Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...ops+to+zero%29


North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) & the US' Northern Command (NORTHCOM) held a Facebook Live town hall meeting on Tuesday, March 24, informing the public how their essential teams in charge of homeland security are isolating at the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado amid the COVID-19 pandemic.


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Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who commands NORAD and NORTHCOM, told reporters on Facebook Live last Tuesday that essential staff is being moved from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to the underground bunker complex that is 24 miles away in Cheyenne Mountain. The facility is more than 2,000 feet underground and can survive a 30 megaton nuclear explosion.

"To ensure that we can defend the homeland despite this pandemic, our command and control watch teams here in the headquarters split into multiple shifts and portions of our watch team began working from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, creating a third team at an alternate location as well," O'Shaughnessy said.

"Our dedicated professionals of the NORAD and NORTHCOM command and control watch have left their homes, said goodbye to their families and are isolated from everyone to ensure that they can stand the watch each and every day to defend our homeland.
"It's certainly not optimal, but it's absolutely necessary and appropriate given the situation."


NORAD and NORTHCOM have already used up about 30% of the underground facility, according to The Drive. O'Shaughnessy said with the increased personnel, his "primary concern was … are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I'm not at liberty to discuss who's moving in there."

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If the staff at Cheyenne are infected, there is a third team of higher-ranking military officials operating at another facility that can remotely assume command.
With the virus crisis deepening in the US, confirmed cases have now surged over 124,000, with 2,191 deaths (as of Sunday morning). President Trump signed an executive order Friday, allowing the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to activate National Guard and reservists to battle the COVID-19 outbreak across the US.

We noted last week that the US is in the "acceleration phase" of the outbreak, which means the health crisis could get much worse in the coming weeks.



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How much worse?

Well, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has just warned that social unrest in major Western cities could develop in the coming weeks.
The evolution of the virus crisis could be social destabilization, hence why the military is preparing.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/a...m_campaign=RSS

Here we go with the same old hypothesis over the Quantity Theory of Money that Trump is (1) nationalizing the Fed and (2) the Fed’s actions are worse than the virus, and (3) Forbes proclaims that the Trump & the Fed are destroying the dollar. It is really fascinating how these propositions running around are not only foolish, but the classic myopic view that the world begins at the California shoreline in the Pacific and ends on the beaches of Virginia at the Atlantic. Oh yes, there is Canada to the North and Mexico to the South. But who pays much attention to them anyhow. Canadians just come to America for holidays and Americans go to Mexico for a holiday and to eat Tacos.


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The Washington Post showed not only its profound bias against Trump, but also its total ignorance of financial and the Federal Reserve. The reported:
The economic debate of the day centers on whether the cure of an economic shutdown is worse than the disease of the virus. Similarly, we need to ask if the cure of the Federal Reserve getting so deeply into corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, commercial paper, and exchange-traded funds is worse than the disease seizing financial markets. It may be.

If the Washington Post ever bothered to do actual research instead of just promoting their personal political agenda, they might discover that the original design and purpose of the Federal Reserve was to support the economy directly. They were to buy corporate paper to PREVENT companies who could not borrow from laying off their employees. It was Congress that usurped the Fed for World War I and directed them to buy government paper EXCLUSIVELY. Congress nationalized the Fed a long time ago.

The Washington Post’s slogan is Democracy Dies in Darkness. So, why are they constantly only pushing their political agenda? Are they not keeping the people in the dark?

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They have conveniently forgotten that there was Tarp where the government pour a trillion into banks who never lent out the money because they had no confidence in the future. They then turned and pleaded with the Fed to create the Excess Reserve facility so the TARP only bailed out the banks but not the economy. Already, Excess Reserves are rising again showing that banks are once again NOT lending.

This is the first time the Fed is returning to its original design – direct lending to the economy skipping the banks. The Washington Post is clueless because they look at everything as a way to bash Trump and hurt the country just for their personal political view.

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Then we had Forbes Magazine which is trapped by the Quantity Theory of Money and like a fool who keeps sticking their finger in an electric socket and expecting a different result, jeep declaring that increasing the supply of money will destroy the dollar. They even can’t figure out why the Euro rallied and of course just blamed Trump. Instead, they talk to biased crypto people who proclaim the Fed balance sheet will rise to $10 trillion and this results in the headline:
Donald Trump And The Fed Are Destroying The U.S. Dollar

The had the audacity to claim the rally in the dollar was ONLY short covering. These people are biased and have no idea of what is happening outside the United States. It very plain, Trump is NOT Nationalizing the Fed. The Fed was a steady process of nationalizing it since World War I. For the FIRST time the Fed is departing from Keynesian Economics because it knows that won’t work. Europe needs this crisis because it has no power to deal with the economy when the central bank is trapped in negative interest rates. The ECB is now pushing CoronaBonds, because it cannot continue to support the European member states. Netherlands and Germany are opposed to the idea. The only way to break the backs of Netherlands and Germany is to propel this crisis as the justification to federalize Europe.

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The Euro has rallied BECAUSE capital is being taken home to cover losses everywhere. These people are obviously ignorant of what a LIQUIDITY CRISIS is all about. At the WEC in October, we warned we were entering a Liquidity Crisis stemming from the rise in Country Party Risk and this would be a different crisis all together because we faced a Bond Bubble. What is unfolding should be no surprise. The markets have been showing this would be the outcome since the Repo Crisis began September 17th, 2019. They have also no clue what big money does on a quarterly basis. I suppose this gives new meaning to the saying: Ignorance is Bliss!

Categories: Central Banks, Economics
« German Treasury Secretary of Hesse Commits Suicide

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fe...ops+to+zero%29


Echoing many of Jim Grant's recent fears, Guggenheim Investments' CIO Scott Minerd fears the consequences of policymakers returning to the same tools employed in the financial crisis as a grand Faustian bargain.

“In Goethe’s 1831 drama Faust, the devil persuades a bankrupt emperor to print and spend vast quantities of paper money as a short-term fix for his country’s fiscal problems. As a consequence, the empire ultimately unravels and descends into chaos. Today, governments that have relied upon quantitative easing (QE) instead of undertaking necessary structural reforms have arguably entered into the grandest Faustian bargain in financial history."

- Scott Minerd “Global CIO Outlook”, August 21, 2012

With the global economy slipping into recession and many economists estimating second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the United States will fall by 15 percent or more, the world is being confronted with the worst downturn since the 1930s.

In the post-Keynesian era, the standard policy solution to a business cycle downturn has been for governments to temporarily offset any decline in demand with increased fiscal stimulus and easy money. This prescription has provided for smaller and less frequent slowdowns. The ultimate consequence is that businesses and households have been carrying larger debt loads and smaller cash reserves, confident that policymakers will restrain the severity of the consequences created by any shock to the economy.


This process of accumulating larger debt balances after each successive downturn is often referred to as the great debt super cycle. Over the past decades, the successful use of Keynesian stabilization policies has increasingly raised the confidence of investors and creditors alike that government can successfully truncate the downside of any recession.

The massive debt accumulation by U.S. households following accommodative monetary policy and easy credit led to the housing bubble. The collapse of this bubble destabilized the global financial system and could only be halted with unorthodox monetary policy and fiscal programs that led to partial or total nationalization of many financial institutions and manufacturers.


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In the wake of that crisis governments themselves have become highly indebted, requiring virtually continuous support from central banks to acquire that debt to maintain low interest rates to support growth. The average ratio of government debt to GDP for G-7 economies reached 117 percent in 2019, up from 81 percent in 2007. Any attempt to taper or reverse the accumulation of government debt or other assets is quickly reversed as financial markets become unruly and economies slow.


Now faced with the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers are returning to the same tools employed in the financial crisis a decade ago. They are desperately searching for programs that will fill the demand gap created by massive shutdowns and travel restrictions while simultaneously finding ways to prop up businesses that to a large degree are overly indebted as a result of artificially low interest rates from the past decade.

The ultimate policy goal is to stabilize the economy by salvaging industries that will need to provide employment when the pandemic ends. Given the high level of leverage in these companies, any gaps in cashflow will make it impossible for many companies to service their debt. The total debt of U.S. nonfinancial businesses has grown by about $6 trillion since 2007, while cash on hand has only grown by $1.7 trillion. A big driver of that debt growth has been buying back stock.

Lending these companies more money will only compound the long run problem resulting from over-leverage and make the companies even more vulnerable to failure in the long run.

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We are experiencing the end game of the great debt super cycle. As the private sector has become increasingly over-levered, the baton is being passed to the public sector where resources are so strained that the printing press has become the last resort. At 4.6 percent of GDP, the U.S. federal budget deficit in FY 2019 was larger than anything we’ve seen outside of a recession or war.


The truth is that the only policy solution short of socialism is to accomplish a great transfer of wealth from investors to debtors. In the normal course, companies reorganize and creditors haircut debts on a case by case basis. This process, however, is time consuming and expensive. Given the systemic nature of the current crisis, the sheer volume of reorganizations would swamp the financial and legal systems and large defaults would be followed by asset liquidations that would depress the value of collateral backing other loans and likely set off a downward spiral.

Another answer is negative interest rates, where creditors accept a slow erosion of value. The hurdle to successfully implement this solution expeditiously seems completely unrealistic. To reach levels of negative interest rates that would effect a solution would require a rapid shift to a cashless global society and an overhaul of regulation around pension funds and the insurance industry, not to mention the logistical challenges of immediately implementing the systems throughout the financial industry.


Of course, there remains a tried and true method to achieve this policy: debasement. The process of inflating prices would result in shifting wealth from investors to creditors. Many believe inflation is dead and such a policy would not work. The question of how to succeed in raising the price level is more a degree of commitment than ability.


By quickly turning up the printing presses, global central banks would need to provide reserves at a faster rate than the collapse in the velocity of money. This is a delicate exercise and one that would be difficult to execute successfully.

