The Road to Recovery: Global Epocalypse Inevitable According to Trump’s Chief and World’s Largest Failing Bank

Carmageddon keeps on rolling

The financial end of the world in economic apocalypse is here. A funny thing happened on the road to recovery: Trump’s chief strategist admitted his view of the Trumpian future looks like the Great Depression. Even the world’s largest bank just said global financial default is the preferable way out and most likely way out of the Great Recession that began in 2007/2008. That’s the new optimism.  You don’t get better than all of that for an exhilarating view of the imminent future. As Maya MacGuineas, the leader of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, also assessed the situation,

 

“President-elect Trump is going to be inheriting the worst fiscal situation of any president… other than President Truman … as judged by the debt relative to the economy.” (The Washington Post)

 

Trump’s solution for that problem requires that we enormously increase that debt and hope to power through. That puts him in a no-win scenario unless he can jack the economy up faster than he jacks up the debt; but we are already seeing the likelihood of that fall apart before the plan begins, as I’ll explain. That Trump’s plan will increase the debt is not just something his critics are claiming but is also something his own chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, admits to from the outset of this journey into oblivion:

 

“With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything,” Bannon said. “Shipyards, ironworks, get them all jacked up. We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution.” (The Washington Post)

 

“Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks” sounds like a description of a last-ditch effort if I ever heard one. It’s certainly not the usual new administration optimism. “As exciting as the 1930s?” Yikes. The plan is for something as exciting as the greatest economic collapse the modern world has known … until now. And clearly the plan here is only made possible by interest so low that it is in some places negative. So, pack the bags on the jalopy because 2017 is going to be a heck of a ride.

I don’t fault Bannon or Trump for this because I have said all along that we will never avoid the economic collapse that our mountains of debt and our greedy banks have already assured. We can only push it off but make it greater by doing so. I may have jumped the gun a little with my prediction of the Epocalypse at the start of 2016, but a year later we have some of the most unlikely places admitting we are going there, so I didn’t jump it by much. (Wait until you read what Deutsche Bank has to say.)

While I’m not surprised at all by where we are headed, I am surprised at Bannon’s stark admission that Trump’s plan will take us on a journey as “exciting” as the Great Depression of the 1930’s — not exactly everyone’s favorite period in history to relate to if one is trying to build belief in a recovery plan.

He’s right, of course, but I’m surprised to find someone who is trying to stir excitement for his plan comparing it to the worst time the oldest people alive can remember — a time they hoped they would never revisit. I suppose I shouldn’t be because that is where we are, and Bannon’s nature is to say things as they are. You just don’t usually hear such stark expression from the president’s chief strategists. Again, such is the nature of our time. (And I’d rather hear things as they are than pretend otherwise.)

While I’m sure Bannon wasn’t expressing dumbfounded joy about experiencing another decade like the Great Depression, he was saying that Trump’s debt-heavy plan is much like Roosevelt’s WPA. That’s where we are — in an economy that has stalled to the point that it will take a WPA-sized plan to move it any further ahead. That thought, too, is not exactly hopeful because we also had a global war to help gas the engines of the economy out of the 30s, and that has been looking more likely throughout 2016, too.

I agreed at the start of the Obama administration that we should take out debt to accelerate the economy and position the nation for a more vibrant future because then we would, at least, be handing the next generation some genuinely valuable merchandise in exchange for all the debt we created … so long as we focused on projects that really needed to be done anyway. While I’m not so sure about the proverbial crumbling bridges that have provided the argument for taking on more debt for a decade or more, there are plenty of needed projects in the form of antiquated sewer systems that are far from capable of handling today’s capacity, major city water systems that still use wooden pipes, etc.

I suggested then, “Do it now, while the price tag is lower than it may be in the future and while the cost of finance is dropping.” But that was then, and it’s too late now for reasons I’ll lay out here. It’s an opportunity that was lost due to a non-visionary, do-nothing-in-the-face-of-catastrophe, obstructionist congress.

