Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

5 Minute Chart of Dow 30

https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5

Every day between 2:00 AM, Eastern Standard Time, and 6:00 AM, there are unique Money Flow Patterns that repeat as the European Stock Markets open in the morning.

At 8:30 Eastern Standard Time and 10:00 AM, there are important data releases such as Inflation numbers or Non-Farm Payroll numbers that influence the PERCEPTIONS of traders.

Then at 9:30 AM, when North American Stock Markets open the ACTUAL Money Flow starts with changes in the values of stocks and the flow of money into bonds or other investment instruments such as Copper, Gold Oil, and many others.

NOTE: I started this Demo account 49 days ago on January 12, 2023. I have DOUBLED the original trading capital from $50,000 US dollars to just under $100,000 US dollars.

I did 155 total trades with 3 losses. My best winning streak was 95 winning trades in a row at the start which is possible to do once you show you have the skills to be a professional Forex trader.


WWW.AVIELFOREXLEARNINGEDGE.COM

Please sign up for our 90-day Forex trading course with a special offer of $250.00 Canadian dollars to take our unique hands-on 24/7 course.

PLEASE GO WITH THE MONEY FLOW

Let us review what we teach and why it works if YOU WORK.

Without your WORK then you are just wasting your time and probably your money.

There is no such thing as Political Correctness here because we are here to teach and share our knowledge.


SO.... going back to our winning FORMULA for FOREX SUCCESS.

20% of the SUCCESS is yourself the Forex Trader.

20% of the SUCCESS is your EDGE which we teach you and that is Money Flow Trading.

20% of the SUCCESS is control of your RISK (Your hard earned money) Our UNIQUE RISK MANAGEMENT allows you to trade without worry, fear and greed. Of course we want to make sure that you have the right qualities to be a winning Forex Trader so our course is for a period of three months, so we can teach you the right trading methods and we can see your results and make adjustments without your FEAR OF LOSS of Real Money.


20% of the SUCCESS is using and understanding the USE of Technical Indicators which include not only the common ones. It includes the understanding of Supply and Demand. Support and Resistance and the use of Pivot Points which you can see each day on our daily charts that cover ALL our Trade Plans which we also help you develop and explain WHY. These are our Winning Trade Plans that we review every three months or earlier if circumstances in the markets require that.

20% of the SUCCESS is the FUNDAMENTALS, which are much more than Data Releases each day around the world. It includes reports and articles extremely well researched as you can clearly see from this article that explains why the TREND in the Equity Markets especially in North America is DOWN. By understanding the difference between PERCEPTIONS (MARKETS) and REALITY, you then have a good handle on REALITY before the MASSES do and you are not surprised when events eventually unfold.

When successful traders aren't trading, they are researching, developing, and innovating. When unsuccessful traders aren't trading, they're staring at screens and forcing trades. There is nothing better for trading psychology than being at the cutting edge of a growing business.

What makes a trader successful is discipline: doing the right thing with fidelity. What keeps a trader successful is innovation: doing new things and turning them into disciplines.

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

Blog/Russia

Posted Mar 2, 2023, by Martin Armstrong

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...he_Week_UK.png

We Are on the Wrong Side of History Supporting Ukraine. We absolutely MUST end all support for Ukraine and demand the Minsk Agreement be enforced by the United Nations. Reports from both French and American soldiers who rushed there as mercenaries believing the propaganda of the Neocons against Russia have returned sickened by the fact that there is a very major problem in Ukraine with Nazis.

We are becoming the 21st Century version of Hitler. Our press just reads the releases from the Biden Administration which is so WOK, has nobody qualified to be a dog catcher, and has allowed the Neocons to control US Foreign Policy. Even the Canadian sniper known as “Wali” returned to the horror stories of Ukrainian soldiers and corruption. As one returning mercenary put it that Ukraine is a “corrupt fucked up society.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...tian_Icons.png https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...an-Soldier.png

There are numerous accounts from returning mercenary soldiers about what is really going on. Ukrainians slaughtering Russians who surrender. I have videos so horrible of crucifying Russian soldiers and then burning them alive. Does Zelensky then want to put out the bullshit that Russia is committing war crimes?

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...ed_Ukraine.png

Anyone who dares to criticize Ukraine they call a Putin supporter. This is their standard tactic so that they can do as they like, paint Russia as evil, and lead the world into complete destruction. Everything we have achieved since World War II will be lost – PERIOD! People have to start demanding their stupid world leaders stop supporting this insanity and simply HONOR the Minsk Agreement. Ukraine was NEVER a nation. The People in the Donbas and Crimea are Russian and they have always been Russians

I explained that Romania is becoming a World War III training battleground for NATO.

There are currently 40,000 troops on the ground throughout Eastern Europe, with more set to arrive. Recean said talks also covered regional security and that Moldova, which is highly dependent on Russian gas, was considering signing long-term contracts on gas and electricity supplies from Romania. Our Array on Romania does not look very good from 2025 onward and 2032 is a major event for that region. Romania and Moldavia are choosing the wrong side in this war and are risking their entire future rather than pushing Ukraine to accept peace.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...e-for-wart.png

The fraud of the West in negotiating the Minsk agreement openly stating it was to buy time for Ukraine to build its army demonstrated that the West is the aggressor and has wanted this war from the outset driven by the Neocon’s endless quest for regime change to rule the world themselves. Moldavia and Romanis will no longer even exist post 2032. This is a disastrous forecast coming from our computer. Those readers in that region should consider alternatives to migrate while they still have time.

Video Player
00:00
00:14

Ukraine is losing and here is Zelensky saying that the United States must send their children to fight for his corrupt government acknowledging they will die there.
Categories: Russia, Ukraine

« PRIVATE BLOG – Ukraine is Desperate to Create WWIII ASAP not to Lose

The Belmarsh Tribunal Sydney is being held on Saturday. But first, there is very sad news about Daniel Ellsberg.

JOHN KIRIAKOU

MAR 2

▷ LISTEN


Dear Friends,
Hello from Sydney, where I’ve just arrived to speak at the Belmarsh Tribunal Sydney on Saturday evening. Before I get to that, though, I want to talk about my friend, mentor, and personal hero Daniel Ellsberg for a moment.

Loud & Clear with John Kiriakou is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dan sent many of us an email this morning that said the following
Dear friends and supporters,

I have difficult news to impart. On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer on the basis of a CT scan and an MRI. (As is usual with pancreatic cancer--which has no early symptoms--it was found while looking for something else, relatively minor). I’m sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live. Of course, they emphasize that everyone's case is individual; it might be more or less.

I have chosen not to do chemotherapy (which offers no promise) and I have the assurance of great hospice care when needed. Please know: right now, I am not in any physical pain, and in fact, after my hip replacement surgery in late 2021, I feel better physically than I have in years! Moreover, my cardiologist has given me a license to abandon my salt-free diet for the last six years. This has improved my quality of life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my former favorite foods! And my energy level is high. Since my diagnosis, I've done several interviews and webinars on Ukraine, nuclear weapons, and first amendment issues, and I have two more scheduled this week.

As I just told my son Robert: he's long known (as my editor) that I work better under a deadline. It turns out that I live better under a deadline!

I feel lucky and grateful that I've had a wonderful life far beyond the proverbial three-score years and ten. ( I’ll be ninety-two on April 7th.) I feel the very same way about having a few months more to enjoy life with my wife and family, and in which to continue to pursue the urgent goal of working with others to avert nuclear war in Ukraine or Taiwan (or anywhere else).

When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed (and was). Yet in the end, that action—in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon’s illegal responses—did have an impact on shortening the war. In addition, thanks to Nixon's crimes, I was spared the imprisonment I expected, and I was able to spend the last fifty years with Patricia and my family, and with you, my friends.