The risks on both sides is not moving quickly enough and overdoing it. If there is too little money made available, the prices of assets used as collateral backing loans will spiral downward. If there is too much, inflation will spiral out of control.

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Almost eight years ago I wrote of the Faustian bargain in which policy makers had engaged to solve the financial crisis. The awful consequence of these policies is that the bill may now be coming due.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...ops+to+zero%29


Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

September 17, 2019 was a significant day in American economic history. On that day, the New York Federal Reserve began emergency cash infusions into the repurchasing (repo) market. This is the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The New York Fed acted after interest rates in the repo market rose to almost 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate.

The New York Fed claimed its intervention was a temporary measure, but it has not stopped pumping money into the repo market since September. Also, the Federal Reserve has been expanding its balance sheet since September. Investment advisor Michael Pento called the balance sheet expansion quantitative easing (QE) “on steroids.”

I mention these interventions to show that the Fed was taking extraordinary measures to prop up the economy months before anyone in China showed the first symptoms of coronavirus.

Now the Fed is using the historic stock market downturn and the (hopefully) temporary closure of businesses in the coronavirus panic to dramatically increase its interventions in the economy. Not only has the Fed increased the amount it is pumping into the repo market, it is purchasing unlimited amounts of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. This was welcome news to Congress and the president, as it came as they were working on setting up trillions of dollars in spending in coronavirus aid/economic stimulus bills.

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This month the Fed announced it would start purchasing municipal bonds, thus ensuring the state and local government debt bubble will keep growing for a few more months.

The Fed has also created three new loan facilities to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in credit to businesses. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has stated that the Fed will lend out as much as it takes to revive the economy.

The Fed is also reducing interest rates to zero. We likely already have negative real interest rates because of inflation. Negative real interest rates are a tax on savings and thus lead to a lack of private funds available for investment, giving the Fed another excuse to expand its lending activities.


The Fed’s actions may appear to mitigate some of the damage of the coronavirus panic. However, by flooding the economy with new money, expanding asset purchases, and facilitating Congress and the president’s spending sprees, the Fed is exacerbating America’s long-term economic problems.

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to end these emergency measures after the government declares it is safe to resume normal life. Consumers, businesses, and (especially) the federal government are so addicted to low interest rates, quantitative easing, and other Federal Reserve interventions that any effort by the Fed to allow rates to rise or to stop creating new money will cause a severe recession.

Eventually the Federal Reserve-created consumer, business, and government debt bubbles will explode, leading to a major crisis that will dwarf the current coronavirus shutdown. The silver lining is that this next crisis could finally demolish the Keynesian welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system.
The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented interventions in the marketplace make it more urgent than ever that Congress pass, and President Trump sign, the Audit the Fed bill. This would finally allow the American people to learn the truth about the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. Audit the Fed is a step toward restoring health to our economic system by ending the fiat money pandemic that facilitates the welfare-warfare state and the unstable, debt-based economy.

March 30, 2020 5:16 PM

PLEASE READ THIS....

Perhaps you might understand. WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL AT THE MOMENT.

Everyone's opinion is appreciated. I just deal with FACTS and REALITY !!!

For Your Reading Pleasure

Best regards


Bruce

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...ops+to+zero%29


Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

September 17, 2019 was a significant day in American economic history. On that day, the New York Federal Reserve began emergency cash infusions into the repurchasing (repo) market. This is the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The New York Fed acted after interest rates in the repo market rose to almost 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate.

The New York Fed claimed its intervention was a temporary measure, but it has not stopped pumping money into the repo market since September. Also, the Federal Reserve has been expanding its balance sheet since September. Investment advisor Michael Pento called the balance sheet expansion quantitative easing (QE) “on steroids.”

I mention these interventions to show that the Fed was taking extraordinary measures to prop up the economy months before anyone in China showed the first symptoms of coronavirus.

Now the Fed is using the historic stock market downturn and the (hopefully) temporary closure of businesses in the coronavirus panic to dramatically increase its interventions in the economy. Not only has the Fed increased the amount it is pumping into the repo market, it is purchasing unlimited amounts of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. This was welcome news to Congress and the president, as it came as they were working on setting up trillions of dollars in spending in coronavirus aid/economic stimulus bills.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...s/Powell_2.png

This month the Fed announced it would start purchasing municipal bonds, thus ensuring the state and local government debt bubble will keep growing for a few more months.

The Fed has also created three new loan facilities to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in credit to businesses. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has stated that the Fed will lend out as much as it takes to revive the economy.

The Fed is also reducing interest rates to zero. We likely already have negative real interest rates because of inflation. Negative real interest rates are a tax on savings and thus lead to a lack of private funds available for investment, giving the Fed another excuse to expand its lending activities.


The Fed’s actions may appear to mitigate some of the damage of the coronavirus panic. However, by flooding the economy with new money, expanding asset purchases, and facilitating Congress and the president’s spending sprees, the Fed is exacerbating America’s long-term economic problems.

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to end these emergency measures after the government declares it is safe to resume normal life. Consumers, businesses, and (especially) the federal government are so addicted to low interest rates, quantitative easing, and other Federal Reserve interventions that any effort by the Fed to allow rates to rise or to stop creating new money will cause a severe recession.

Eventually the Federal Reserve-created consumer, business, and government debt bubbles will explode, leading to a major crisis that will dwarf the current coronavirus shutdown. The silver lining is that this next crisis could finally demolish the Keynesian welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system.


The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented interventions in the marketplace make it more urgent than ever that Congress pass, and President Trump sign, the Audit the Fed bill. This would finally allow the American people to learn the truth about the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. Audit the Fed is a step toward restoring health to our economic system by ending the fiat money pandemic that facilitates the welfare-warfare state and the unstable, debt-based economy.

P.S. From Bruce - As Always The SOLUTION IS POLITICAL !!! HOWEVER THE POLITICIANS WANT THIS TO KEEP ON UNTIL AS THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS STATES " COLLAPSE BECOMES THE ONLY SOLUTION"

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/p-p...ops+to+zero%29

P Is For Pandemic (And O Is For Orwellian)


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...?itok=LY4e264-


by Tyler Durden

Mon, 03/30/2020 - 18:05


Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
– Alan Moore – V for Vendetta

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“Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.”

– Alan Moore – V for Vendetta

I wrote an article called V for Vendetta – 2011 just over nine years ago on the day after the Tucson shooting where congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others were shot by a psychologically disturbed lunatic, with six dying. At the time, I thought of the scene from the V for Vendetta movie where someone did something stupid and all hell broke loose. I expected a similar result from this act, but those in control of our society were successfully able to put a cork in the bottle, preserving their façade of order.

We learned shortly thereafter, through the patriotic efforts of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, how the government was using the vilest of schemes to surveil every American through their abuse of the Patriot Act. The government has become and enemy of the people.

It is interesting to go back and view my conclusion from nine years ago and assess its accuracy as of today:
“This country has not reached the level of control and fear seen in Orwell’s 1984 and V for Vendetta, yet. We are moving relentlessly in that direction. Surveillance, monitoring, spying, censorship, secret prisons, predator drones, and conforming to state rules and regulations put citizens further under the thumb of an all-powerful state. The freedom to dissent, the freedom to be left alone, the freedom to speak out against injustice, the freedom to disagree with your government, and the freedom to present your ideas without fear of retribution or penalty are essential in a democratic society.

The next phase of this Fourth Turning will surely include another downward spiral in financial markets as un-payable debts accumulate to a tipping point level. When ATM machines stop spitting out twenties, food shelves are bare and gas stations are shuttered, social chaos will ensue. The government will react with further command and control measures. In V For Vendetta, the government creates a terrorist incident in order to gain unquestioned control over the population. Americans will need to be more vigilant than they have been over the last ten years in keeping an eye on their government.”

In light of what has happened in 2020 thus far, I’d say my fears have been realized, with more downside to come. I was deeply concerned about the surveillance state, on par with Orwell’s 1984, two years before Snowden made his revelations public. The country has been in a downward spiral since the government used the 9/11 fear and panic to ram through a 300-page pre-written piece of legislation to further take away our Constitutional rights and put vastly more power and control into the hands of uncontrolled psychopaths operating in the shadows of government halls.

Those in charge never let a crisis go to waste. 9/11 was used to pass the Patriot Act and initiate nineteen years of declared and undeclared wars in the Middle East to create chaos, empower Israel, and abscond with the oil of sovereign countries.

The 2008/2009 crisis, created by the Fed and their Wall Street banker proprietors, was used by the powers that be to abscond with trillions in national wealth, while further enslaving senior citizens in poverty and forcing the working middle class further into debt servitude. Bernanke, Yellen, Geithner and a myriad of other banker flunkies have been richly rewarded for their traitorous actions by their Wall Street brethren, with tens of millions in compensation for their duty and honor to the cabal.

The men who created the 2008/2009 global financial collapse through their mortgage fraud scheme, used fear and panic in the markets to force the feckless pathetic bought off congress apparatchiks to pass TARP and dozens of other ridiculous “bailout bankers” schemes to provide a façade of recovery. There was never a recovery. The unpayable debt was papered over with trillions more of unpayable debt, until something snapped in September 2019.

The first half of this twenty year, or so, Fourth Turning was ushered in by the 2008/2009 financial collapse and the subsequent disastrous solutions implemented by the ruling class in order to preserve their wealth, power and control. The taxpayer bailout of Wall Street should have been called NO BANKER LEFT BEHIND. The mind-boggling amount of debt issued over the last decade in order to rectify a problem created by issuing a previously mind-boggling amount of unpayable debt over the previous decade has become so large, the average person can’t comprehend the implications or consequences.