I’m for using debt to get some things going when the prices are down and jobs are in short supply and then paying it back as things start picking up. I’m for using debt responsibly like a tool, not like a replacement for the oxygen we breath … but when has the US done that in the last half a century? We have been profligate, lazy debt abusers, paying for nothing as we go, living off the generosity of a future that has no say in the matter.

My thoughts at the start of the Great Recession: there are always projects that need to be done, why not do them when labor is cheaper and easier to find and when the cost of credit is extremely low. That is just common-sense wisdom as a way of creating jobs and getting things done that are government’s responsibility and that have been put off for too long anyway.

However, I have been saying for the last four years that we squandered that opportunity for the past seven years as the Republicans obstructed such attempts and as the Obama administration, frankly, did very little to push such ideas through. Obama had no vision and put more effort into changing bathroom laws. Trump does have vision, but Obama already spent the debt capacity the US had for doing such bold ideas. Now that the Obama administration has doubled the national debt to $20 trillion, the debt relative to the total size of the economy (when measured in GDP), as MacGuineas says, is the highest its been since the end of WWII. Hitting that point is a game-changer in terms of what you can now do with debt.

We’re at 100% of the total economy owed in debt! From what we’ve seen in other nations that are bordering on collapse, going above that mark gets seriously precarious, while even hitting that level suffocates the economy. We’re at a debt load that is only survived at all because interest rates are the lowest they have been in the history of the world. (Literally. No nation has ever given money away to the degree that nations around the world have been doing over the last few years.)

The current budget deficit is already running well over half a trillion dollars a year, and that’s while making interest payments that are almost nil. What will the deficit be if rates rise to historically normal levels, even if we don’t finance Trump’s plan? No one knows exactly what the maximum debt ceiling for any nation is, but I believe we are now seeing a clear sign that we have hit that level, and “throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks” doesn’t sound like a well-thought-out plan that justifies another trillion in debt over time. (Many say it will really come to five trillion.)

 

Summing up the Trumped-up tax benefits

 

On the surface of the Trump plan, what’s not to like if your in business or are a stock investor?

 

  • massively increased infrastructure spending … without paying for it
  • increased military spending … without paying for it
  • repatriation of corporate profits at low-to-no taxes
  • corporate tax cuts
  • personal income-tax cuts
  • capital gains tax cuts

 

How can you not throw the world’s biggest party when you’re doing all of that? So, let me start by saying I think it will stimulate the economy … and the stock market, too. It has already begun to do so. It is such a massive shift into finally applying fiscal policy toward growth, instead of just relying on monetary policy, that it forcibly revises the timing of my predicted Epocalypse … but probably not by much.

It adds up to a form of government quantitative easing as massive as everything the Federal Reserve has done and more — entirely new ammo just as all the central banks are, as David Stockman keeps saying, “out of dry powder.” The government will issue enough bonds to pay for all that spending and all those tax cuts (which they hope will make it possible for you to amp up spending, too), and none of us have to ever pay for it!

That’s why Reaganomics stimulated the economy so much. We bought everything and left it to others to pay for it. (We’ve just continued to move that along and greatly increase it under George II and Obama.) Since Trump’s plan will be the biggest pay-for-it-all-later flood of stimulus in the history of the nation, how can it not boost the economy? (Hint. I’ll tell you in a moment.)

The Federal Reserve provided $2.2 trillion of direct quantitative wheezing. Trump is promising double that in new national debt alone. On top of that, the amount of new cash back into the country as a result of repatriation is estimated to be about another trillion. And then there is the money they hope you will spend from your tax savings.

 

But where will all the money go?

 

Trump knows where the money the government raises through bond issues will be spent (because he will control the spending), but he only thinks he knows what will happen with all the repatriated corporate cash and the corporate tax savings. Will most of that money go to expand factories and create jobs as Team Trump says? … As Ronald Reagan said? While Goldman Sachs is not trustworthy in the slightest, I think they are right on the money here, and I’ll explain why:

 

“A significant portion of returning funds will be directed to [stock] buybacks based on the pattern of the tax holiday in 2004,” the team, led by Chief U.S. Equity Strategist David Kostin, write. They estimate that $150 billion (or 20 percent of total buybacks) will be driven by repatriated overseas cash. They predict buybacks 30 percent higher than last year, compared to just 5 percent higher without the repatriation impact.” (Bloomberg)

 

This is a no-brainer in my view because I choose to learn from history. In the absence of strong markets, corporations for the past couple of years have focused primarily on using their cash to buy back stocks and have used their available cheap credit to do even more buybacks. Corporations have found that their boards and CEOs can make a lot more money a lot faster with less risk by playing the market with company stocks and company cash than actually building anything.