What's more, I was able to devote those years to doing everything I could think of to alert the world to the perils of nuclear war and wrongful interventions: lobbying, lecturing, writing, and joining with others in acts of protest and non-violent resistance.

I wish I could report greater success for our efforts. As I write, the "modernization" of nuclear weapons is ongoing in all nine states that possess them (the US most of all). Russia is making monstrous threats to initiate nuclear war to maintain its control over Crimea and the Donbas--like the dozens of equally illegitimate first-use threats that the US government has made in the past to maintain its military presence in South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and (with the complicity of every member state than in NATO ) West Berlin. The current risk of nuclear war, over Ukraine, is as great as the world has ever seen.

China and India are alone in declaring no-first-use policies. Leadership in the US, Russia, other nuclear weapons states, NATO, and other US allies have yet to recognize that such threats of initiating nuclear war--let alone the plans, deployments, and exercises meant to make them credible and more ready to be carried out--are and always have been immoral and insane: under any circumstances, for any reasons, by anyone or anywhere.

It is long past time--but not too late!--for the world's public at last to challenge and resist the willed moral blindness of their past and current leaders. I will continue, as long as I'm able, to help with these efforts. There are tons more to say about Ukraine and nuclear policy, of course, and you'll be hearing from me as long as I'm here.

As I look back on the last sixty years of my life, I think there is no greater cause to which I could have dedicated my efforts. For the last forty years, we have known that nuclear war between the US and Russia would mean nuclear winter: more than a hundred million tons of smoke and soot from firestorms in cities set ablaze by either side, striking either first or second, would be lofted into the stratosphere where it would not rain out and would envelop the globe within days.

That pall would block up to 70% of sunlight for years, destroying all harvests worldwide and causing death by starvation for most humans and other vertebrates on earth.

So far as I can find out, this scientific near-consensus has had virtually no effect on the Pentagon's nuclear war plans or US/NATO (or Russian) nuclear threats. (In a like case of disastrous willful denial by many officials, corporations, and other Americans, scientists have known for over three decades that the catastrophic climate change now underway--mainly but not only from burning fossil fuels--is fully comparable to US-Russian nuclear war as another existential risk.)

I'm happy to know that millions of people--including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!--have the wisdom, the dedication, and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.

I'm enormously grateful to have had the privilege of knowing and working with such people, past and present. That's among the most treasured aspects of my very privileged and very lucky life. I want to thank you all for the love and support you have given me in so many ways. Your dedication, courage, and determination to act have inspired and sustained my own efforts.

My wish for you is that at the end of your days, you will feel as much joy and gratitude as I do now.

Love, Dan

PS: I will enjoy reading any message you send me to this email, though I may or may not be able to respond to every message or call. I prefer email to calls, and in general, I am avoiding personal visits, from concern about covid. Please know that I hold you in my heart.

My brain knows that Dan is 92 years old and that he has lived a full life surrounded by people who love and respect him. But my heart is struggling with this awful news. After my arrest in 2012 after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, it was Dan who talked sense to me and convinced me that I was stronger than I realized.

It was thanks to him that I didn’t do something drastic. And then when I was serving 23 months in prison, Dan wrote to me religiously, sent books, and offered his friendship and encouragement. I love the guy. This is a blow for all Americans.

Now getting to Julian Assange, I’m here in Australia for the Belmarsh Tribunal Sydney, which will be held on Saturday and sponsored by Progressive International. A third tribunal (the first was in Washington) will be held on Sunday in Melbourne. Participants on Saturday include Stella Morris, Julian’s wife, Greek former Finance Minister Yiannis Varoufakis, yours truly, and a number of Australian journalists and political figures. I’ll keep you updated.

In the meantime, if it’s your tradition, please say a prayer for Dan Ellsberg. Or at least keep him in your thoughts.

Best regards,
John

Loud & Clear with John Kiriakou is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5

Every day between 2:00 AM, Eastern Standard Time, and 6:00 AM, there are unique Money Flow Patterns that repeat as the European Stock Markets open in the morning.

At 8:30 Eastern Standard Time and 10:00 AM, there are important data releases such as Inflation numbers or Non-Farm Payroll numbers that influence the PERCEPTIONS of traders.

Then at 9:30 AM, when North American Stock Markets open the ACTUAL Money Flow starts with changes in the values of stocks and the flow of money into bonds or other investment instruments such as Copper, Gold Oil, and many others.

Good morning ...lets see!!!

https://mishtalk.com/economics/labor...em-in-pictures

Labor Productivity and Costs, a Big Inflation Problem in Pictures
Today, the BLS made a massive revision in labor productivity resulting in the largest annual decline in productivity since 1974.

1. Mish
2. 22 minutes ago

https://mishtalk.com/.image/c_limit%...ts-2022-q4.png
Labor Productivity and costs from the BLS, chart by Mish

Productivity and Costs Revised
Please consider the BLS report on Fourth Quarter 2022 Productivity Revised

1. Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022 as output increased 3.1 percent and hours worked increased 1.4 percent. (All quarterly percent changes are seasonally adjusted annual rates.)
2. This 1.7-percent increase in labor productivity for the fourth quarter of 2022 is 1.3 percentage points below the preliminary estimate of a 3.0-percent increase.
3. From the same quarter a year ago, nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 1.8 percent, reflecting a 0.7-percent increase in output and a 2.6-percent increase in hours worked.
4. Annual average productivity decreased 1.7 percent from 2021 to 2022. This is the largest annual decline in the measure since 1974, when productivity also decreased 1.7 percent.

Unit labor Costs

1. Unit labor costs in the nonfarm business sector increased 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, reflecting a 4.9-percent increase in hourly compensation and a 1.7-percent increase in productivity.
2. Unit labor costs increased 6.3 percent over the last four quarters.

Revisions

1. Third quarter, fourth quarter, and annual average data for 2022 were revised to incorporate regular updates of source data on output and compensation published by the Department of Commerce on February 23, 2023.
2. Quarterly measures of real hourly compensation in 2022 were revised to reflect updates to seasonally adjusted data from the BLS Consumer Price Index program released on February 14.
3. Quarterly and annual measures of hours worked, productivity, and related series were revised historically for all major sectors.
4. From 2018 to 2022, the revisions reflect incorporation of revised BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) program data for employment and hours of employees on nonfarm payrolls.
5. Notable revisions in those data reflect upward revisions due to both the benchmarking of CES employment to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages in March 2022—which is wedged in over the prior 12 months—and the incorporation of actual business births and deaths during this period.

Labor productivity Index and Unit Labor Costs Percent Change
https://mishtalk.com/.image/c_limit%...ge-2022-q4.png

2022 Productivity Numbers

1. Q1: -6.1
2. Q2: -3.8
3. Q3: +1.2
4. Q4: +1.7
5. 2022: -1.7 percent, the largest annual decline in the measure since 1974, when productivity also decreased 1.7 percent.

What's Going On?

1. Aging boomers are retiring or working less hours necessitating the need for more part time workers.
2. The increase in jobs largely reflects an increase in lesser skilled and more part time workers.
3. This is coupled with the quiet quitting meme: Quiet Quitting, Are You Doing Only What's Necessary at Work and No More?
4. Quiet quitting morphed into a new meme "Act your wage."

Strong Labor Market?
I stick with my assessment that this allegedly "strong labor market" is mainly a boom in part time employment and people taking extra jobs just to make ends meet.
Declining productivity is the result.
Regardless, it's clear that productivity is an inflationary problem and it will stay that way.