The masses have been indoctrinated through government schools and propagandized by the captured corporate media to such an extent, they have been convinced abnormality and pillaging by the ruling class are both normal and acceptable. The world added $90 trillion of debt between 2000 and 2008, over a 100% increase. Bernanke, Yellen, Powell and their other central bank co-conspirators said hold my beer and added another $90 trillion since the first debt created crisis. The Himalayan mountain of debt now stands at $253 trillion, or 322% of global GDP. Rogoff and Reinhart proved countries whose debt surpass 90% of GDP always proceed towards crisis and currency debasement.


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Even John Maynard Keynes knew countries should run surpluses during good times, so they could run deficits during the bad times. Our glorious financial and political leaders seemed to have skipped that chapter in their economics textbooks. So, under the tutelage of Bernanke, Yellen, Powell, Bush, Obama, and Trump the country has added $12 trillion to the national debt, $3 trillion of corporate (junk) debt to buy back stock, a few trillion in credit card, auto, mortgage and student loan debt, all while the Fed was feeding the Wall Street parasites with zero interest rates and buying $4 trillion of their worthless assets (aka QE). This was all done while we were supposedly experiencing the longest economic boom in history and the stock market confirmed the boom by rising 400% to all-time highs in February of 2020. All’s well that ends well. Right?

It seems debt can’t buy happiness in the long run. This economy and stock market have been bugs in search of a windshield for a long time. Longer than I ever thought possible. But, as some bright financial minds have said, that which is unsustainable will not be sustained. The critical thinking financial people I trust knew something went screwy deep in the recesses of the opaque banking system sometime in September when the overnight repo rates soared to 10%.

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I know 99.99% of Americans have no idea what an overnight repo is, let alone care about them. But Wall Street bankers and connected billionaire hedge fund managers cared, because Powell and his flunkies bailed them out every night from their bad trades and extreme risk taking. As we entered the fateful year of 2020, years of poisonous sludge was clogging the gears, and another financial collapse was imminent. What a fortuitous time for a global pandemic.

This is when things began to get interesting. There have been so many earth shattering events in the last two months it’s almost impossible to assess the current situation with any semblance of certitude. I believe I’m being lied to by virtually everyone. I know for a fact I’m being lied to by the Fed, Wall Street billionaire titans, the fake news media, corrupt politicians, the Chinese dictator, most people on social media and the blithering idiot talking heads on CNBC.

If almost everyone is lying, how can someone decipher the truth? The best way to untangle falsehood from truth is to follow the money. Just as the monied interests and Deep State didn’t let a crisis go to waste after 9/11 and the 2008/2009 Wall Street created collapse, they are again taking advantage of the distress and panic caused by the Chinese coronavirus to once again plunder the American public while assuring them it’s in their best interest.

“When the institutions of money rule the world, it is perhaps inevitable that the interests of money will take precedence over the interests of people. What we are experiencing might best be described as a case of money colonizing life. To accept this absurd distortion of human institutions and purpose should be considered nothing less than an act of collective, suicidal insanity.”

– David Korten

Collective suicidal insanity is the perfect description for what has happened in the last two weeks. There is no doubt the world is experiencing a health crisis not seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It is estimated 20 to 50 million people died during that pandemic, with approximately 600,000 succumbing in the U.S., or .57% of the population. A similar death rate from this pandemic would total 1.9 million people in the U.S.

As of today, there have been 140,000 confirmed cases and approximately 2,400 deaths. Over the coming weeks there will be hundreds of thousands more cases and thousands of additional deaths. That is a depressing and sorrowful fact. But the death count is going to be drastically lower than the 1918 total, during which the country continued to function and slog forward.

A judicious thinking individual might wonder why the Swine Flu epidemic of 2009, which is estimated to have infected 61 million Americans and killed 12,000 to 18,000, did not require a countrywide lockdown resulting in a second Great Depression. Maybe it was because the ruling class already had the ongoing financial crisis as their logic to use panic and fear in achieving their plundering objectives. Did anyone really notice we experienced a global pandemic in 2009?
Our very own CDC “experts” tell us the country has already experienced 38 to 54 million flu infections since October, with a half million hospitalizations, and at least 24,000 deaths, so why weren’t our hospitals overwhelmed? I know this is a serious virus, but the scare tactics being utilized by our overseers, corrupt politicians and their corporate media propaganda outlets is beyond excessive, and reveals a far more nefarious purpose.

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Did we need to purposely create a global depression in order to defeat this virus? Will the benefits outweigh the cost? Is this health crisis being used by the monied interest swine to again gorge themselves at the taxpayer trough, robbing the public, while persuading them it’s for their advantage? The “conspiracy theorists” among us, who have been proven correct time after time over the last decade, know the answers to these questions. This is a controlled demolition by the powers that be as cover for their fraud, criminal schemes, and looting of the national treasure.

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“To rob the public, we must first deceive it. The trick consists in persuading the public that the theft is for its advantage; and by this means inducing it to accept, in exchange for its property, services which are fictitious, and often worse.”

– Frederic Bastiat


Only in a suicide cult, which our country has become, would the majority support and cheer for a corporate lobbyist written $2.2 trillion 873-page windfall to bankers, connected mega-corporations, and every special interest imaginable. This doesn’t even account for the $4 trillion of secret payoffs and behind the scenes shenanigans of the Federal Reserve, as they do their part to support their banker owners once again. And just to make sure none of their despicable acts will see the light of day, the ruling class slipped in little clause titled:
SEC. 4009. TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT IN THE SUNSHINE ACT RELIEF.


The provision authorizes the Federal Reserve Board and other such officials to meet in secret without any oversight constraints. Who needs transparency from the privately owned organization who controls our currency, interest rates, banking regulation and is most responsible for the third financial collapse in the last two decades? And why should we worry that Goldman alum Mnuchin was given a $500 billion slush fund to use as he wishes? I’m sure he’s going to use it to help the local restaurant owner down the block.


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I’m outraged we’ve let this happen again. All they needed to do was crash the stock market by 32% in a few weeks, while having their propaganda machine media predicting millions of deaths, and scaring the nation into shuttering our entire economy. The oppressors once again have succeeded in convincing us they know best and are working for our best interests.

We’ve shirked responsibility for our own lives by believing the very same people who didn’t see the crisis coming, weren’t prepared, and have failed miserably to centrally control the situation. We’ve given them the power over our lives and we are being led towards the slaughterhouse. It was our choice. We let fear overcome reason and courage.

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“Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.”

- Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

The egotism and hubris of the ruling class has no limits, as they quarantine themselves in one of their six mansions or on one of their yachts, eating caviar and drinking champagne, paying their lobbyists to ensure they get a big hunk of the $2.2 trillion stimulus pie, while the average Joe and Jane get a couple thousand bucks to pay one month’s rent and buy some ramen noodles to sustain themselves through the coming military lockdown.


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Don’t look now but you’ve been screwed again. The Wall Street bankers are again able to borrow at 0%, while charging you 17% on your ever-increasing credit card balance. Why aren’t these scumbag bankers announcing a three-month moratorium on credit card and mortgage payments, with no interest accruing? Because their goal is to further enslave you in debt, while enriching themselves. They will run patriotic commercials, while sticking a red white and blue dildo up your ass.

In Part Two of this article I will examine the parallels between our current situation and the favorite anarchist/libertarian film V for Vendetta. I address both the disturbing aspects and the hopeful aspects of the film in relation to what the future holds.

* * *

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fl...ops+to+zero%29


The Flood Begins: Treasury To Sell Over A Quarter Trillion Bills In 48 Hours


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...?itok=LY4e264-
by Tyler Durden


Mon, 03/30/2020 - 19:05


Having noticed the Treasury shortage forming in the bond market, which as we observed emerged both across the broader curve as manifested by the surging demand for the Fed's reverse repo...


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...rch%2030_0.jpg

... as well as the unprecedented demand for "cash-like" T-Bills resulting in negative yields for all paper through 3 months...

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...20-03-30_0.jpg


... which has gifted bond traders with an arb that literally prints free money as described in "Here Is The Treasury's (Not So) Secret Trade Printing Millions In Guaranteed, Risk-Free Profits Every Day", the Treasury has taken decisive action and in order to prevent the Fed from becoming the money market fund of last resort, is literally flooding the market with T-Bills to satisfy the market's panicked need for cash-equivalent paper by announcing an additional two cash management bills today in addition to the one that was revealed last week.


Starting tomorrow, the Treasury will sell just over $100 billion in Cash Management Bill, including a $60BN 42-day CMB and a $45BN 69-day security at 11:30am ET on Tuesday. This follows the sale of $60BN of 37-day CMBs at 0.025% Monday, which saw Indirects awarded 60.6% of the issue.


There's more: the Treasury also sold $51BN of three-month bills at 0.085% (tailing the When-issued bid of 0.040%), and $42BN of six-month Bills which also tailed at 0.100% versus the WI bid of 0.085%. Why the tails? According to Jefferies economists Thomas Simons and Ward McCarthy, the morning announcement of a second $60BN CMB auction this week, plus quarter-end balance sheet pressure “necessitated some concession for the auctions." Also, while the 4.5bps tail can be considered a bad thing, the market is "just starting to back off zero or negative yields” so the auctions are still coming in at “very, very low outright yield levels" according to the Jefferies duo.


In other words, inside of 48 hours we are looking at a gross deluge of $258BN gross in Bills and Cash Management Bills to satisfy what seems to be unprecedented demand for short-term paper. On a net basis, between Monday’s regularly schedule auctions, Tuesday’s four- and eight- week settlements and cash management bill sales, the Treasury will raise about $194BN of new cash this week, according to Bloomberg calculations.


And that's just the beginning, as the Treasury does everything it can to alleviate the Treasury shortage. Considering it has a few trillion in stimulus payments it has to fund, we are confident the shortage won't last too long.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...ops+to+zero%29


Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Crises, like pandemics, don’t break things in and of themselves; they show you what’s already broken.

– Patrick Wyman

Big macro crises in any form are scary, massively disruptive, and in some cases, literally deadly. This is why governments and entrenched institutions always see such events as opportunities to further consolidate wealth and power.