These buybacks don’t make any money for the corporations, so it is not “business;” but they generate a ton of money for the wealthy owners as they milk their corporations dry. Why would they change that plan if more free money is on its way? Why would they spend it, as Trump and his tax maestro’s think they will, on capital investments to build products for which demand has been slowing? (If repatriation and corporate tax cuts were conditional based on companies not doing any buybacks, then maybe it would accomplish something more than jacking the stock market up another time; but I’ve heard no rumor of such conditions being built into the new tax code.)

Some of the money will also be spent on increased dividends to shareholders to keep stock prices rising with enticements because that is also what corporations have been doing in recent history. Those dividends will, in turn, get reinvested in more stock speculation.

And then there will be acquisitions of new companies to make bigger conglomerates, which helps eliminate jobs. All of which does nothing for the general economy; but it’s huge for the stock market. So, there are many reasons to think the stock market could soar again to even greater bubblicious heights.

Infrastructure projects will kick some corporations into capital investment by creating demand, instead of just supply; but, as Goldman indicates, I suspect the recently adopted habits of going for the low-hanging fruit will not end as the most favored way to put the government plans directly into the pockets of the rich.

So, there are LOTS of reasons to think stocks will go up IF the plan is enacted, and that’s why you see people quickly repositioning for that now by moving to stocks like Caterpillar, which are cheap because the company has been doing so poorly, but which should do well if the government starts building lots of infrastructure that requires lots of heavy equipment.

Of course, Trump will have to get all of this through congress. Dem’s should love it, they wanted to boost infrastructure spending when obstructionist Republicans resisted. Now that it’s the Republican plan, most Republicans will approve it, except the diehard deficit hawks; so the Repubs will need a few Dems to join them. Will they join, though? Or will Dems return the Republican’s approach by dishing out their own obstructionism, and will they get the few remaining fiscally conservative Repubs to give them enough strength to obstruct the plan?

That part is anyone’s guess, but my guess would be that most of the plan makes it through because the nation expects action.

 

Who benefits when Trump’s cards are played?

 

Corporations are not that excited about the large nominal tax cut because, for most of them, their effective rate is already that low or even lower because of the endless loopholes their lobbyists have worked into the system — dodges for which only those who can afford a battalion of tax accountants and a fleet of attorneys need apply.

If Plan Trump does work, the people who benefit most will be the same people who have prospered off the entire Great Recession so far. As I say at the top of this site, “It’s been a great recession … for a few.” (This is what I warned of about Trump’s economic plan before the election.)

That’s why the stocks that are rising the fastest from the mere thought of the tax cuts are the Wall Street banks that created the Great Recession! If they had known such a populist shift would drive up their stocks, they would have voted for Trump themselves. (Maybe they did and did protest too much only because they knew the populace would vote for anything the banksters pretended to hate, as I also said before the election. After all, remember how Goldman Sachs intentionally counseled its clients to do the opposite of what it was doing with its own money when they created the Great Recession?)

The banksters certainly have nothing to complain about at the moment as rising interest rates lift them out of bank hell, and they are no more likely to be put in jail than their close friend, Crooked Hillary. So, all of this is a bank holiday so far.

While the spending increases will create jobs and may benefit the average person with higher-pay, there is a caveat so big that is already undercutting the longterm success of the infrastructure-spending stimulus program and could even stop it from happening by taking us straight to default as the first step of true recovery.

