled interest rate hikes and hinting of ending balance sheet normalization (QT) (see Figure 1).
https://gnseconomics.com/wp-content/...Pres-Trump.jpg


Figure 1. The daily closing values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and central bank decisions. Source: GnS Economics, St. Louis Fed

Panics and crashes
Bull markets end when buyers become less eager and sellers become more aggressive. Firms and investors decide that it’s time to get more liquid, that is, to increase money holdings. The selling starts. Some highly-leveraged investors may go bankrupt as the market value of their assets shrinks relative to their level of indebtedness. Still, some investors, conditioned by a long bull market, consider any dip a buying opportunity. A sharp ‘bear market’ rally develops, which are not uncommon. For example, during the bear market in Japanese stocks in the 1990’s, there were four rallies, where in each the stock market rose more than 20 percent.

Then, something happens. The market mood changes abruptly. The failure of a bank or a large company or the nagging feeling that a recession is coming, like in 1929, rattles the confidence of investors. The rush starts. Prices decline and bankruptcies surge. Liquidation starts out as orderly, but cascades into a selling frenzy. A panic takes holds, and markets crash. Credit stops flowing, and the real economy tumbles. A banking panic may ensue. Depression follows.


The ‘Grande Finale’
In spite of the arguments of some (macro) economists, business cycles do in fact die of old age. In a mature business cycle, consumers and corporations have ‘loaded’ themselves with debt and they start to cut back their borrowing. Furthermore, periods of economic expansion usually create unproductive investments which start to burden the cash flow of corporations. Firms and households decide that’s it’s time to increase money holdings. The credit and the economy contracts and the asset markets follow.

It’s evident that markets and the real economy are interdependent. Each can lead, in turn. When the Fed capitulated in late January, they most likely realized that asset and credit markets were getting the upper hand. Stresses were building, which started to have effects on the real economy. That’s why a pause was needed in the tightening cycle.

However, with over-levered, highly-speculative markets and an over-stimulated economy, there’s no middle-ground. It’s either up or down. If the economy in a mature business cycle cannot take even marginally higher interest rates (like 2.5%), there’s very little the central bank can do.

Turning back to stimulus would only reinvigorate the market frenzy, while beneficial effects on the over-indebted economy would be miniscule. The Fed is trapped.

There are no good options. It’s just playing the game of extend and pretend, until the can cannot take the kicking anymore, and the collapse begins. Then, there are only extreme options left.

Some economic commentators have called for more stimulus, as if more debt would fix the over-indebtedness problem. The reality is that there’s very little anyone can do. More China stimulus could help, but only for a short while. Still, as long the asset market frenzy carries the economy, the music keeps playing. But, when it stops, don’t bother looking for chair. The roof is likely to cave in. Be warned.

The title, historical examples and descriptions of manias, panics and crashes have been taken from the Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, by C.P. Kindleberger and R.Z Aliber.

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By Tuomas Malinen| helmikuu 7th, 2019|Central banks, Credit, English, Financial crisis, Financial markets, Global economy, preparation|0 Comments
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QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Is it true that in Spain under Isabella demanded all Muslims convert or leave Spain? Are we facing such a cycle again when we look at the hostility that is growing over religion?
KG
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ANSWER: That is an interesting question. As far as a major religious uprising, we are probably looking at that sort of thing in 2042. The Roman Emperor Trajan Decius (249-251 AD) enacted measures intended to restore stability and unity, including a requirement that Roman citizens affirm their loyalty through religious ceremonies. He issued an edict enforcing religious conformity in 250 AD. Christians who refused to participate were subject to the death penalty. His edict lasted only for one year during which he executed Pope Fabian. His motive seems to have been his reasoning that barbarians were encroaching upon the empire and this was allowed because the gods were angry at the Christians.


In 250 AD, the Goths crossed the Danube and began to terrorize Thrace. Trajan Decius and his eldest son Etruscus marched to confront the Gothic Invasion. Decius was the first Roman Emperor to die in battle by an external enemy. His edict was the first compelled conversion which was also adopted in Spain about 1240 years later. This was actually 4 waves of 309.6 years on the Economic Confidence Model.
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In Spain, the Muslims were under Muslim rule until 1492. There was no bias and many intermarried in Granada and even converted in both directions. After 1492, the Muslims in the rest of Castile who had lived under Christian rule for generations were given an ultimatum. Isabella decided to impose a conversion-or-expulsion decree against the Muslims. Castile outlawed Islam in a legislation dated July 1501 in Granada, but it was not immediately made public until February 12th, 1502, first in Seville. The edict affected “all kingdoms and lordships of Castile and Leon.”