The current global pandemic is no exception, as I detailed in last week’s piece: Power Grab. While it’s necessary to be aware of this reality — and to push back against it wherever possible — it’s equally important to recognize there’s a silver lining to all of this.



The paradigm we live under depends on us not thinking too hard about how power functions. It relies on us being so busy with the basics of survival, or distracted by superficial consumerism and endless entertainment, to contemplate how the system actually works. This method of social control has been wildly successful throughout my lifetime, but what’s interesting about moments of global crises is the mask is forced off for a period. In a desperate scramble to marshal all of the corporate-imperial state’s resources to save the interests of the oligarchy, we’re shown in full color who really matters and who doesn’t.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...QOG_normal.jpgJohnny America@JohnnyBananas79

For every $1000 check that goes out another $1,000,000 check goes out.

The corporations get 1000X more than you.

You get 1/1000th what the corporations receive.

Business as usual, even in a “pandemic”.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...NY0_normal.jpgMichael Krieger@LibertyBlitz

It's amazing how quickly all of Congress turns into socialists (for corporations) the minute billionaires start losing some money.

You do not matter. The imperial state doesn’t care about you. Oligarchs don’t care about you. Mega corporations don’t care about you. This truth is cleverly hidden from much of the public during “normal” times when the machine is humming along as intended, but it’s far more in your face during a crisis period. It’s much harder to hide the truth when the world gets turned upside down.

Aside from the grotesque spectacle of the U.S. government funneling all of its resources toward propping up Wall Street and large corporations, this crisis has exposed the the rot and dysfunction in another meaningful way. Our health experts, ostensibly there to help the public navigate exactly this sort of event, have failed us in spectacular fashion.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...-Se_normal.jpgU.S. Surgeon General

Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...NY0_normal.jpgMichael Krieger@LibertyBlitz

My government:
- Pretended it wasn’t real.
- Made tests that didn’t work.
- Didn’t allow local labs to make their own tests.
- Told the public masks don’t work.
- Gave trillions to Wall Street and an assortment of other predatory oligarchs.

How you doing? https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1243356397187686400 …
CoinDesk
✔@CoinDesk


SURVEY: How do you think your government is handling the #COVID19 outbreak? We want to hear from you. Take our five-minute reader survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZY3D9V9

This is what political actors masquerading as experts do in a crisis. They either give bad advice, or intentionally mislead the public to hide the fact the U.S. simply doesn’t have adequate mask supply and sent its manufacturing capacity overseas. Which brings up an important topic worthy of further discussion: the crucial distinction between experts and expertise.


An “expert” in our society is someone with expertise in a particular field who’s been propped up by either the media, government or both as an authoritative source to listen to on a particular topic. This individual’s elevated stature is artificially created by an external source that’s selected this particular person as someone you should listen to. It tends to be a political appointment. This person has been chosen, not only because he or she has expertise (many others also do), but due to other attributes that appeal to those who’ve decided to prop them up. Anyone who’s worked in corporate America knows full well that many of those promoted to middle management, or higher, often end up there not because they’re particularly skilled, but because they’re good at playing politics and know the right ass to kiss. The same is true in all large organizations, and government is no exception.


In the days before the internet and social media, the public might know that government/media experts were behaving dishonestly, but didn’t have realtime access to competitive nonpolitical voices with equal or superior expertise to the government experts. What many of us discovered during this pandemic is people with expertise engaging publicly on Twitter provided far better and more timely advice than the government/media experts. This makes perfect sense because these people tend to not be political actors, but rather humans attempting to share information in an honest and selfless manner. If we’ve learned anything in the 21st century, it’s that actual track records don’t matter when it comes to media and government positions. In fact, the more catastrophically wrong you are in the interests of oligarchy, the more likely you are to be promoted and elevated.


Fortunately, I entered this crisis with a well established distrust of mass media and government, and therefore knew better than to look toward their experts for any useful guidance. Rather, I sought out the opinions of various nonpolitical individuals with relevant expertise who helped me see things for how they were very early on. Others have not been as lucky, but will no doubt emerge from this crisis with a deep distrust of established institutions and individuals, and with very good reason.

We’ve just witnessed a catastrophic failure of the centralized state in America, and the blowback will resonate within the larger culture for years if not decades. Similar to how many people were shaken to their core during the financial crisis a decade ago, I think this pandemic event will lead to an even larger wave of people awakening to how completely rotten, pernicious and corrupt the whole system is. Once you see that reality in all its glory, you can’t unsee it.



Of course, recognizing how broken things are isn’t enough. We need to have a thoughtful conversation about what we have too much of versus what we need. If we’re going to change the world, we need a vision. I have some thoughts on the matter.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...NY0_normal.jpgMichael Krieger@LibertyBlitz

What we need more of:
- Small businesses
- Empowered individuals
- Decentraliation/localism
- Look inward, bottom up change.

What we need less of:
- Monopoly, dominant oligarchs
- A mass of indebted cubicle slaves
- Centralization/empire
- Searching for saviors, politicians


Nothing is set in stone. The world as it is today is not some divine eternal paradigm beyond reproach. Humans shape the world through their choices, actions and mentality.

For additional thoughts on that and much more, check out my recent interview with Tales From the Crypt.

* * *

Liberty Blitzkrieg is an ad-free website. If you enjoyed this post and my work in general, visit the Support Page where you can donate and contribute to my efforts.

Silver and Gold Better Be In Your Wallet!
Posted March 30th, 2020 at 9:06 AM (CST) by J. Johnson & filed under General Editorial.
Great and Wonderful Monday Morning Folks,

June Gold is still being held in check after the Sunday night rally sent the noble metal to $1,673.60 with the trade now at $1,644.50 down $9.60 after being dipped to $1,635.70 at the start of London’s time. Silver is leading the decline with the May contract at $14.16 down 37.4 cents after being forced down to $13.945 but only after the price rallied to $14.71. The US Dollar is up 55.8 points at 99.095 and close to the high at 99.165 with the low point at 98.395. Of course, all of this happened already before 5 am pst, the Comex open, the London close, and after everything possible was used, in their wallets, to set price against real “In Hand” value.

In Venezuela, Gold gained 18.97 Bolivar with the trade at 16,424.44, yet Silver is losing with the trade at 141.423 showing a loss of 5.243 Bolivar. Argentina’s Peso has Gold valued at 105,852.00 proving a gain of 532.48 over the weekend with Silver losing 30.21 A-Peso’s with the trade at 911.547. The Turkish Lira has Gold trading at 10,781.64, it too showing the first money gaining 189.57 Lira’s yet taking 1.8385 Lira value from the second with Silver’s last trade at 92.8552 T-Lira.

April Silver Deliveries will start in earnest on Wednesday with the demand count now at 900 contracts as we wait for the hold outs – to get out – so we can see what numbers will be used to lie the deliveries and with a Volume of 133 up on the board inside a trading range between $14.115 and $13.915 with the last at $14.025. March Silver’s last day of purchasing concluded with a buy total (Volume) of 80, showing the last trade Mr Resolute (what I call the buyers) made as 400,000 ounces swapped hands. Silver’s Overall Open Interest is still dropping and with the noticeable slowing since we are now at the same levels when Silver rallied the last time with the Overall Count losing 434 Overnighters giving the new total of 141,943 Obligations.

April Gold’s Open Interest is now at 37,408, showing a much larger issue for the sellers of paper, which is obviously not backed with product, as we have to wait for the end of the month to start the deliveries with this mornings Volume at 5,042 happening inside a trading range between $1,652.80 and $1,613.10 with the last price at $1,617.90. Last Friday’s March close-out actually had no buys in Gold at all! That pending order of 3 stood out all day long with no additions, Spooky! Gold’s Overall Open Interest is now at 528,851 showing a slowing down, yet still removing 1,319 Overnighters.

I ran across this story this morning; the CFTC quietly (allows) the bail out of Capital One as the governing bodies, who authorized the EFP’s of Silver and Gold to London without objections, are now allowing banks to float a loss, instead of liquidating, or forcing them to exit a bad trade, and letting those that are far more responsible the lead. “So what exactly happened? According to a spokesman for the CFTC, the commodities regulator issued a waiver to protect the bank and its energy clients from “undue disruption,” given the unprecedented market conditions over the past month amid the coronavirus outbreak.” It’s remarks like these that should be challenged but no one is allowed to. If everyone in Commodities has the same set of rules, and these overleveraged algo controlled companies cannot react by protecting their own assets with their machines, then why is the CFTC allowing Randolph and Mortimer Duke to stay in their trade and get a bailout? To add to this that same spokesperson claimed; “We have actively encouraged all market participants to identify regulatory relief or other assistance that may be needed to help support robust, orderly and liquid markets in the face of this pandemic…” All this time, I thought the governing bodies where here to assure us all, that the rules that are set, are equal and apply to everyone, NOT to assure liquidity. Liquidity has been the word used for, and by, manipulators as more paper is allowed to cover what is left of the physicals.

So here we are, with banks getting vouchers instead of clearing losing trades. These are the things we holders of Silver and Gold have been forced to deal with for too long now. In short, we had another Lehman moment that was stopped because a few bad trades would change everything into something out of the controls of Algos. What’s in your Wallet? Has been the subject we’ve been writing and talking about ever since day one. You can’t even find precious metals at these prices anywhere, and we’re to believe a governing body that helped the situation along to where we are right now? Sorry, my wallet doesn’t have the crap they claim is money, I have physicals.

So, keep that smile on your face and a positive attitude in the head no matter what. We are at the point of change, and it is up to us to move forward. As Always …

Stay Strong!
J. Johnson
More J. Johnson content is available with purchase of a JSMineset subscription

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...ops+to+zero%29


Authored by Percy Carlton for the Saker Blog,
The whole world has gone mad with what I call Covid-19 Derangement Syndrome (CDS).