 

The self-defeating effects of Trump’s spending spree

 

There is some certainty in all of this: Massively cutting taxes while hugely increasing spending assures everyone that the government will take on a lot more debt. That means issuing a lot more bonds and other treasury debt instruments. That means interest will rise. In anticipation of that, interest on bonds has already risen at the fastest rate in history (1.5 times faster than the previous record in 1994). And that rapid interest increase is happening at the mere thought of Trump’s program.

The rise in bond interest has also already translated into rising interest on mortgages, which has triggered an increase in mortgage buy ambien generic applications as people see the writing on the wall and rush to finish their home purchases before the rates climb higher still. In other words, people are waking up to the fact that the days of low interest are fading fast.

A few more certain conclusions follow from all of that: Rising interest is certain to make Trump’s infrastructure programs harder to accomplish without breaking the government. That undercuts the whole idea laid out by Bannon that the time to buy new infrastructure is now when interest rates are low. The plan has already started a self-defeating loop where the cost of credit is rising rapidly long before any specific projects are even talked about. That is a huge danger sign.

In other words, Trump’s plan appears to be defeating itself long before it even goes to congress. As I’ve been saying for years, such is the plight a nation eventually comes to when it reaches peak debt. You pile the debt forward to the point where you cannot push it any further because funding new expansion with new debt drives up your interest costs beyond what you can keep up with.

The rapid rise of interest, even while the Fed has its target set to the bottom, is a gauge that indicates we are there. All we can do now is spin our tires, trying to push the snow drift any further, or kill our engine.

Bond funds are facing a liquidity crisis. If you simply buy government bonds directly and hold them for their full term, your money is stuck but pretty safe … at least, until the government defaults, by which point all bets of any kind are off anyway. However, bond funds, which most retirement funds invest in, are another story. Since fund managers buy and sell bonds, the value of their existing bonds drops when the government and others start paying higher interest on new bond issues in order to attract buyers. That causes people to rush out of those funds, and the funds face a liquidity crisis, as we are now seeing, leaving them struggling to try to find ways to cash those people out who are fleeing the fund.

I have always questioned whether the bond market bubble would crash first or the stock market bubble. Since Trump’s massive changes are boosting the stock market before they even happen and breaking the bond market, we can pretty well see where the economy is going to crack.

As Zero Hedge notes:

 

Each time the bond market has crashed in the last few decades, a financial crisis has quickly followed:  

 

The rise in US interest rates is also pushing up the cost for many other nations to finance their national debts because they have to compete for investors. Following a decade of exponential increases in sovereign debt and corporate debt, this rapid rise in interest rates — still in its infancy — is the most dangerous thing that could happen. It has the potential to be massively worse than a stock market crash because it can take down entire nations around the world.

The question that remains is “Are we there yet?” Are we at that point where Trump will not be able to raise funds for his projects without raising the cost of interest on the national debt to a level that means certain default because we cannot raise the debt fast enough to pay for the interest increases that raising the debt causes?

Who knows, but the historically rapid rise in bond interest over the past two weeks could be what “there” looks like when you finally find it — a state where the mere thought of your plans drives up your financing costs faster than you can even talk about the plans, making it impossible to carry them out — a place where debt expansion ends itself.

If that happens, this stock-market rise will be short lived as it builds in anticipation and talk of the plan but the cost of interest to fund the plan turns the plan into an unobtainable mirage before it even launches. That would cause panic in a market that just made huge changes to reposition for the benefits of that plan, and it would leave the market with nowhere to go. Unless the rate of rise in interest slows down as quickly as it began, we will be there before the president-elect takes office.

So, here’s an interesting little side effect: If bond interest keeps rising like it has been, the next raise in the Fed’s interest target becomes irrelevant. Whether the Fed raises its interest target or not, the market is now taking over and raising interest for them — even mortgage interest.

Trump’s program funding needs are so massive — at a time when the nation already has more debt than it could possible afford if it had to pay historically normal, market-determined interest – that the simple thought of that financing need is a force with more power than the strings the Federal Reserve pushes.