Prudential Survey
https://mishtalk.com/.image/c_limit%...-attitudes.png

Work Your Wage Meme
For many workers the days of unpaid overtime and weekend work is gone. Work your wage has replaced quiet quitting as the new meme forcing employers to add more people to finish projects.

For discussion, please see Act Your Wage is the New Meme as Career Ambitions Plunge
Note the attitude of zoomers. 48 percent say their attitude is primarily focused on getting the job done.
Only 43 percent of zoomers go above and beyond. But 69 percent of boomers say they they go above and beyond.

Demographically Sobering Thoughts on US Employment in the Next Five Years
https://mishtalk.com/.image/c_limit%...as-of-2022.png

Civilian Noninstitutional Population from BLS, projections by the CBO, chart by Mish

RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Labor Productivity and Costs, a Big Inflation Problem in Pictures
Is Wage Growth Too High? Let's Explore the Idea With Pictures
Minneapolis Fed "Wage Growth Is Too High" for Our Two Percent Inflation Target

Civilian Noninstitutional Population Detail Notes

1. The number of people age 65+ is rising rapidly
2. The number of people age 55-64 is in decline

Key Participation Rates

1. Age 55-59: 72.7
2. Age 60-64: 58.5
3. Age 65+: 19.3

People are rapidly shifting from high participation rates to much lower ones.
For 2023, the CBO estimates a 2023 increase in the age 65+ population of 2 million and that 2 million accounts for the total rise in population.
How can this possibly not hurt productivity? And if anything, that trend will increase.
For discussion, please see Demographically Sobering Thoughts on US Employment in the Next Five Years

Strong Jobs Illusion
The strong jobs meme is nothing more than an illusion of declining productivity due to boomer demographics, changing attitudes, quiet quitting, and act your wage memes, resulting in a demand for any workers, increasingly part time, that employers can get.
I have never heard it phrased that way before, but that is precisely what's going on in a single sentence.
The result is obviously inflationary. And despite the fact that wages are not keeping up with inflation, the Fed's only recourse is to purposely cause a recession.

Is Wage Growth Too High? Let's Explore the Idea With Pictures
https://mishtalk.com/.image/c_limit%...ge-2023-01.png

In case you missed it, please see Is Wage Growth Too High? Let's Explore the Idea With Pictures

National Productivity Day
June 20, is national productivity day.
It's dedicated to acknowledging the importance of building good productivity habits. I can't wait.

Productivity and Recessions
Productivity increases in recessions because corporations demand more from workers and fire the least productive ones.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is doing everything possible to stoke inflation by student loan forgiveness, promotion of union jobs, climate policy, and a myriad of regulatory nonsense all of which will decrease productivity.

Good luck with that mix on corporate profits, the stock market, and the problems the Fed created on its own accord.
This post originated on MishTalk.Com.

Thanks for Tuning In!
Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.
If you have subscribed and do not get email alerts, please check your spam folder.
Mish

https://www.rsbnetwork.com/news/trum...4/?iebrowser=1

https://www.rsbnetwork.com/news/trum...4/?iebrowser=1

TRUMP: ‘we’re not going to let them’ steal the election in 2024
written by Summer Lane February 27, 2023

https://www.rsbnetwork.com/wp-conten...Y-1170x780.jpg
Photo: Alamy

President Donald Trump made a vow to Americans on Truth Social on Sunday, noting that there was an ongoing effort to “steal” the next presidential election, and promising to prevent overwhelming corruption in 2024.

“Crooked Democrat Prosecutors, many of them Racists in Reverse, are trying to steal a second Presidential Election,” Trump wrote. “They did it in 2020, and we’re not going to let them do it again in 2024. MAGA!!!”

Trump’s comments spoke to the concerns of many Americans who have seen evidence of election irregularities and fraud that have come to light in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

Last November, President Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidency. However, he has routinely addressed the underlying issue of election fraud since 2020.

Per RSBN, Trump recently touched on the subject during a question and answer session at Club 47 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

In response to one woman’s question about whether the 2024 election was worth the effort in the absence of valid elections, Trump said, “Yeah, I agree. So, it’s such a great question – it’s a question I would ask first all the time, because we have to get in. So, what we’re going to do is number one, they collect and they harvest ballots – in many places it’s illegal, but they do it anyway. We’re going to have to get a lot of ballots.”
Trump also added that if he were to reclaim the White House in 2024, federal election changes would be a priority in his administration. He said he would support moving elections to “paper ballots, same-day voting” and “voter ID.”

President Trump’s embrace of legal ballot harvesting is a new strategy that he has begun discussing as the 2024 election season heats up. As reported by RSBN, many states in the Union allow for legal ballot harvesting operations.
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d...s=100&d=mm&r=g

Summer Lane
Summer Lane is the #1 bestselling author of 30 books, including the hit Collapse Series. She is a writer for Right Side Broadcasting Network, where she reports on the unprecedented America First agenda and President Donald Trump. She is also a producer at the Counter Culture Mom Show.

This is How to Make SERIOUS Money in this Market

By Graham Summers, MBA

We are in a trader's market today.

Stocks have been chopping back and forth in a range for close to 5 months now. The range on the S&P 500 is between 3,600 and 4,200 with various pivots at levels in between.

You can see this clearly in the chart below.

https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur...snsLCrwpIA--~D

Based on this, as well as the challenging macro environment, a long-term "buy and hold" investor has made ZERO money from the market in the last year.
But traders who move in and out of the market have made an absolute KILLING.
https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur...2rptlNPeoQ--~D

I'm not just writing this either. Our options trading system The Crisis Trader which is designed to profit from highly predictable market moves is up 20% year to date...

I'm not talking about 20% on a single trade... I'm talking about a 20% total return on our entire portfolio.

And we did this with just one trade at a time, usually held for a day or two.

Again, this is a trader's market.

And if you'd like to join us in turning it into your most profitable year yet, you can take out a 60-day trial subscription to The Crisis Trader today.
If you find it's not what you're looking for, just drop us a line at any point in the first 60 days and we'll issue a FULL REFUND.

I know you'll stay with us though... as we've yet to close a SINGLE LOSING TRADE this year so far. And most of our subscribers make the entire cost of the subscription back with just one trade!

To take out a 60-day trial subscription to The Crisis Trader...

CLICK HERE NOW

Best regards,
https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur...3brmJFl9hA--~D
https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur...OeTXKhAyDQ--~D

The Everything Bubble is the result of over a decade of research and analysis of the financial markets and economy by noted investment analyst, Graham Summers. This book is intended for anyone who wants to understand how the US financial system truly operates as well as those interested in the Federal Reserve’s future policy responses when the Everything Bubble bursts.

Learn More

https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur...ginrXh6LHg--~D

Disclaimer: The information contained in this email is for marketing purposes only. Nothing contained in this email is intended to be, nor shall it be construed as, investment advice by Phoenix Capital Research or any of its affiliates, nor is it to be relied upon in making any investment or other decision. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed in this email constitutes an offer to buy or sell any security or instrument or participate in any particular trading strategy.

The information on the site is not a complete description of the securities, markets, or developments discussed. Information and opinions regarding individual securities do not mean that a security is recommended or suitable for a particular investor. Prior to making any investment decision, you are advised to consult with your broker, investment advisor, or other appropriate tax or financial professional to determine the suitability of any investment. Opinions and estimates expressed on this site constitute Phoenix Capital Research's judgment as of the date appearing on the opinion or estimate and are subject to change without notice. This information may not reflect events occurring after the date or time of publication. Phoenix Capital Research is not obligated to continue to offer information or opinions regarding any security, instrument or service. Information has been obtained from sources considered reliable, but its accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed. Phoenix Capital Research and its officers, directors, employees, agents, and/or affiliates may have executed, or may in the future execute, transactions in any of the securities or derivatives of any securities discussed in this email. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance and is no guarantee of future results.