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I define it as an acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in response to the Covid-19 Corona Virus pandemic. The infection is particularly prevalent among the media and the government officials of the world.

Human beings fear what they do not understand and that fear causes them to behave in irrational and destructive ways. The current Covid-19 pandemic is a perfect example of that. I don’t need to describe the paranoia and economic destruction to you because you can see it with your own two eyes everywhere you look. Both the media and the world’s governments are fueling the panic – the media with their hysterical 24/7 coverage and the governments with their draconian police state actions.

I feel like the man in the following cartoon.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...-or-church.jpg

I am doomed to helplessly stand by and watch the entire world commit economic suicide for no good reason. At first glance this may seem like a shocking and callous statement but do not mistake this as support for the view that the government should stand back and let the private sector take care of the problem. I have no problem with a strong authoritarian central government response as long as it is reasonable and wise. The current government response is neither.

Do Nothing VS Shut Everything Down

The current debate about what governments should do seems to be limited to two options: Do nothing and let the virus run its course or use authoritarian methods to quarantine and restrict the movement of citizens within and across state and national borders. The former will result in many people unnecessarily dying and the latter will save lives but is already resulting in a catastrophic worldwide economic collapse with repercussions that will last for years. It is very narrow thinking to think that those are the only two options that exist. There is always another way. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a solution to the COVID-19 virus problem that would save lives and not result in a worldwide economic Armageddon? Such a solution exists and I will lay it out for you in this article.



First let’s define the problem: A highly contagious virus is spreading around the globe and killing people. Governments should be responsible for protecting their citizens so they must take action. But what actions should they take? That is an important question that must be carefully answered, but only after much research and consideration of all options. If we act rashly and arrive at the wrong answer people will die and/or lives will be destroyed by a global economic depression.

Let’s set aside the fear and hysteria and calmly use the Scientific Method to solve our problem. But I must first make a digression about science.

Three Kinds of Science

Did you know there are three kinds of science? Most folks can’t tell the difference between them and are therefore easily misled. The first two are pseudoscience; the third is real science. There is a significant amount of overlap between the first two although they do have enough of the third mixed in to give them the appearance of credibility.

1) Agenda based science – This type is practiced by people with an agenda. They are blinded by their presuppositions and it results in them twisting, distorting, and sometimes outright lying about their studies, experiments, and data. The people that practice this kind of science are not necessarily evil. They just sincerely but blindly believe something that “just ain’t so.” They think they are helping the world but are instead causing it much harm.

2) Bought and paid for corporate science – This type is practiced by scientific mercenaries who shamelessly produce studies that support the goals of whoever is paying them. Many of these folks are downright evil in my opinion. Much of what passes as “science” these days is of this type.
3) Real science – This type of scientist seeks the truth regardless of what it is. If the scientist has a presupposition they will quickly abandon it if their research does not support it. They will tirelessly search for, support and proclaim the truth even if it results in them being ostracized by the scientific community or persecuted by the government.

The Scientific Method



https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...0_17-13-31.jpg

Step One – Purpose – State the Problem

We have already defined our current problem as a virus that is killing people all over the world, but we have not stated our purpose and objectives. Our main purpose and objectives should be to minimize loss of life and damage to the world economy. These objectives are both very important and are not mutually exclusive regardless of what our governments seem to think.

Step Two – Research – Find Out About the Topic

I’m not going to spend much time discussing something you can easily research on the internet. There are plenty of articles in scientific journals and on science websites. Here is one example: How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu? I suggest you conduct your own independent research instead of getting your information from the hysterical media or an armchair doctor.

Although there are some important differences between the seasonal flu and Covid-19, there are enough similarities that I believe we can find a solution to the problem by applying general medical principles relating to viruses. The entire world did not shut down for the many local and worldwide viral outbreaks we have had in the past 20 years such as SARS, Ebola, Zika, MERS, H5N1 (bird) and H1N1 (swine). There was no need to shut it down for this one.

We all know about the infection and death rates that vary widely around the world but you may not know why. Italy is pointed to by the alarmists as justification for the police state shutdown of entire states and countries so let’s take a closer look at it.

The single largest factor that determines the mortality rate is the health of the person at the time they contract the virus. The symptoms are mild for the vast majority of healthy people that become infected. It is well established that the people with the greatest risk of death are those with a weakened or compromised immune system. The death rate increases exponentially with age precisely because of the decrease in immune function that accompanies the aging process.

According to an Italian Government Study 99% of their Covid-19 fatalities were already sick and half were diagnosed with 3 or more diseases.

Here are some excerpts from a Bloomberg article on the study:

“The median age of the infected is 63 but most of those who die are older. The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.”

“While data released Tuesday point to a slowdown in the increase of cases, with a 12.6% rise, a separate study shows Italy could be underestimating the real number of cases by testing only patients presenting symptoms.”

“According to the GIMBE Foundation, about 100,000 Italians have contracted the virus, daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. That would bring back the country’s death rate closer to the global average of about 2%.”

A huge factor that affects transmission rates is cultural customs. Getting the locals to alter their cultural customs at funerals is one of the four practices that flattened the Ebola epidemic curve in West Africa in 2013-2016. Italy has an aging population that has a cultural tradition of cheek kissing. Is it a great mystery why their death rate is so high?

It is probable that the 2-3% global average of the death rate is wildly over inflated due a high false negative rate for the current tests. And what about the many thousands or maybe even millions of people who may have contracted the virus and were not tested because the symptoms were so mild? Several weeks ago a strange virus ran through my family and a number of my co-workers. We felt horrible for a few days but recovered quickly. My daughter got the worst symptoms but tested negative for the flu. How do we know that it was not Covid-19 or another corona virus? Some of the alarmists such as Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson are now beginning to back off of their doom and gloom predictions.

The phrase “Lies, damned lies and statistics” applies here. The infection rate and death percentage numbers are unreliable. The only statistic that is close to accurate is the number of deaths. Let’s focus our efforts on reducing that number.

Sun Tzu, Firefighters, Preppers, and Floridians
Let’s continue to gather information by getting some advice from Sun Tzu, firefighters, preppers, and Floridians. After that I will tie it all together for you so that it will make sense.


Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu famously said in The Art of War “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

The world’s governments are fighting a battle against an “enemy” (the Covid-19 virus) they do not understand. Neither do they understand “themselves,” which in this case I will consider to be the human body. This is a battle they will not win. They rushed into it blindly with little knowledge and preparation and the results so far are not pretty. The current battle should be over in a few months but the enemy will likely be back next year and/or the year after that. Will we know our enemy and know ourselves better before the next battle? I sincerely hope so.

But is treating the Covid-19 virus like an enemy that needs to be destroyed at all costs the right approach?

War on Covid-19
The USA has been at war in one form or another since its inception. There have been countless shooting wars but there has also been The War On Drugs, The War On Cancer, The War On Poverty, The War On Terrorism, The War On Global Warming, etc. Have any of these wars resulted in the eradication of the object on which the war was declared? No. All of these “wars” are foolish and misguided attempts at eradicating something that you cannot eradicate. They will always be with us.

We have wasted untold trillions of dollars on these wars and have very little to show for it. The results of the current “War On Covid-19” will not be much different.

We need to take a different approach and stop blindly declaring war on something we do not understand.

Trump and other politicians are using the language of war when speaking about their country’s efforts to “fight” Covid-19. That should make us very wary. When the USA declares war on anything we can expect several things to happen:

1. We will go deeper in debt
2. Vast amount of money will be wasted and given away to corrupt corporations
3. The US Constitution will be further trampled and more rights and freedoms will be taken away
4. The people will suffer
5. We will lose the war

Firefighters
I am a firefighter/paramedic for a large city in the State of Florida in the USA. Every time something bad happens firefighters are called to mitigate the situation.

Heart attacks, Covid-19 patients, car wrecks, and hazardous material leaks/spills are among the situations we respond to, but for this example we will use fire.

Firefighters do not treat fire as the enemy. We do not declare war on it and try to stamp out every single flame in our jurisdiction. We understand it to be a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be very destructive and deadly if it is allowed to grow out of control. We do not fear fire because we know it well and we know ourselves well. We do have a healthy respect for it because we frequently see the death and destruction it can cause. When the alarm sounds we calmly but aggressively go about mitigating the fire before it grows out of control and destroys both lives and property. We are well trained and well prepared with the best equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) money can buy.

We have several different methods we can use to put out a fire but the simplest and most effective extinguishing agent is plain old cheap and abundant water. If a sufficient amount of water is applied to the fire in its earliest stages, it will be extinguished with minimal damage to the structure. But if we are called too late and the fire grows out of control before we arrive, the building may be completely destroyed.

Firefighters also educate the public on fire safety. We teach them how to prevent fires and what to do if they occur. I will return to this analogy later but for now the general lesson from firefighters is that the key to mitigating a potentially life and property destroying fire is knowledge, training and equipment. This allows us to apply the right extinguishing agent early enough and in sufficient quantities to put out the fire before the building burns down.

Preppers
I am an amateur prepper, not the “doomsday” type. Maybe it’s because I took the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” seriously or maybe it’s because I love the Biblical story of Joseph saving “the world” from starvation due to famine. In any case, this practice of being prepared has served my family well. When the mob of unprepared citizens began cleaning out the stores recently there was not much I had to run out and buy. (Although I was regrettably almost out of toilet paper.) I already had a freezer full of meat and even a box of N95 masks. Preppers spend time thinking about different scenarios that could happen and then prepare for them. Some do it out of fear but most do it because we know these things will happen to some degree at some point and we want to lessen the impact of these events on our family. We do not want to be dependent on the government to save us. We want to be in the position to help other people and not be a burden on them.