In fact, you have to ask, “If the Fed’s target interest rate is still 0.25%, why are they not holding things there right now? Are they unable to do anything to slow the rise?” In the very least, Trump’s plan will force the Fed into more quantitative easing because they will have to soak up all of that government debt and add it to their own balance sheet — just to keep the government debt affordable — but it appears they have already lost the ability to hold rates down or have just given up (as I said I thought they would if Trump won).

It is one thing when the Fed does quantitative easing just to stimulate the economy; it’s quite another when quantitative easing becomes a constant necessity just to keep the national debt affordable. At that final phase of the debt trap, you are caught in a vortex of debt that you cannot accelerate your way out of.

 


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How close is a multi-nation debt default?

 

Before you think that the Donald is a billionaire so he knows what he is doing, bear in mind that the Donald’s own great expectations for huge projects funded with debt have not always created prosperity … even for him. In fact, those loses were so great that he still uses them to offset 100% of his tax burden (up to the last available returns), and those were simple, small-scale projects compared to rebuilding a nation. He’s had several times when great expectations funded on mountains of debt collapsed.

Dont’ worry about it, though. The Donald has plan for the nation if they throw all of this at the wall and it doesn’t stick, which he has already laid out:

 

“I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.” “I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.” “How do you renegotiate the debt?” O’Donnell followed up. “You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed,” Trump replied. “I’m going to give you back half.” (Politico)

 

So, there you have it. That’s where this ends if Trump’s infrastructure investment experiences debt problems. He’ll do the smart thing and write off the national debt. That, of course, will bust the entire financial world because nearly everyone owns massive chunks of the US debt colossus. As Clinton said on the campaign trail in response to Trump’s idea of defaulting our way out this funding dilemma …

 

“That could cause an economic catastrophe, and it would break 225 years of ironclad trust that the American economy has with Americans and with the rest of the world,” Clinton said. “Alexander Hamilton would be rolling in his grave. You see, we pay our debts.”

 

Ironically, Alexander already did a little rolling in his theater last week.

I don’t blame Trump’s plan for any of this. I am merely pointing out why the plan cannot save us, and how it is already showing us we are there! Default on the national debt is going to have to happen because the national debt is already unpayable, and the global economy is sinking with so much inertia that we’ll never be able to raise it fast enough to expand our way out of our debt problems because the massive amount of new debt it would take to lift the economy is going to create worse problems than what it solves.

So, I’m not concerned that Trump’s plan is going to cause the default to happen; I’m just looking at what it means for timing.

 

The real estate mogul countered that while he’s benefited from taking on debt in his business dealings, the U.S. is “sitting on a time bomb” with its national debt. President Barack Obama has grown the debt, Trump said, and Clinton “doesn’t have a clue” when it comes to debt reduction.

 

So, maybe that is the plan — take out as much debt as you possibly can before you default. Why not? If you’re going to declare bankruptcy anyway, make it worth doing by leaving yourself with assets and everyone else with empty hands. At least, we’ll be in the hands (albeit small hands) of someone who knows what do with exploding debt bombs. If done right, it will rob the banksters back.

Deutsche Bank has some idea of what the bottom looks like and what massive fall-out major defaults will cause because it probably has a fair idea of where its own numerous debt problems extend, and Deutsche just issued the following stark alarm:

 

…the global financial system remains broken and extremely fragile. Secular stagnation trends are everywhere. The world has too big a debt burden for the current growth environment.

 

The whole world has this problem, but there is no growth environment that will take us out of it because Trump’s growth program is the strongest we’ve ever seen applied, and it is already digging its own debt hole deeper, faster than it can pay for. Mere talk of the plan is increasing the plan’s financial costs (and the nation’s current debt costs) at the greatest rate of increase the US has ever experienced.

Thus, even Deutsche Bank offers a surprising statement, in spite of how bad a global default would be …

 

We would feel far more comfortable if the world went through a huge creative destruction period where zombie, inefficient debt was allowed to default – thus ‘right-sizing’ the ratio between debt and GDP. However we’ve long accepted that this is highly unlikely to happen outside of perhaps a future break-up of the Euro. (Zero Hedge)

 

So would I! Otherwise, we just get to stagnate the rest of our lives away and leave a world where our children will either do the same or be the ones to experience the default, neither of which will be good or right for them

Allowing default to happen is, as I said at the start of the Great Recession, the only way out of the Great Recession. We are wasting time and making it more likely to be much more disorderly by putting it off. It is the one answer we have been forestalling because we want to avoid the pain. Trump’s plan assures the day of reckoning for bonds gets here faster, and that is probably for the good.