Securities products are not FDIC insured, are not guaranteed by any bank, and involve investment risk, including possible loss of entire value. Phoenix Capital Research, Phoenix Capital Management, Inc, and Graham Summers shall not be responsible or have any liability for investment decisions based upon, or the results obtained from, the information provided. Phoenix Capital Research is not responsible for the content of other emails to which this one may be linked and reserves the right to remove such links. Phoenix Capital Management, Inc and the Phoenix Capital Research Logo have registered trademarks of Phoenix Capital Research.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec15...wars12-15.html

NOTE: Areticle from 2015 !!!

Our "Star Wars" Economy: The Fed-Farce Awakens


December 18, 2015

The Fed's hubris has led it to the Dark Side.

It's not just a movie, it's real life: the Fed-Farce awakens. Now that the Federal Reserve has finally voted to "restore order to the galaxy" with a tiny .25% rate increase, the true measure of our travesty of a mockery of a sham economy--in a phrase, The Fed-Farce--has been revealed.

Here's a snapshot of the Fed meeting, "restoring order to the galaxy" in a show of unanimous galactic-scale hubris:
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...mate-power.jpg

If we had to list the fatal wounds inflicted on the economy by the Fed-Farce's financial repression, we might start with: the Fed's flood of cheap credit has not boosted productivity, it’s only boosted speculation. Why is this fatal?

Productivity is the engine of wealth creation. Speculation is the engine of wealth inequality and devastating boom/bust cycles. This is self-evident, but unfortunately the Dark Side can also conjure mind-tricks in the weak-minded (for example, Congress, the mainstream media, etc.): the Fed has successfully conned the weak-minded into believing that speculative frenzies of mal-investment and Fed-fueled asset bubbles are the sources of healthy growth.

A funny thing happens when you give unlimited borrowing power at near-zero interest rates to financiers and corporations: they use the free money not to hire more people (that would be incredibly dumb--employees cost money!) but to buy up shares in their own companies and snap up income-producing assets such as rental apartment complexes.

$1 trillion in stock buybacks creates zero jobs. Borrowing $1 trillion to buy back shares (and thus boost the personal wealth of managers and owners) does not create a single job. Repurchasing the company's stock reduces the number of shares outstanding, which increases your earnings per share without increasing sales or net profits.

In other words, stock buybacks are just another Dark Side mind-trick.

Buying 1,000 units of rental housing and raising the rents 10 seconds after the sale closes also doesn't create a single permanent job. The sale generated a commission, but this is a one-off. It doesn't take even one more person to maintain the buildings after the sale or the rent increase.
As for the rent increase--it's just cheap digital processing and the cost of postage.

The supposed connection between cheap Fed credit and job creation is illusory--it's nothing but a Dark Side mind-trick played on the credulous and weak-minded.

Courtesy of Zero Hedge and Societe Generale, here is a chart of U.S. corporate debt and stock buybacks. Any questions?
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...acks-debt2.jpg

Notice anything that looks like a speculative frenzy that subsequently triggers a collapse?
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/buybacks1.gif

By slashing rates to zero, the Fed ruthlessly eliminating safe returns for savers, pension funds, insurers and the millions of people with 401K retirement nesteggs. In effect, the Fed-Farce has pushed everyone into risk assets--and then played another Dark Side mind-trick by masking the true dangers of these risky assets.
https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/Death-Star2.jpg

As oil-sector debt blows up, as junk bonds blow up, and emerging markets blow up, we are finally starting to see the real costs of going over to the Dark Side of endless credit expansion and throwing the gasoline of near-zero interest rates on the speculative fires of financialization.

The Fed's hubris has led it to the Dark Side, and now its Death Star of impaired debt, phantom collateral, speculative frenzy and bogus mind-tricks is about to blow up.

My new book is in the top 10 of Amazon's category of international economics: A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All. The Kindle edition is $8.45, a 15% discount from its list price of $9.95.

NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.



Thank you, Richard H. ($50), for your supremely generous contribution to this site--I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.



https://www.oftwominds.com/photos201...irement550.jpg
Discover why I’m looking to retire in a SE Asia luxury resort for $1,200/month.

https://goldswitzerland.com/egon-von...-we-avoid-ww3/

Egon von Greyerz – Can We Avoid WW3?
https://goldswitzerland.com/wp-conte...ait-80x80.webp

By Egon von Greyerz

March 4, 2023



Watch this video on YouTube
Safely Managing the Knife’s Edge via Physical Precious Metal Ownership

In this extended discussion with Brian and Darryl Panes of Good as Gold Australia, Matterhorn Asset Management (MAM) founder, Egon von Greyerz, addresses a global financial system sitting on the knife’s edge while underscoring the proper and essential ownership of physical precious metals.

The conversation opens with a sober analysis of under-funded and ultimately insolvent Western retirement plans whose only “assets” are bubble assets moving toward massive devaluation. The process von Greyerz foresees is a gradual shift away from Western and USD hegemony toward a rise in the East where national and currency wealth will be measured by real assets and superior balance sheets as opposed to the West’s debt-based models and increasingly worthless paper money.

The foregoing shift will likely begin more in the openly more fractured European Community and increasingly weaker euro. Despite the USD’s relative strength at the moment, however, the end-game for the USD will be no different as debt ($300T global debt and quadrillion-level derivative debt) always destroys sovereign strength and currencies from within. The rise of CBDCs, as von Greyerz warns, is no solution but merely a totalitarian tool of greater control.

As to the headline topic of war, von Greyerz evidences extreme concern. He views the war in the Ukraine as nothing more than another US proxy war. American fear of an economically resurging Russia ($75T in natural resources) as opposed to freedom for Ukraine is the real motive here, and the US is making no effort at peace. As for hyped-fears of Russian expansion in the EU, von Greyerz is very clear that such concerns are distorted.

The conversation concludes with a discussion of gold and silver, with particular attention on measuring their value, role and safest storage jurisdictions, for which Switzerland’s unique advantages are objectively discussed. The need for unsurpassed safety, professional advice, logistical infrastructures and nimble support, for which MAM’s operations are a hallmark, is also discussed.

https://www.birchgold.com/news/old-l...m_medium=email

The Gold Investor’s Best Friend: This 500-Year-Old Law

February 27, 2023
https://www.birchgold.com/wp-content...ar-old-law.jpg

Image by Matt Brown

From Peter Reagan at Birch Gold Group

This week, Your News to Know rounds up the latest top stories involving gold and the overall economy. Stories include: Gresham’s law and gold, there’s an asset Roubini likes, and have investors forgotten about portfolio diversification?

Thomas Gresham and the case for gold investment

I think about Gresham’s law a lot. Back in the day of the first Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603), her banker, Sir Thomas Gresham, made an observation about currency debasement:
Bad money drives out the good.

See, back in the 16th century, money was still “sound” — gold and silver were still money. But dating back another 1,200 years from Gresham’s time, all the way back to ancient Rome, governments were always tempted to issue lower-purity gold and silver coins any time they wanted to elevate spending. This “debasement” literally meant, “adding non-precious (or ‘base’) metal content to coins.”

As you’d expect, as soon as the public caught on, they’d hoard the older coinage (“the good”) and spend the newer, debased money (“bad money”).
For our purposes, what’s “bad money” exactly? I think it’s interesting to apply Gresham’s law more broadly to asset categories, including currencies. The separation between bad and good is very clear! Few prudent savers would hoard U.S. dollars rather than physical gold and silver. Precious metals are easily exchanged for currency, after all – and tend to gain, rather than steadily lose purchasing power over time.