Floridians
Floridians are accustomed to preparing for hurricanes. It is an annual occurrence. We don’t panic because we know the enemy well and it is usually not as bad as it could be. We have an advantage over the folks who live in the Tornado Belt because we have plenty of advance notice that the storm is coming. Preparing for the Covid-19 virus to hit looked and felt like it does when we are preparing for a hurricane. We know it is coming but we do not know exactly when and where it will strike or how bad it will be. We all go out at the same time right before the storm and buy the supplies we need to weather the storm and get us through the aftermath. It always results in the store shelves being cleaned out of certain items. Our advice to you is to emulate our calm manner of preparation but do not emulate our practice of waiting until the last moment to obtain the supplies we need. The best approach is to stock up before storm season arrives.


Step 3 – Hypothesis – Predict the Outcome to the Problem

The doomsday outcomes predicted by the hysterical media and our clueless government officials are fatally flawed due to linear thinking. This is particularly prevalent in the West because the Western mind thinks in a linear manner – they act as if the trend in motion will continue on in the same direction indefinitely. The trend always changes. It is the Creator’s way. Cycles are the very foundation on which the universe was built. It is how energy moves. All viral outbreaks peak and then subside. This one will not be any different. Because the primary transmission route appears to be aerosolized droplets suspended in the air due to talking, coughing, and sneezing, the infection rate will drop dramatically as the air becomes warmer and moister. Airborne viruses love cool and dry air. Towards the end of the article I will be offering my predictions and proposed solutions.


Steps 4, 5, and 6

The world is in the midst of a huge quarantine experiment right now that we have rushed into without adequately stating our purpose and researching our options. In the aftermath we will be analyzing the results and coming to conclusions. Like the aftermath to any other crisis such as 911, most of the official government analysis will be propagandized and used to further their political agendas. We will be deluged with pseudoscience, lies, damned lies and statistics. Truth seekers must use real science to sift through the B.S. and find the truth just like we had to do with 911. Let us hope that the people of the world do not fall for the propaganda and “give up essential liberty to purchase a little safety.” One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” The government officials of the world know a lot that “just ain’t so.” Unfortunately that “knowledge” is what they base their decisions on.


The World in Turmoil

The world is in fear driven turmoil right now because of the following reasons:

1. Ignorance: Our leaders are completely ignorant about how the human body works and are relying on guidance from a conventional medical system that is rife with agenda and corporate driven pseudoscience.
2. Poor or non-existent planning and training: This is self evident and seems to apply to most countries.
3. Narrow thinking: The response is the same all over the world – mass quarantines, isolation, and shutting down of commerce and travel. No country seems to be taking a different approach.
4. Incompletely defining the problem: No government seems to be giving any serious consideration to how they can minimize the economic damage that their solution to the problem is causing. Yes, many governments are throwing vast amounts of money at the problem by creating debt based money but does that ever really work?
5. Treating the Covid-19 pandemic like a war that needs to be waged instead of a recurring problem that needs to be properly mitigated with the right tools and approaches for the job: The USA’s war on Covid-19 will be about as successful as the USA’s War on Cancer has been.

The Cure For Covid-19

The cure for Covid-19 already exists so there is no need to look to the pharmaceutical industry to save us. It is your body’s own immune system. Instead of destroying the world economy in knee-jerk reactionary style maybe the world’s governments should be finding ways to improve the health of their citizens. We have already established that this virus kills the elderly and the immune compromised and has mild effects on the healthy. We should be focusing on the death rate, not the infection rate. Many people get sick with a virus a few times a year and the world economy doesn’t shut down.


I could write an entire series of articles on ways you can improve your health and immune system to the point that the Covid-19 virus would be only a minor irritation to you but this is not the forum for that. But I will tell you about the closest thing we have to a “magic bullet” and how the Chinese are using it to mitigate the virus.


After approving several studies of using intravenous vitamin C for the treatment of Covid-19, on March 1st the Chinese Journal of Infectious Diseases (which is hosted by the Shanghai Medical Association) pre-published the “Expert Consensus on Comprehensive Treatment of Coronavirus in Shanghai 2019.” Among its treatment recommendations was the following:

“Prevention and treatment of cytokine storm: It is recommended to use large doses of vitamin C and unfractionated heparin. Large doses of vitamin C are injected intravenously at a dose of 100 to 200 mg / kg per day. The duration of continuous use is to significantly improve the oxygenation index.”

China must be using it very extensively because in February they shipped 50 tons of it to Hubei Province, the capital city of which is Wuhan. No wonder turned things around so quickly at the epicenter of the outbreak.


Vitamin C: The Magic Bullet for Inflammation

Inflammation is the term we use to describe the body’s immune system response to injury or a foreign invader such as a virus or bad bacteria. It is at the root of all medical problems and diseases. When the immune system is overwhelmed, inflammation rages out of control. In the case of Covid-19 there is an overwhelming amount of inflammation in the lungs that leads to pneumonia, sepsis and death if the inflammatory fires are not quenched. This normally only happens in people with compromised immune systems. An optimally functioning immune system in a healthy person will easily mitigate the virus before it progresses to pneumonia. There are exceptions of course, but they are few.


We now return to my firefighter analogy. We can easily extinguish a fire if we arrive on scene while it is still in its incipient stage. A small booster line or even a 2.5 gallon fire extinguisher is all that is needed. If our response is delayed the fire will grow exponentially to the point that is not safe to enter the building. We then apply very large streams of water from the outside and do not enter the building until after the majority of the flames have been extinguished. The sooner we apply the water the less of it that is required to do the job. If we do not apply large streams of water in the late stages of a fire the building will be lost.


Vitamin C works the same way as water in our firefighter analogy. If enough oral vitamin C is taken at an early enough stage of an illness, the inflammation will be quenched and will never get to the exponential growth phase. The longer you wait to take it the more you will need to quench the inflammatory fire growing inside of you. The key to success is to take it at the first sign of symptoms. One you get to the exponential growth phase intravenous vitamin C is needed and it will be effective in a very large percentage of cases. If it is not applied, the result is death in a large percentage of cases.


Doctors in China and even the USA are using intravenous vitamin C on Covid-19 patients with great success. Doctors and researchers all over the world have known for decades about the incredible power of intravenous vitamin C to quench the raging fires of inflammation.

Sepsis is a condition that can be compared to the pneumonia that is killing the immune compromised elderly Covid-19 patients. They are both acute and massive inflammatory responses due to infection. An observational study published in The Lancet found that 100% of the early Covid-19 patients that died in Wuhan had sepsis. And not surprisingly most were older folks with health problems. Sepsis may be responsible for as many as 20% of deaths worldwide. It is one of the top killers of people that die in hospitals. One doctor in the USA has been using intravenous vitamin C in a treatment protocol that has reduced the death rate from sepsis by almost 5 fold – from 40% to 8.5%.


Is It Really That Simple?

Yes it is. “But Percy, then why aren’t governments around the world endorsing it and using it?” That is an almost irrelevant question. Does the scientific evidence and case studies prove it or not? I can give you a very conclusive answer for the USA. We have a corrupt and powerful pharmaceutical industry that exerts a massive amount of influence on our government. They use that power and influence to squash and suppress any medical treatment that cannot be patented and used to make obscene amounts of profit. Vitamin C cannot be patented so therefore it will not be widely used or studied. If it is not being used in your country then maybe your medical system has been corrupted or misled by the West. China is using it extensively, as well as a few renegade doctors in countries all over the world. If you look for them you will find them.


Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

I do not subscribe to this view because I believe that claims that can be proved or disproved by science all require the same amount of evidence. What is extraordinary to one may be ordinary to another. A good example is 911. I do not consider it to be an extraordinary claim to say that two planes did not bring down three buildings on 9/11/2001, particularly Building 7. The laws of physics prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But to the vast majority of the American public that is too fantastic of a claim to even warrant checking into. So if you summarily dismiss my claims without serious investigation it will be similar to someone refusing to watch the excellent documentary 911: Explosive Evidence- Experts Speak Out by Architects and Engineers For 911 Truth because it sounds too fantastic to be true.

Here are some links to get you started if you would like to conduct your own research. I highly recommend that you do so.

 

1. Vitamin C Material: Where to Start, What to Watch
2. 905 Abstracts with vitamin C research
3. Published Research and Articles on Vitamin C as a Consideration for Pneumonia, Lung Infections, and the Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19)

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm

I would be remiss if I did not touch upon the more bizarre aspects of this crisis. I will list a few. This is certainly not an exhaustive list and I have only linked to the things that are facts. No conspiracy theory links here.

1. The biolab in Wuhan
2. Event 201, a corona virus pandemic exercise held on Oct. 18, 2019
3. The World Bank Pandemic Bonds
4. Government officials in sunny Florida are closing parks, beaches and restricting other outdoor activities such as boating in spite of the fact that outdoors in the sunshine is the best place to be during a pandemic
5. Netflix releases ‘Pandemic’ docuseries as coronavirus spreads
6. Lots of conspiracy theories floating around such as insiders and elites selling stocks and bonds right before the crash, installing 5G cell towers at schools during the shutdown and allegations of bio warfare between the USA and China

I am attempting to apply Occam’s Razor to this crisis but I must admit that the longer this inexplicable and destructive behavior by governments goes on the more difficult it is for me to do so. Are all these things (and more) just amazing coincidences? I will let the reader decide.


Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

When a “crisis” comes along, whether false flag or real, Western leaders always use it as an excuse to pass liberty destroying legislation that would be otherwise politically untenable. In the USA, 911 gave us the Patriot Act, TSA, DHS, etc. I fully expect the Covid-19 pandemic to bring us similar legislation such as the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act. Power grabs are being suggested and attempted all over the world. Here are a few headlines:

1. Corbella: Trudeau’s attempted power grab an alarming breach of trust
2. Gordon Brown calls for global government to tackle coronavirus
3. DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic
4. De Blasio urges ‘nationalization’ of key industries, calls coronavirus outbreak a ‘war-like situation’
5. Embattled Netanyahu Makes a Coronavirus Power Grab
6. EU warns of Hungary power grab as Orban seeks state of emergency extension

I could fill up a page with headlines such as these. It is a very disturbing trend.