As with Deutsche Bank, I say, “Bring it on because we are never going to avoid it.” We might as well put the pedal to the metal and see if we can power through this debt-sunken quagmire, and go out in a blaze of glory if we do not miraculously make it to the other side.

It’s like being up in the mountains in your four-wheel-drive while it is raining the whole time you’re up there. You turn around to head back and discover you have a three-foot-deep pond of mud across the road that you almost certainly will not make it through. So, what do you do? You roll up the windows and try to power through with all you have, even though you know you’ll probably never make it, because the alternative is walking twenty miles out of the mountains in cold rain anyway. You’re at a point where the only remaining question is “What do you have to lose?”

That’s where we are, and I think that’s why Bannon says, “We’re going to throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.” Assessing the situation realistically gives you the advantage to note this is good time to get the hip waders out of the back of the truck and put them on now, so you don’t have to cover yourself with waist-deep mud after you crawl out the window in order to walk your twenty miles soaked to the skin in mud. So, prepare!

Even the world’s largest failing bank now recognizes that a global debt default is the best way to put this problem behind us. I have consistently said that is the only way. So, prepare.

Since the world, itself, is repositioning from years of centralized globalization to national populism, the Euro breakup that Deutsche Bank seems to be hoping for could easily be as close as 2017. Brexit has begun the process. The US joined them by voting for Trexit. Italy looks about to give the Eurozone a good kick in the butt.

The world’s largest bank, which is experienced enough to have survived the Great Depression, finally recognizes the inevitability of something I have been saying from the very start of the Great Recession (which is why I continue to refer to the state we are in as “the Great Recession” because we never ended the problem but just kept pushing it forward): debt default is the only way out. Frankly, I think Deutsche knows that, if it defaults, the world defaults with it; so it would rather things start the other way around. They’d feel “more comfortable” with that because then they wouldn’t get all the blame when the world crumbles. It shows how little hope they have for their own recovery, apart from a global default.

Trumped-up hope is buying the stock market a temporary reprieve from crashing, but that only means the bond market will be the first tsunami to arrive on shore. So, while Trump’s plans may delay the Epocalypse I have written about because the scale of his planned change is so huge, it is already showing that a debt default is likely by the rapid increase in interest rates.

The world’s biggest failing bank sees no way out for the entire planet but a global catastrophe and now advocates “the sooner the better; let’s get it behind us.”

Even Trump has acknowledged from the beginning the strong possibility that it all ends in default, but he says he’s the best one to guide us through that, and maybe he is. The unfortunate part is, as he said during his campaign, that many liberal fools will blame him for a collapse that was already inevitable. People who read sites like this, however, will know when such a thing is said that it isn’t true. This calamity could be seen coming from miles away by anyone not steeped in economic denial.

 

 

Prepping with food storage:

Your LEAST expensive, longest-lasting supply of nutrients, which will endure for years is to buy large bulk food supplies like 50-100-pound bags of rice and dried beans and large amounts of honey. You can probably buy those locally at your grocer or at an Asian food market. These don’t need to be rotated each year like many food supplies, and are inexpensive, and will keep you alive for a long time if supplemented with other foods that can be easily mixed with them during food preparation. They mix with almost anything. Of course, they are also extremely boring if used for a long period. (Boring beats starving, and they give you something to share.) So, if you want something with more variety to mix it up a bit, sealed buckets of dehydrated food supplies are another kind of option:

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Large bags of rice:

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85 Comments

  1. Ping from aj54:

    read anything by Michael Hudson, or Parasitic Economics, and look at the Chicago Plan. It is fixable, easily, but would require great courage, because it means stopping the psychos in power, and they guard their exclusive power with the power of their exclusive money. Global default and a new economic system, but not based on the old one, with the same old faces at the top of the pyramid. I suppose we could even hang onto the IMF and/or BIS, but with all nationalized non-debt based currencies. Banking as a public utility.
    The lack of prosecution of fraud at the top has had the effect of trickling down to the masses, and resulting in a corrosion of public behaviors, the only time anything has come down from on high. All economic value is vacuumed up to the top.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Trickle-down moral decay. Interesting.