And when it comes time to liquidate savings, in retirement, for example, are you more likely to sell paper-backed assets or gold American eagles? Given the choice, I expect you’d begin applying Gresham’s law within your savings…

Gold is just about the only investment Nouriel Roubini has confidence in
Nouriel Roubini has some hits and some misses. His forecast of the 2008 financial crash was accurate. His crypto-to-zero forecast after 2017… well, not so much. One thing that can be said is that he never fails to be bearish.

This time around, he’s calling for doom in stocks and bonds based on some projections that are difficult to argue with. Roubini expects inflation to stay near 6% despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts. When we take into account disputes over the accuracy of inflation gauges… and then add expectations of quantitative easing after this hiking schedule? This might end up being a conservative estimate.

Either way, Roubini says 6% or higher inflation rate will cause major trouble for both stocks and bonds. This isn’t much of a forecast: the S&P 500 lost 20% last year and the bond market is in a full-fledged crisis. Furthermore, Morgan Stanley’s forecast of a 26% plunge in stocks this year is reasonably close to Roubini’s expected 30% drop. (They may both be understating the case… According to the Shiller PE ratio, stocks are currently overvalued by 45% compared to their historical median.)

Gold is one of the very few assets Roubini recommends, even to investors with little capital to work with. On the opposite end, we have many examples of billionaire investors including John Paulson and Stanley Druckenmiller who own hoards of physical gold. This article, by the way, is called Invest Like the Elite: One Investment They All Hoard.

Guess they’re familiar with Gresham’s law!
2023 is looking to be an even more volatile year than we thought

We find ourselves in some pretty strange times. Inflation is such a big problem on its own that everyone seems to have forgotten about trouble elsewhere. After all, what’s worse than purchasing power disappearing before our eyes – significantly faster than our wages are rising?
Nonetheless, the latest editorial by Global Banking & Finance Review asks: we forgotten about portfolio diversification, and will make a comeback?

Here are the main takeaways:
• There are substantial fears in the investment markets that volatility could return in 2023
• Inflation, disrupted supply chains, and a potential recession all inform these fears
• Diversification holds the key to making gains and protecting investment as experts encourage international diversification

Some numbers: a recent survey showed that 48% of Americans expect a stock market crash this year. That’s a significant percentage, especially considering that equities had a really rough 2022. The S&P 500 was down 20% for the year.

As you might expect, people are even more concerned about inflation and high interest rates.

Pairing those two is likewise strange, for high interest rates are the only thing preventing hyperinflation right now. The moment interest rates start to turn loose is probably the moment every warning about free-floating currencies becoming obsolete starts to materialize. Well, the still-existing ones, to be more specific.

The editorial notes nobody seems to be able to make an accurate forecast due to the amount of volatility and general uncertainty. The World Bank did go ahead and try by calling for a recession this year. One thing that analysts can agree on, though, is that portfolio diversification is more important now than it has been in a while.

The diversifying assets tend to opposite extremes. On one hand, we have higher-volatility assets like foreign currencies and emerging-market stocks. Risk-on, anyone?

On the other, gold is listed among other assets. Even though gold’s stability helps minimize risk and likely maximizing long-term returns, as well. Gold’s historical track record makes a much more compelling case than anything I can say about the benefits of diversification…

2023, diversification, Featured, gold as money, nouriel roubini

https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index4195.htm

March 4, 2023

“Burning Bakhmut Death Trap” Exposes Terrified West To “Realties Of True Power”

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A thought-provoking new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first notes President Putin held an emergency classified meeting with Security Council Members telling them: “We have one issue to discuss today, but a very important one - measures of counter-terrorism protection for facilities, managed by law enforcement agencies”, says this meeting followed renowned Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin grimly observing: “The West has fostered the creeping Nazification of Ukraine in order to make its people hostile to Russia...The West supported radicals in Kiev, despite cracking down on similar groups at home...They destroy any kind of nationalism on their own territories., but in Ukraine, on the other hand, they make it flourish...In the end, a Nazi paradise has been created in Ukraine”—and knowing that the United States and its socialist Western colonial allies were the only countries in the world to vote against the United Nations resolution condemning Nazism, it caused Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning to assess yesterday factually: “Calling China a nuclear threat is a convenient pretext for the United States to expand its own nuclear arsenal and keep its military hegemony...The US is the primary source of nuclear threat in the world”.

While President Putin and Security Council Members were discussing the growing Nazi threat to the civilized world, this report notes, Supreme Socialist Leader Joe Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to express their readiness to continue the policy of sanctions against Russia “as long as necessary” and “reiterated their commitment to impose costs on Russia for as long as necessary”—are “costs” that haven’t affected Russia in the slightest, but have become economically suicidal for the socialist Western colonial powers, a truth that caused Russian Embassy in Washington press secretary Igor Girenko to factually observe: “Instead of waving a sanctions club, it's time for the United States authorities to get in touch with reality and pay attention to the deplorable domestic situation in the field of human rights and freedoms”.

Left unaddressed by Socialist Leader Biden and his socialist Western colonial allies, this report continues, is the actual true fate of Ukraine and its peoples, about whom the Ministry of Defense (MoD) just reported Russian military forces killed about 500 ill-trained and ill-equipped Ukrainian soldiers over the past 24 hours—this morning Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu inspected one of the command centers coordinating the military operation in Ukraine—are Russian military operations in Ukraine now joined by Western defense articles like “Order Given: Chaotic Retreat Of Ukrainian Forces From Bakhmut -Bridges Blown Up - Dozens Dead, Captured, Trapped” and “The Fall Of Bakhmut, Is This the Prelude To The Fall Of Ukraine?”—yesterday the Ukrainian commander codenamed Madyar posted the video message: “Today, on the night of 2 March, the unit Madyar’s Birds was given a combat order to immediately leave Bakhmut for another battlefield”—and today, former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, who serves as a drone operator in Bakhmut, posted the message: “Yesterday I received a personal order to leave the unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut and continue serving in the territorial defense...The unit where I served for 110 days and nights was also transferred to another direction”.

While failing to mention anything about his Nazi forces being systemically obliterated, this report details, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky screamed in a panic to his socialist Western colonial puppet masters yesterday: “Artillery is the number one thing that we need...Both systems and ammunition, shells in large amounts...We need planes...Not talks or promises, just train our guys and hand over planes”—a panicked scream coming at the same time Ukrainian soldiers sent to certain death are now revolting, as just reported: “Zaporozhye territorial defense is the most disobedient...The question of disbanding it was even raised, because there were more than a dozen clashes with Ukrainian militants, after which the Cossacks left their positions on the line of contact and went over to our side”—this week the Pentagon inspector general reported that masses of American military stocks pre-positioned in Europe don’t meet maintenance standards—following Supreme Commander of the German Army Lieutenant-General Alfons Mais directly warning NATO: “Russian resources, like the resources of the Russian army, are practically inexhaustible”, an unending supply of new Russian main battle tanks keep flowing off assembly lines into Ukraine—and while watching Russia produce an “inexhaustible” supply of arms and ammunition, it caused Commissioner Thierry Breton for the European Union Internal Market to exclaim in terror yesterday: “I believe it is time that the European defense industry moves to a wartime economy model”.