Where We Go From Here

I see myself as a realist, not an optimist or a pessimist. My study of history, economics, and politics tells me that the future looks grim. Much of the world is suffering under corrupt and ignorant leaders who cannot possibly successfully lead us out of this mess, particularly in the Western world. The world’s interconnected and dollar dominated financial system is a house of cards that has been waiting on the right flap of a butterfly’s wings to set off a series of events that will cause it to come tumbling down.

We are past the point of no return. An economic recession or depression will be ushered in by the response to the Covid-19 virus, not the Covid-19 virus itself. The government response to a crisis always sets up the next crisis. Capital flight to the dollar has already begun en mass. By next year or the year after there will be loan defaults that will set off a worldwide contagion that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.

The Eurozone will implode first. The Covid-19 corona virus will mutate and be back next year and/or the year after that. Lord help us if our leaders shut the world down again next year. China will survive and be the beneficiary of the West’s self destruction. They will suffer, but not nearly as much as the West. The USA dominated Anglo-Zionist Empire will be largely over within 20 years, maybe much sooner. The new financial capital of the world will be China.


Conclusion 1 – What Governments Should Do

After we are on the downside of the infection bell curve governments should begin planning for the next round of this. Instead of being reactive they should be proactive. The primary focus should be to educate their citizens on how to be healthy. Healthy people have little to worry about from Covid-19 or most any other virus. Healthy people do not clog the healthcare system; unhealthy people do. They should also educate their citizens on ways they can support their immune systems and encourage them to do so quickly in the incipient stages of an illness. This will drastically reduce the strain of sick people on overburdened healthcare systems. That leaves only the worst cases to deal with. For these they should follow China’s lead and develop a treatment protocol that incorporates intravenous vitamin C to quench the inflammatory fire in the lungs that leads to death.


The mass quarantines of entire cities, states, and countries must stop. It is not stopping the spread and it is destroying the world economy in the process. If they want to quarantine a population it should be the population with the greatest risk of death – the elderly.

None of this will happen of course. When their approach doesn’t work, Western leaders usually double down on it hoping for a different result. Hopefully there will be some renegade local governments that will defy the unconstitutional decrees of their central government – like what many state governments are doing to the federal government in the USA regarding cannabis laws.

Conclusion 2 – What You Can Do

Since I am not under any illusions that this article will be read and considered by any person in power anywhere on the planet, the advice that follows is the reason I wrote this article. There is little chance that any of our overlords will be cured of the Covid-19 Derangement Syndrome that infects them. But, dear reader, if you are living in fear and hiding in your house or apartment and are afraid of contracting the Covid-19 virus there is hope for you. The antidote for fear is knowledge, training and preparation.

I do not fear fire because I understand it and I am well trained and equipped to extinguish a fire at any stage of development. I always strive to extinguish the fire in its incipient stage before it grows out of control.


I do not fear any virus because I understand them and I understand how my body uses its immune system to defend me from them. If I begin to get sick I know many natural methods to ramp up my immune system’s ability to fight off any infection whether viral or bacterial.

If you are not healthy, begin taking steps to correct that now. This virus will be back, and when it does you want your immune system to be functioning at a high level. Take advantage of this “lockdown” time and gain some knowledge. Instead of watching the 24/7 news cycle repeated over and over again (which can rapidly lead to depression and a loss of hope) redeem the time and study how you can change your diet and lifestyle and get in excellent health. After the current madness subsides and the stores are restocked, begin stocking up on the supplies you will need for the next round of this. Become self sufficient and prepared for any emergency. Whatever you do, do not sit back and wait for the government or pharmaceutical industry to save you.

If you do these things you can join me as I watch in stunned amazement the next time the whole world panics due to a pandemic. You will also be in a position to guide and assist your loved ones and neighbors. An economic storm and additional pandemic storms are coming and like minded people around the world need to pull together and help each other when they hit.

* * *

Percy Carlton is a soon to be retired firefighter/paramedic in a large city in the State of Florida in the USA. He has relentlessly studied and pursued truth in the areas of health, economics and geopolitics for the past 10 years.

Good Morning

I was not able to call you yesterday. Please email me to [email protected] your log on ID for FXCM UK and your password so that I can see your actual Forex trades and do a SCREENSHOT since you do not seem to be able to do it.

Thank you...


Bruce

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fe...ops+to+zero%29


With US dealers no longer using the Fed's repo facilities (this morning we had another "no bid" overnight repo with just $250MM in MBS submitted for a $500 billion op) as the Fed soaks up all securities via its aggressive QE which is still buying $75BN in paper each day, perhaps Powell felt a bit unloved and at 830am this morning the Fed unveiled yet another "temporary" emergency liquidity providing facility, this time to foreign central banks, in the form of a repo facility targeting "foreign and international monetary authorities", i.e. foreign central banks which will be allowed to exchange Treasuries held in custody at the Fed for US dollars.


In other words, just a week after the Fed "enhanced" its swap lines with central banks and included a bunch of non G-5 central banks to the list of counterparties, it has found that this is not working - perhaps due to the prohibitive rates on the facility - and is now handing out dollars outright against US denominated securities.

We wonder if the central bank uptake will be any higher than the repo facility aimed at US dealers and which is now redundant. Of course, when that fails the Fed can just offer to buy all central bank securities in what even reputable FX strategists now joke is a Fed on full tilt, and intent on buying out all foreign central banks.

And so, just as the financial situation was starting to stabilize, the Fed reminds everyone just how broken everything still is.

Fed launches ANOTHER temporary facility to provide $USD liquidity to foreign central banks (this time foreign central bank holdings of US Treasury's can be exchanged for dollars).

At this rate, Fed is on course to buy out foreign central banks... and call it an M&A facility pic.twitter.com/iAXRCVoZS9
— Viraj Patel (@VPatelFX) March 31, 2020



The full announcement is below.

Federal Reserve announces establishment of a temporary FIMA Repo Facility to help support the smooth functioning of financial markets

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced the establishment of a temporary repurchase agreement facility for foreign and international monetary authorities (FIMA Repo Facility) to help support the smooth functioning of financial markets, including the U.S. Treasury market, and thus maintain the supply of credit to U.S. households and businesses. The FIMA Repo Facility will allow FIMA account holders, which consist of central banks and other international monetary authorities with accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to enter into repurchase agreements with the Federal Reserve. In these transactions, FIMA account holders temporarily exchange their U.S. Treasury securities held with the Federal Reserve for U.S. dollars, which can then be made available to institutions in their jurisdictions. This facility should help support the smooth functioning of the U.S. Treasury market by providing an alternative temporary source of U.S. dollars other than sales of securities in the open market. It should also serve, along with the U.S. dollar liquidity swap lines the Federal Reserve has established with other central banks, to help ease strains in global U.S. dollar funding markets.

The Federal Reserve provides U.S. dollar-denominated banking services to FIMA account holders in support of Federal Reserve objectives and in recognition of the U.S. dollar's predominant role as an international currency. The FIMA Repo Facility, which adds to the range of services the Federal Reserve provides, will be available beginning April 6 and will continue for at least 6 months.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/qu...ops+to+zero%29


With stocks staging a remarkable bear market rally in the past week (even Goldman now says this is not the bottom and the impressive move of the past week is just another bear market rally), which reversed the fastest ever bear market, and pushed the S&P into a bull market...

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... traders have attributed a big part of the move to what we first said more than a week ago would be forced buying by pension funds who were mandated to buy as much as $850BN in stock for quarter end to offset the underperformance of stocks vs bonds.

To be sure, some doubt emerged whether that is indeed the case yesterday when P&I magazine reported that at least one California pension fund, the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, had temporarily modified its asset allocation and rebalancing policies, which includes allowing the staff to defer rebalancing its asset allocation, a move which many if not all other pension funds are expected to adopt.

That said, it was not clear if the new LACERS policy would take place this quarter or in the future, and so traders kept buying on Monday, frontrunning what they expected was a last minute dash by pension funds to buy stocks.

Well, at least according to Morgan Stanley's Quantitative and Derivatives Strategist, any residual pension scramble to buy stocks is now over, and this quarter's rebalance trade is effectively in the history books, to wit:

A week and a half ago QDS forecast $160bn in month-end equity buying as pensions and asset allocators would need to reallocate portfolios. Since then the S&P 500 is up 10% and is up 17% off the Monday lows. Our models now suggest $50bn still to buy globally (with $25bn in the US) and while that figure is still large, much of the impact may already be in the price.

As a result of the pension trade, the market's low liquidity - "need to start earlier to spread the flow out over more days" - plus an attractive opportunity to monetize the rally in bonds and rotate into equities likely has brought forward some demand according to the QDS strategists who note that dispersion over the last few days has been in the 8th %ile since 2012 suggesting index led moves, and note that conversations with MS clients appear to suggest allocators are looking more favorably on credit than equity now.

In fact, as Morgan Stanley concludes, "equity allocations are likely now less than 1% off of target weights, which may be close enough for many allocators in this uncertain environment."


This means that any attempt to frontrun pension funds at this point is just a frontrunning of other investors who believe they are frontrunning someone who is no longer buying.
Which brings us to a warning from Morgan Stanley:

While markets can certainly keep going higher (QDS still does forecast net equity demand over the next few days), the risk/reward of being long on asset allocation expectations alone is less clear and QDS is no longer as tactically bullish.

Finally, looking beyond month-end, QDS is concerned about a) retail MF redemptions and b) risk of L/S HF selling of Tech stocks after a strong rally in crowded longs.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html


Pandemic Pandemonium: The Tides of Globalization and Financialization Reverse
March 31, 2020

Central bank free money doesn't create collateral or creditworthy borrowers, and without those foundations, the decayed, rotted shack will collapse.