This edict required that all Muslim males aged 14 or older, and females aged 12 or older, must convert to Christianity or leave Castile by the end of April 1502. This was the classic majority oppressing a minority. There was no question of violence or even claims that the Muslims were not peaceful. The edict pretended that the justification was that those Muslims who converted were prejudiced by non-converted Muslims.

The edict was not something that allowed a freedom of movement. It specifically forbid nearly all possible destinations and thus was really an effort to force Muslims to convert rather than emigrate. Portugal had already banned Muslims since 1497, so that was not an option. The order explicitly forbade going to other neighboring regions, such as the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, the Principality of Catalonia, and the Kingdom of Navarre. They also outlawed travel to North Africa and territories of the Ottoman Empire. The edict also outlawed Christians from hiding a Muslim. Islam was outlawed and those harboring Muslims would be punished severely. A further edict issued on September 17, 1502, forbade the newly converted Muslims to leave Castile within the next two years as well to prevent a pretended conversion to allow free movement.
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Meanwhile, Navarre’s queen Catherine de Foix (1468 – 1517) and her co-ruling husband John III had no interest in pursuing expulsion or forced conversions. When the Spanish Inquisition arrived in Navarre in the late fifteenth century and began harassing local Muslims, the Navarran royal court warned it to cease. This eventually led in 1512 to the invasion of Navarre by Castile and Aragon. The Spanish forces led by King Ferdinand quickly occupied the Iberian half of the kingdom, including the capital Pamplona. In 1515, Navarre was formally annexed by the Crown of Castile as one of its kingdoms. With this conquest, the edict of conversion came into effect in Navarre, and the Inquisition was tasked with enforcing it.

The really interesting aspect is that this was at the instigation of Isabella and not her husband Ferdinand II. Ferdinand did not extend the conversions to his Aragonese subject in his kingdom of Aragon. As King of Aragon, part of the oath of coronation was to swear that he would never forcibly convert his Muslim subjects. Throughout his life, despite the actions of his wife, Ferdinand was unwilling to break it. Ferdinand died in 1516, and was succeeded by his grandson Charles V, who also swore the same oath at his coronation.


Eventually, there was during the 1520s an anti-Muslim sentiment in Spain. Charles V then attempted to release himself from the oath he swore to protect the Muslims. He wrote to Pope Clement VII in 1523 and again in 1524 asking for this dispensation. Pope Clement initially resisted the request, but issued in May 1524 a papal brief releasing Charles from the oath and absolving him from all perjuries that might arise from breaking it. Thus, on November 25th, 1525, Charles V issued an edict ordering the expulsion or conversion of remaining Muslims in the Crown of Aragon. Similar to the case in Castile, even though the option of exile was available on paper, in practice it was almost impossible.


The Muslims naturally revolted against this order. The royal troops defeated this rebellion and in the process killed more than 5,000 Muslims. After the defeat of the rebellions, the entire Crown of Aragon was now nominally converted to Christianity and all mosques were demolished. People were forced to even change their names based upon Christianity.

Persecution is far more common throughout history than people suspect. Christians, Jews, and Muslims have all been targets. It seems to arrive during periods of economic decline. As I has said many times — when everyone is fat and happy, everyone just gets along. The rise of communism and the persecution of those with any wealth has always been economic justification. In the case of Germany, it was instigated by the harsh reparation payments imposed on Germany that created class warfare. Following the American Civil War, blacks were discriminated against in the South because they were regarded as the cause of the war and thus the loss by the South. There is always some division that is fostered. This is the darkside of humanity.

Categories: Economics, Politics, Religion
Tags: 2042, religious persecution, religon

Hi Benjamins,



Having said that I am ready to learn from you, so when do you get a chance to educate me as successful

Trader like you, even I wish to follow your footsteps. Plz advise. thanks,

Next Week. I will set up your platform later today.


Benjamin