Not being explained to the under socialist siege Western peoples, this report notes, is that when the “Special De-Nazification Operation” was launched on 24 February 2022 to liberate Ukraine, it was a limited military operation intended to stop the killing of innocent Russian peoples in the Donbass Region of Ukraine by their criminal Nazi leaders in Kiev, and, most certainly, was not a general war—is a general war the Russian military was not designed to fight, as its sole purpose was created to be defensive in nature—when the socialist Western colonial powers began flooding Ukraine with weapons to wage war against Russia, however, President Putin ordered a pull back and warned: “Everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet”—and was a warning clearly understood by Dr. Thomas Meaney at the Max Planck Society in Göttingen-Germany, who this past week,, in his leftist New York Times open letter “America Is In Over Its Head”, most factually observed: “The greatest blunder President Vladimir Putin may have made so far in Ukraine is giving the West the impression that Russia could lose the war”.

Also clearly understanding the warning issued by President Putin once the socialist Western colonial powers decided to wage war against Russia, this report concludes, is the most influential American military blogger Big Serge read by top commanders the world over, and whose just released the exhaustive analytical tactical document “Russo-Ukrainian War: Schrodinger’s Offensive” observed:
For young men, fascination with war goes through distinct phases. Most of the time it begins with equipment and broad, big arrow views of battles. The sizes of the cannons on the main battle tanks of World War Two, for example, is probably a disproportionately well-known fact among 8-16-year-old boys. They mostly want to know about the big battles, the big movement patterns, and the big guns.

Over time, however, the inescapable conclusion sets in that armies have an intensely bureaucratic backbone, and that seemingly mundane factors like unit composition, rear area logistics, and organizational charts have tremendous implications on the battlefield. This is where those dreaded order of battle charts and unit diagrams come into play, and you inevitably have to start memorizing what the myriad little symbols mean. Eventually, you realize that the construction of units and other organizational factors are, within reason, far more important than the minutia of the equipment and armaments, and you should have been contemplating the bureaucratic aspects the whole time, and that (tragically) the size of the cannon on the Sherman Firefly tank was not actually a particularly decisive factor in world history.

It still looks cool, for the record.

Russia is currently sorting through organizational issues which were created through the country’s unique mixed service model (which mixes contract soldiers and conscripts) and in particular the wearisome Battalion Tactical Group (BTG).

The Russian army utilizes a mixed model of professional contract soldiers and conscripts, and these two types of personnel have an important legal differentiation. Conscripts cannot be deployed in combat outside of Russia without a declaration of war. This means that a given Russian unit (let’s just use a brigade as the standard example) has a full (“paper”) strength comprised of mixed personnel and a rump core of contract soldiers that can be deployed abroad.

The question for the Russian leadership, therefore, becomes how to design these units to fight without their conscripts. The answer to this problem was the Battalion Tactical Group, which is a derivative formation that spins off (if you will) from the brigade. The design of these units has other considerations of course, but the primary concern driving the creation of the BTG was the need to craft a force that could fight without its conscripts.

The BTG is heavy on firepower, with a strong organic complement of artillery tubes and armored vehicles, but exceptionally light on infantry. This has implications for both offensive and defensive operations, which we saw very clearly in the first nine months of the war in Ukraine.

On the defense, the BTG (being infantry poor) has to fight from behind a thin screen and inflict defeats on the enemy with its ranged fires. This isn’t a unit that can fight doggedly to hold forward positions; it’s built to maul the attacker.

More generally, however, BTGs are fragile units, by which we mean relatively low losses in infantry or tanks making them unsuitable for further combat tasks. This makes the unit something of a glass cannon - capable of dealing out tremendous firepower but not built to sustain operations after moderate losses. Being a fundamentally “slimmed down” unit, it struggles to sustain and recover combat capability without rotating to the rear to receive replacements or cannibalizing other units.

In a sense, this is what you’d expect given the constraints of the contract-conscript model, which by its very nature forced the Russians to design a stripped-down, manpower-light subsidiary to their full-strength brigades. This is why Russia had a general scarcity of manpower that began to compromise its overall operational effectiveness over the summer of 2022 as Ukrainian mobilization and western aid resulted in an enormous UA numerical advantage.

At the peak, the first phase of the war probably saw no more than 80,000 regular Russian combat personnel in Ukraine, and even with the DNR, LNR, and Wagner providing an infantry buffer, the total Russian force was outnumbered at least 3-1. The BTG could still inflict huge damage, but the construction of the force in Ukraine was simply not sufficient for the scope of the theater, leading to a huge section of front in Kharkiv being hollowed out. Hence, mobilization.
Against the backdrop of this process, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu announced a new program of military reorganization. The most significant item on the list of changes is the decision to begin converting existing brigades into divisions.

At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union wielded the largest and most powerful army in the world, capable of fielding millions of men, armed to the teeth with unparalleled inventories of all manner of heavy equipment.

The vain world that we inhabit in the West is being exposed to the realities of true power.

In the forest around the Donets, on the steppe at Ugledar, and in the burning death trap at Bakhmut, words matter little.

Indeed, the destructive power now at work is so great that even the deeds of the individual can do little to alter the course of the battle.
[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/nsy21.png

March 4, 2023, EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content is licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.

[Note: Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human being’s right to know the truth. Due to our mission’s conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.]

[Note: The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.]
[Note: The word Kremlin (fortress inside a city) as used in this report refers to Russian citadels, including in Moscow, having cathedrals wherein female Schema monks (Orthodox nuns) reside, many of whom are devoted to the mission of the Sisters of Sorcha Faal.]


NATO Brands World War III “One Of The Great Epics Of This Century”

Demonic “Genesis Machine” Superweapon Unleashed To “Rewrite Code Of Life”

Return To Main Page

Thickpipe and others; PLEASE WATCH THIS 9-Minute Video



Our unique Method of Trading has win rates in excess of 75% and our Money Flow Method cannot have 5 Losing Forex trades in a row let alone 9 so sign up now and let us see if you have the skills to become wealthy.

WWW.AVIELFOREXLEARNINGEDGE.COM

Hi Benny,
Here is my account screen shot, I guess I should have watched you video sooner.
Lets hope for the best.
Thank you for everything
Cheers

Dear Thickpipe

This is not about just your Forex trading and my teaching.

It is about all our FUTURES and you need to STOP to understand that so you can protect yourself and your family and PROSPER in all the CHAOS to come.

Please take the time to read and study what I will now post for everyone to see and understand and hopefully accept.

G-d bless US all !!!

https://www.signalsmatter.com/the-us...terloo-moment/

The USD–Doomed

Below we examine the USD and the historical interplay of losing wars, cornered egos, a doomed currency and greater controls in times of open madness.

History Matters
Despite the fact that universities even in the Land of Lincoln have had a say in canceling Abraham Lincoln (good grief…) for apparently not being “woke” enough circa 1861 to be as wise as the neo-liberal faculties of 2023, I’d still make a case that history matters, and by this, I mean all its wonderful and ugly nuances (and lessons), whether they offend modern sensibilities or not.

History, of course, is full of desperate figures and times, many of which involve desperate economies followed by equally desperate (proxy) wars and desperate turning points.
In this light, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just look around you…
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...rd-image-9.png

And in the largely forgotten history of war, there is no shortage of desperate generals at desperate turning points.

Wars Doomed from the Start
Napoleon, who had previously won countless battles from Rivoli to Austerlitz, found himself shivering through 1812 Russia after losing the vast bulk of his army to General Russian Winter and remarking to one of his generals that it’s “only a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous.”
Three years later, at Waterloo, Napoleon’s “sublime” days (and countless casualty numbers) ended for good.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-10.png

At Gettysburg, on the 3rd day of July 1863, an equally talented and grossly outnumbered Confederate States Army under Robert E. Lee, having humbled Union forces at Manassas 1 & 2, Fredericksburg, Gaines Mill, and Chancellorsville, looked across an open field from Seminary Ridge to the Emmitsburg Road strewn with the dying and dead of his once bravest divisions as the U.S. Civil War reached a mathematical turning point.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-11.png

Despite this carnage, the war (post-Pickett’s doomed July 3rd charge) dragged on for 2 more horrendous years (and countless casualty numbers), ignoring the hard math of waning troop numbers, supplies, cannons, and horses which now rendered Southern “victory” impossible.