In terms of consequential trends, the pandemic is not a cause, it's an accelerant of shifts already under way before the emergence of Covid-19. Put another way, the tide had already reversed, but now it's visible to all.

The twin drivers of neoliberal inequality, globalization and financialization, are now ebbing, much to the dismay of central banks and the elites that neoliberalism's golden twins enriched at the expense of everyone else.

Globalization ceased expanding some time ago, as diminishing returns set in. The low-hanging fruit had long been picked, and Wall Street's relentless arbitrage of labor costs, environmental laxity and corrupt governance had long since stripped the globalization tree not just of fruit but of bark and foliage.

Wall Street's equally relentless commoditization of assets, debt and leverage had also reached diminishing returns, unsurprising as financialization is the core driver of globalization's ruthless exploitation.

While the conventional media has long focused on offshoring of jobs and factories, the truly monumental profits were raked in by commoditizing assets, debt and leverage on a global scale.

Thus guaranteed-to-default subprime mortgages were deceptively bundled as "low-risk" securities and sold to pension funds in Norway in 2008, this being a mere tip of the iceberg of fictional capital sold off to marks and rubes globally.

The collateral is gone, baby--if there was anything other than fictional collateral to start with. All those collateralized debt obligations (CLOs), neatly bundled auto loans, junk debt based on illusory future returns from fracking companies--it's all gone, and the bagholders are looking to the central banks to bail them out by buying all the putrid sewage of financialization.

The problem with financialization, of course, is that it creates no real goods or services. It is nothing but an elaborate skimming of value produced by others, a looters' paradise that siphons most of the gains into the hands of a few financial puppet-masters.

Globalization's gains were also sluiced into the hands of the few, while neoliberalism's propaganda machine spewed the bogus benefits of globalization: cheaper jeans and TVs, and toasters that might last a year if you're lucky. The nation's essential industries were sent overseas with one goal and one goal only: maximize profits for corporate insiders, their political lapdogs and the top 5% who own most of the shares.
The pandemic has done nothing but knock down the brightly painted facade, revealing the decayed, rotted shack of reality. Globalization and financialization always served one goal: maximizing the profits of the few, by any means available, at the expense of the many.

Now that the collateral is gone and the tree of globalization has been stripped bare, there's nothing left to exploit except the unlimited largesse of predatory finance's best buddies, central banks.

Only chumps, rubes and marks think they can get something for nothing, yet here we are, rubbing our hands with glee at the Fed's trillions in free money. Yee-haw, free money for everyone, but especially for the most exploitive and predatory of financialization's looters.
Sorry, but there is no free lunch. Every dollar of the Fed's freshly printed trillions will eventually be taken out of the purchasing power or collateral of the holders of Federal Reserve currency.

Just as the way of the Tao is reversal, the tides of globalization and financialization have reversed. Central banks are shoveling sand against the tide, and in their hubris-soaked delirium, already declaring victory.

Central bank free money doesn't create collateral or creditworthy borrowers, and without those foundations, the decayed, rotted shack will collapse. The pandemic has released a tightly coiled pandemonium that will play out in the years ahead.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos202...ssets1-20a.jpg

https://www.oftwominds.com/photos202...zation1-20.png

My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts




If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.




Recent entries:
Pandemic Pandemonium: The Tides of Globalization and Financialization Reverse March 31, 2020
What Happens as State and Local Tax Revenues Crater? March 30, 2020
The New (Forced) Frugality March 28, 2020
The Pandemic Is Accelerating the Breakdown That Began a Decade Ago March 25, 2020
Helicopter Money: Short-Term Relief Won't Cure our Financial Disease March 23, 2020
The System Will Not Return to "Normal," and That's Good; We Can Do Better March 21, 2020
The Global Repricing of Assets Can't Be Stopped March 18, 2020
Covid-19 Helicopter Money: Go Big Now or Go Home March 17, 2020
The Covid-19 Dominoes Fall: The World Is Insolvent March 16, 2020
I'm Looking for Ten Readers Willing to Pony Up $1 for the Crazy-Valuable Content Here March 14, 2020
Goodbye to All That: The Demise of Globalization and Imperial Pretensions March 12, 2020
And Then Came the Lawsuits: Pandemic in a Litigious Society March 10, 2020
What the Fed Can Do: Print and Buy, Buy, Buy March 8, 2020
The Gathering Storm: Could Covid-19 Overwhelm Us in the Months Ahead? March 5, 2020
Could China's Overlapping Crises Spiral Out of Control? March 4, 2020
Did Covid-19 Just Pop All the Global Financial Bubbles? March 3, 2020


January 2020 entries February 2020 entries March 2020 entries
Archives 2005-2019


https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2016/BV468-60-1.gif

Hi Bruce,

just emailed you. thanks

Forex Traders

Here is the SCREENSHOT for loveandpeace

This account was opened up on February 18, 2020

The account started with $50,000 US Dollars

You can all see the balance now. These are REAL TRADES in that the method that I use was taught to this Forex Trader.

This amazing accomplishment was done between February 18, 2020 and today March 31, 2020. That is a period of 43 days or just over 6 weeks.

I would appreciate for this Forex trader to post on my thread a brief summary of how and what allowed him to achieve these results while always controlling the risk.

Thank you


Bruce

Thanks Mr. Bruce,

I could not have done this without your teaching and help. you are the best in this forex world.

thanks again and now I think I am ready to qualify your LPOA with REAL Money Account.

I traded 09 position within 30 minutes, 07 with profit, and I made $1300.

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/pan...ops+to+zero%29


Authored by J.D.Tuccille via Reason.com,

Could the stalled economy we've inflicted on ourselves in our frantic efforts to battle the COVID-19 pandemic lead to civil disorder? History suggests that's a real danger.


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...-2400x1350.jpg


Around the world, high unemployment and stagnant economic activity tend to lead to social unrest, including demonstrations, strikes, and other forms of potentially violent disruptions. That's a huge concern as forecasters expect the U.S. unemployment rate in the months to come to surpass that seen during the depths of the Great Depression.

"We're putting this initial number at 30 percent; that's a 30 percent unemployment rate" in the second quarter of this year as a result of the planned economic shutdowns, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told Bloomberg News on March 22. Gross Domestic Product, he adds, is expected to drop by 50 percent.

Unlike most bouts of economic malaise, this is a self-inflicted wound meant to counter a serious public health crisis. But, whatever the reasons, it means businesses shuttered and people without jobs and incomes. That's risky.

"Results from the empirical analysis indicate that economic growth and the unemployment rate are the two most important determinants of social unrest," notes the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations agency that maintains a Social Unrest Index in an attempt to predict civil disorder based, in part, on economic trends. "For example, a one standard deviation increase in unemployment raises social unrest by 0.39 standard deviations, while a one standard deviation increase in GDP growth reduces social unrest by 0.19 standard deviations."

Why would economic shutdowns lead to social unrest? Because, contrary to the airy dismissals of some members of the political class and many ivory-tower types, commerce isn't a grubby embarrassment to be tolerated and avoided—it's the life's blood of a society. Jobs and businesses keep people alive. They represent the activities that meet demand for food, clothing, shelter—and that develop and distribute the medicine and medical supplies we need to battle COVID-19.

President Donald Trump may be overly optimistic when he hopes to have the country, including areas hard-hit by the virus, "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," but he's not wrong to include the economy in his calculations.

By contrast, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's insistence that "if it's public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health," sounds fine and noble. But it reflects an unrealistic and semi-aristocratic disdain for the activities that make fighting the pandemic possible at all—and that keep social unrest at bay.

While the ILO has tried to quantify the causes of social unrest, its researchers certainly aren't the first to make the connection between angry, unemployed people and trouble in the streets.

At the height of the Great Depression, when U.S. unemployment hit a peak of 24.9 percent, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration saw make-work programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a means of getting the jobless—especially young men—safely into "quasi-military camps often far from home in the nation's publicly owned forests and parks," Joseph M. Speakman wrote for the Fall 2006 issue of Prologue Magazine, a publication of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

"Bringing an army of the unemployed into 'healthful surroundings,' Roosevelt argued, would help to eliminate the threats to social stability that enforced idleness had created," Speakman added.

The program mostly worked—at least, it confined revolts to the camps themselves, where they were suppressed by Army officers. Those same officers commanded the men when they were drafted and dispatched to even more remote destinations with the coming of World War II.

In fact, the connection between unemployment, stagnant economies, and social unrest is so clear that an important indicator for a large underground economy is relative peace prevailing alongside a chronically high unemployment rate.

If 21 percent of the workforce "were jobless, Spain would not be as peaceful as, barring a few demonstrations, it has so far been, say economists and business leaders," the Financial Times noted in 2011. Sure enough, researchers found that off-the-books businesses and jobs thrived in Spain—accounting for the equivalent of a quarter of GDP at one point—keeping people employed and defusing tensions.

Bullard of the Fed doesn't propose shipping the jobless off to the wilderness—at least, not yet—and he doesn't seem inclined to rely on the black market to keep people fed, warm, and healthy. Instead, to defuse the impact of the social-distancing shutdowns of normal economic activity, he calls for lost income to be replaced by unemployment insurance and other payments that would make displaced workers and business owners whole.


He better be right that government checks—drawing on money from the thin air and not generated by an economy that has largely halted, I'll note—can offset the pain of lost jobs and businesses, because the first wave of the unemployment he predicts is already here.

"In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week's revised level," the United States Department of Labor announced on Thursday, March 26.

"This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series."

Those disturbed by such economic collapse include public health professionals who take COVID-19 very seriously.

"I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life—schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned—will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself," wrote David L. Katz, former director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, in The New York Times last week.

"The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order."

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Unemployment, impoverishment, and despair are frightening outcomes in themselves. They're also a recipe for social unrest that will afflict even those of us who weather both the pandemic and the accompanying economic storm.

I closed two more trades with $1200.00 profit.