      Agreed, as indicated above, it’s fixable through global default, but that’s far from easy. The default of a single company through the court system is complicated, so the default of nations and many companies within those nations is complicated beyond anyone’s understanding, and many global powers would never cooperate. That means it won’t happen until it happens destructively on its own because economies start tearing apart around the world, first one or two, then a handful, then many.

      Only, the globalists don’t give up when their old system goes down. They’re ready for that to happen. Not only are their powers great and extensive, but so are their followers, and if they hang the blow-up of the current national systems on Trump and Brexit, etc. successfully, many of the lighter-weight anti-establishment people will shift to them, and their own followers will be emboldened.

      Then they will put forward a global answer to a global problem. Rather than the individual national currencies you and I are certain are right, they will launch their idea of a single international, cashless monetary system, claiming the problems of the old system couldn’t be solved because it was too fractured by nationalism. (Of course, in truth a single global system is even more ripe for destruction because it is fully centralized when diversity is the key to survival.)

      Not that I know of conspiracies laid out along those lines. It’s just what I deduct by looking at where the trend lines converge. So, it’s far from easy. If Trump wasn’t a Trojan horse, he will be a scape goat. The globalists, whether they are conspirators or just numerous people who see the world the same way, certainly have contingency plans or will seize the opportunity to turn Trump into one as soon as they find they need one.

      Whether the trend toward globalism is a carefully mapped conspiracy with contingency plans for as many possible wrong outcomes as the conspirators can imagine or the zeitgeist of many minds caught in group think, there are opposing forces. That means it is going to become terribly complex with conflicts. We see the mood for conflict by the globalists right now drifting like into violence in city streets.

      For the most part, the globalists hold the reins of power, so they’ll use their militaries as necessary against any violent resistance to their ways. If Donald Trump makes the changes he is talking about, violence will rise just as surely from those who supported the establishment, and Trump will use the military to maintain law and order, as he has already indicated that his government will be one of law and order. If that happens, liberals will see it as proof that he is totalitarian, even though it is currently their people revolting and will be their people then, too.

      And, if Trump doesn’t do what he’s said he will do (or, at least, most of it), I cannot imagine how unglued his own followers will become for having put their trust in him and then been betrayed.

      So, how do we find a peaceful way to circumvent a violent tearing apart of society while turning away form international government and an international monetary system? Is there a way?

      Someday writing words like this will be dangerous. Someday HAVING WRITTEN words like this may be dangerous. We are already seeing students who would rather throw away freedom of speech — even their own — than hear things that are politically incorrect in terms of liberal ideology. Soon those students will be the new leaders of our country. What then?

      • Ping from aj54:

        “So, how do we find a peaceful way to circumvent a violent tearing apart of society while turning away form international government and an international monetary system? Is there a way?”

        indeed that is the question, and it seems a certainty that your points about the future outcomes will prevail; my how they have tightened the tentacles in my lifetime. They must even have thought the better of trying to outlaw Bitcoin, since it seems that now they are trying to envelop it, not merely the technology. But maybe there is a little bit of hope for anarchy there.
        Heard of this little piece of equipment? https://www.google.com/patents/US5356368 I’m not entirely convinced of the spontaneity and legs of our current insurrections in the cities. With this economy, is it any wonder they can hire young people from Craig’s List for $15 an hour to carry placards? Maybe they even supply the Red Bull, turn on the synthesizers, and let nature take it’s course. You tube has a video from Austin where they film around the corner at the long line of buses that brought in protesters. Heard in NC, Dallas, and Ferguson that there were outside agitators (and arsonists). They will shut down DPL because the injuries due to official violence is making the police state look bad, even though that protest has been not merely peaceful, but spiritual. And slowing down the work costs $ of course. As if nothing else matters.
        I would not worry about the quality of the young people available as future leaders, but always, the values of who makes the choices amongst them. Charles Koch really, really believes more money for the wealthiest is truly the best way. And David Rockefeller is proud to be a globalist, and George Soros thinks he is God, or at least he admits he used to think so. Who will be taking their places at the top?