Less than a century later, this time near Stalingrad in the winter of 1943, the seemingly invincible German Wehrmacht, having conquered Poland, France, North Africa, and large swaths of the East, found itself (and General von Paulus) facing the equally mathematical reality of what once seemed like impossible defeat.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-12.png

By all metrics the Germans, having engaged in a two-front war, were done, but the war (and countless casualty numbers) would continue for two more senseless years.

But what do any of these examples of doomed and costly wars have to do with current global markets and our financial “generals”?
In fact, quite a bit.

Financial Policies Doomed from the Start
The overlapping interplay of the human ego, hard math, and failed strategies doomed from the start have their place in both military and financial history.
For example, once upon a time (circa 2008), our central bankers in general, and the U.S. Fed in particular, had the insanely bad idea that central banks could use fiat money created out of thin air to save bad banks, defeat recessions, manage inflation, monetize debt, win a Nobel Prize and ensure total employment with a “Pickett’s charge” of mouse-click money.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-13.png

Failed generals…
Such grand plans, like the promises of failed generals and insane wars of Lebensraum, la gloire de l’empire, or the “Southern Cause,” were initially followed by a string of early “Austerlitz-like successes” (i.e., market bubbles) which brought near-term euphoria.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-14.png

Early victory…
Unfortunately, those early and mouse-clicked victories ignored the longer-term realities/casualties, namely: historically unprecedented wealth inequality, grotesque currency debasement, the death of free-market price discovery, and the birth of what amounts to little more than Wall Street socialism and market feudalism masquerading today as MMT “capitalism.”
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-15.png

Longer-term casualties
Such short-term “glory” at the expense of longer-term ruin is a pattern all too familiar for those paying attention…
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-16.png

Emperor Powell, for example, thinks he can “win the war against inflation,” but like Napoleon, Lee, and von Paulus, he is still unable to admit to himself (or us lieutenants) that his grand vision is doomed either way.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-17.png

And so, he continues to desperately fight a losing cause at the expense of countless currencies and investors (casualties) around the world.
How can we know this?

It All Boils Down to Hard Math and Bad Options

As detailed in prior reports, math speaks for itself.
Global debt levels are past their “Gettysburg moment”—there are no easy victories left once we start dealing in the quadrillions…
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-18.png

Whether Powell continues with QT or pivots to more QE, retail foot-soldiers here and abroad face either economic recession/depression or extreme inflation.
Pick your “victory” or your poison. I see both, namely: Stagflation

Equally serious is the inevitable demise of the USD’s purchasing power at home and the slow end of its global hegemony.

The Sad Fate of the USD
Regardless of whether the USD (DXY) rises or falls in the near term, the end result is as inevitable and mathematical as Germany’s two-front war, Pickett’s charge, or Napoleon’s Waterloo: Disaster.

Once stock and bond bubbles reach their tipping points, the last bubble to die is always the currency, which is precisely where our prize-winning (?) central bankers have placed us.

In short, and as shown below, the global economy and USD, led by Field Marshall Powell, are about to cross that infamously fine line from the sublime to the ridiculous…

The USD’s Sublime Last Moments
As in any losing war, however, there are always those clinging to hope, including those who think the USD will never, well…surrender. (In 2022, the British pound, the yen and the euro already caved…)

Recently, for example, the headlines, politicos, markets, and perma-bulls were positively giddy over the stronger-than-expected US jobs report and non-farm payroll data. The DXY climbed in lock-step.

However, what was equally higher (60% higher…) than expected was the 2023 US Treasury borrowing estimate –aka Uncle Sam’s increasing bar tab–$930B! –for Q1 alone.

Each of these data points has sent the USD temporarily higher, along with inflation expectations, which now seem to be embedded.

So, the big question today is this: Will the USD get stronger or weaker in 2023 and beyond?

There are two camps in this strategic debate, and two consequences depending on which camp is right. Neither is “victorious.”

Bad Scenario 1: A Rising Dollar’s Consequences
If the USD gets stronger, it kills just about every asset class but the USD…
Already, we are seeing this open carnage in credit markets as rising rates and General Powell’s strong-Dollar policies cripple lending and borrowing norms of the past.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-19.png

Loan officers are confirming a tightening of credit availability (and a widening of bank lending spreads, above) at levels only seen in prior recessions, adding more weight to my ongoing contention that the US is already in a recession, despite every Göbbels-like attempt in DC to redefine, cancel, ignore or downplay the same.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-20.png

The equally dismal rise of defaulting High Yield bonds adds further proof of the slow (then steady) death of bleeding bonds in a rising rate and strong USD backdrop/policy.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-21.png

A strengthening USD will send bonds down and hence yields and rates higher, which will be deflationary as debt-soaked America gets poorer and foreigners are forced to sell more USTs alongside a tightening Fed which is doing exactly the same thing—namely: Bond dumping and yield-spiking.

Bad Scenario 2: A Falling Dollar’s Consequences
However, if the USD gets weaker, the inflation we are already feeling will only get worse as $2T+ deficits make their steady climb North toward $3T, $4T, or even $5T+ for 2023.

So, once again: Will the USD get stronger or weaker?
Does the answer lie in what signals (or desperate generals) you track or trust: Powell’s Fed or the UST market?

Trust What Powell SAYS?—Strong Dollar Ahead
If, for example, you follow the Fed and its bogus yet deadly-serious inflation narrative, then you will be lured into Powell’s “we must beat inflation” war cry, which boils down to a zero-sum battle plan of “high inflation bad, low inflation good. Must beat inflation.”

Equally part of this bogus battle plan (Powell needs inflation and negative rates…) is the courageous meme that “rising rates kill inflation.”
Well… yes, but at what cost?

If Powell wins the headline battle against inflation, he loses the war for global credit markets, economies, and political credibility, which loss will be immediately blamed on a virus and Russian bad guy but never on the mad generals who pushed us over the debt cliff.

However, if we get beyond linear headlines and two-dimensional thinking of central bankers like Powell, we quickly realize that the 3-dimensional UST market is perhaps the real (and superior) indicator of future probabilities.

Or, Trust What Bond Markets DO?—Weaker Dollar Ahead

Thus, rather than watch the Fed, I’m looking at bond markets to get my directional compass-North in a world of policy cannon smoke.
As said more times than I can count: The bond market is the thing.

And as for the sovereign bond market, it has seen 3 periods of complete dysfunction in recent years, namely: 1) the repo rate spike of September 2019; 2) the March 2020 “Covid” crash, and 3) last October’s gilt implosion spawned by the rising USD.

Those who follow the Fed (and this is entirely understandable given that the Fed IS the market in our post-2008 centralized nightmare) can’t be blamed for therefore expecting the USD to rise on more tightening and Powell “inflation-fighting.”

But those who follow the Fed are also ignoring those 3 bond market cracks in the ice above.

It’s my view that this ice is about to break if we have a 4th “uh-oh” moment/crack in sovereign bonds.

Thus, rather than follow the Fed, we might be wiser to look at the UST market, which is heading precisely in that “uh-oh” direction unless someone (i.e., Yellen?) pushes another meme—namely more toxic liquidity and thus a weaker USD.

But as previously argued, either way, we are doomed…

Failed Battle Plan 1: Tightening into a Debt Crisis (Stronger Dollar)
Let’s play out the Fed’s current scenario first.

If we look only at what the Fed says, and it tightens, which, for now, seems like the plan for Q1 and Q2, the USD will strengthen, yields and rates (5% to 5.25%) will rise further and the UST market will see such a wave a selling (foreign and QT Fed-driven), that a fourth “uh-oh” moment in the sovereign bond market will be inevitable, and likely enough to not only “crack the ice” of global bond markets, but drown everyone skating above it.

Given these realities and risks in the UST market, risks which even a fork-tongued and totally cornered Jerome Powell understands, I see no realistic way forward other than a weaker USD and thus a move from QT to QE.

Why?

Again: Because I’m taking my signals from the bond market, not Powell.

To track (and trust) Powell means a tanking US Treasury and fatally rising rates, which is like kryptonite to America’s debt-based “accommodation” model.

Instead, I believe Powell will be forced to strategically consider the fact that this inflation war has killed his army of USTs and hence force him (at Yellen’s direction) to change tactics.

Or stated more simply, just as Napoleon, Robert E. Lee, and even the Wehrmacht learned that no outnumbered army can win an extended war, Powell will discover that no sustained policy of rising rates can end well for the toxic bonds/IOUs which float a bankrupt nation.

In short: Unless Powell weakens the USD and injects more QE liquidity sometime in 2023, his victory over inflation will be at the expense of America’s lifeblood—namely the UST market.

Failed Battle Plan 2: Resort to More Mouse-Click “Miracles” (Weaker Dollar)
At the end of the day, and despite all this “beat inflation” rhetoric from Powell, it is my admittedly contrarian and unpopular (don’t say “gold-bug”) view that saving Uncle Sam’s IOU lifeline (i.e., the UST market) will take strategic priority over “beating inflation.”

By the way, this appears to be a view shared by none of other than that Corps Commander of toxic liquidity herself: General Janet Yellen…

In other words, expect an eventual (not immediate) capitulation to more fake money—aka, QE, i.e., “liquidity.”

This means that despite gyrating USD moves and hence DXY flip-flops today, the only direction and choice in the longer term to beat a recession and save Uncle Sam’s IOUs is a weaker not stronger Dollar.

Ultimate End-Game? Blame, Reset, and Centralized Control
A weaker USD will buy time (and USTs) until ultimately the developed economies of the world, which in fact have the balance sheets of banana republics, finally realize that there’s still nothing left to save them but a great big “reset”—i.e., a global Chapter 11 or Economic “Versailles Treaty.”

The need for this “re-set” will, of course, be conveniently blamed on Putin and Covid rather than the central bankers (failed generals) who caused this horrific war on real money, sustainable debt, and sound fiscal spending years ago.

At that point, history will remind us that lost wars and failed policies always devolve into more centralized controls masquerading as governmental “guidance,” payment efficiency, and “democratic” leadership, nicely encapsulated in that toxic new direction of CBDCs and a more Orwellian new normal…
But I digress…

How to Position Yourself?
Switching from military to equestrian metaphors, I argued in 2022 that investors, like polo players, need to think where the ball is headed, not where it lies currently.

Regardless of what Powell says today, the real play is 3 to 4 moves ahead, which all point toward an inevitably weaker USD and thus an inevitably rising gold price.

Powell, of course, is more a politician than an economist, and central banks like the Fed are anything but independent.

As such, Powell, DC and the creative math and fiction writers at the BLS will continue to do what all politicians (or losing armies) do when things are going against them: Lie.

Thus, the DC creative writers will continue to fudge, distort and “tweak” the CPI data to misreport true inflation as nearly “beating expectations,” thereby allowing Powell to save face in a losing “war against inflation” while Lieutenant Yellen quietly pushes a weaker USD narrative to save the UST market (i.e., prevent more foreign UST dumping).

This face-saving policy will then allow the US to do what it does best: Borrow, spend, and go deeper into inflationary debt spirals.

The Pesky Human Factor
Based on bond market Realpolitik, the probabilities point toward a liquidity pivot and weaker USD, in the longer term.

But history also reminds us that power-drunk figures don’t like to admit defeat. Their egos get in the way of rational decisions.

Powell, who desperately wishes to be remembered as a Napoleonic Paul Volcker rather than a comical Arthur Burns, is no exception to such human-all-too-human small-mindedness.

Unwilling to accept a Gettysburg moment that originated with Colonel Greenspan, General J. Powell could indeed push too far and too long with rising rates, a stronger USD, and tanking bonds until inflation and everything else is destroyed.

We can only wait and see.

The Preparation Phase
Whether on battlefields or in economic cycles, man’s history of the absurd and his disloyalty to the many for the benefit of a few is nothing new under the sun.
https://www.signalsmatter.com/wp-con...d-image-22.png

In short, chaos eventually rears its head.
Powell or Yellen, QT or QE, inflation to deflation, left or right, Davos or DC, the chaotic results are always the same: Currencies and markets die, opportunists, lies and controls increase and the little guy (and common sense) get trampled, drafted or “canceled.”

With $19T in cumulative deficits and $31T in public debt, there’s no way out but an eventual capitulation to currency debasement and further inflation into an otherwise disinflationary recession and ultimate stagflation.

Portfolios ill-prepared for this macro-economic Waterloo/Gettysburg moment will finally grasp that fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous…

Signals Matter Market Reports generally reflect the company’s long-term macro views and are posted free of charge each week at www.SignalsMatter.com, on LinkedIn, and directly to your inbox by Signing Up Here. Our Portfolio Solutions are generally geared to shorter timeframes, may therefore differ from our longer-term perspectives, and are available to Subscribers that Join Here. For three ways to engage with us, please click: 3 Ways to Engag
Recent Posts

1. The USD Approaching a Waterloo Moment
2. Embarrassing Debt: Are Markets Doomed?
3. Bond Destruction + CPI Fiction = Market Confusion
4. Global Bond Markets: Neon-Flashing Warning Signs
5. Thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDC

Recent Comments

1. Matthew Piepenburg on Embarrassing Debt: Are Markets Doomed?
2. Nathan on Embarrassing Debt: Are Markets Doomed?
3. Matthew Piepenburg on Thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDC
4. James Stivaly on Thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDC
5. Matthew Piepenburg on Bad Banks Behaving Badly

Archives

1. February 2023
2. January 2023
3. December 2022
4. November 2022
5. October 2022
6. September 2022
7. August 2022
8. July 2022
9. June 2022
10. May 2022
11. April 2022
12. March 2022
13. February 2022
14. January 2022
15. December 2021
16. November 2021
17. October 2021
18. September 2021
19. August 2021
20. July 2021
21. June 2021
22. May 2021
23. April 2021
24. March 2021
25. February 2021
26. January 2021
27. December 2020
28. November 2020
29. October 2020
30. September 2020
31. August 2020
32. July 2020
33. June 2020
34. May 2020
35. April 2020
36. March 2020
37. February 2020
38. January 2020
39. December 2019
40. November 2019
41. October 2019
42. September 2019
43. August 2019
44. July 2019
45. June 2019
46. May 2019
47. April 2019
48. March 2019
49. February 2019
50. January 2019
51. December 2018
52. November 2018
53. October 2018
54. September 2018
55. August 2018
56. July 2018
57. June 2018
58. May 2018
59. April 2018
60. March 2018
61. February 2018
62. January 2018
63. December 2017
64. November 2017
65. October 2017
66. September 2017
67. August 2017
68. July 2017
69. June 2017
70. May 2017

Categories

1. Bonds
2. Central Banks
3. Foreign Markets
4. Guest Blogs
5. Macro Thoughts
6. Must Reads
7. Podcasts
8. Politics
9. Real Estate
10. Stocks
11. Trade Examples–Signals Watch
12. Uncategorized
13. Videos