        “Someday writing words like this will be dangerous. Someday HAVING WRITTEN words like this may be dangerous.”……but still, we must, if it is the only way left to rage at the dying of the light…

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Thanks for the thoughts, AJ. It’s not surprising that the billionaires believe they’re gods; but what is surprising is how many blue-collar workers continue to believe that the right path for helping themselves and the rest of the middle class is to make sure life is great for the billionaires, even after years of trickle-down economics doing nothing but turning more millionaires into billionaires while constantly eroding the size of the middle class.

          Hope you’re right about the quality of college kids today who seem they would rather have their safe spaces where they can be free of unpleasant ideas than have free speech. I read today where one college student rebelled against that trend and managed to persuade his college in the UK to stand for free speech and rule out all safe zones and all censorship against unpopular ideas. Finally, word of a university that took a stand in the opposite direction of the recent trend.

  2. Ping from The Palmetto Cynic:

    Politicians can’t fix anything. Government produces nothing, all they can do is rob Peter to pay Paul. This has been a truth since the dawn of history and has been proven every time, complements of Father Time. Until the American people realize this, nothing will change, which means that nothing will ever change. Athens, Rome, Soviet Russia, Venezuela, Wiemar Germany, and 100s of others can’t be wrong!

    “The imperviousness of economic law to political law is shown in this historic fact: in the long run every State collapses, frequently disappears altogether and becomes an archeological curio. Every collapse of which we have sufficient evidence was preceded by the same course of events. The State, in its insatiable lust for power, increasingly intensified its encroachments on the economy of the nation, causing a consequent decline of interest in production, until at long last the subsistence level was reached and not enough above that was produced to maintain the State in the condition to which it had been accustomed. It was not economically able to meet the strain of some immediate circumstance, like war, and succumbed. Preceding that event, the economy of Society, on which State power rests, had deteriorated, and with that deterioration came a letdown in moral and cultural values; men “did not care.” That is, Society collapsed and drew the State down with it. There is no way for the State to avoid this consequence—except, of course, to abandon its interventions in the economic life of the people it controls, which its inherent avarice for power will not let it do.” – Frank Chodorov, “The Rise and Fall of Society”

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      If that’s true, then the only solution is anarchy because anything more than anarchy is government, which you say cannot produce anything, but can only rob. Anarchy cannot collapse because anarchy is collapse. The two are essentially synonymous, as anarchy is simply what one calls the collapse of all governance.

      I’m not sure it is true that all governments ultimately collapse into anarchy, as some say, because we have many governments that have been around for a thousand years or more; they are simply no longer the greatest power in the world, which some of them once were, but they are still muddling along about as good as human civilizations ever do.

      But you are right that the state has slowly come to seize the reins of the economy. We need the state to maintain an even playing field economically and to squelch human greed. If we don’t do that, Capitalism corrects by creative destruction. Creative and wise people can avoid needless destruction by seeing the bad actors and bad actions coming and preventing that kind of play that ultimately always harms society. We call that “regulation.” We regulate the corruption that causes serious downfalls and jail the corruption before it gains enough power to harm society.

      The problem is not that we over-regulated against corruption but that we did not regulate it AT ALL, and we have not jailed it at all, so it continues to rise in power, even as the rest of us pay the price for its failures. The rich got vastly richer AFTER the Great Recession began. The failure to regulate and jail the corrupt is that their corruption is continuing to make our problems worse. Capitalism will solve those problems by catastrophic failure because we are not doing anything to solve them. To avoid the pain of corruption for the corrupt, Bush put the correction on all of us in order to save the corrupt from their own failures. And THAT is about as corrupt as you can possibly become. All of society now pays for their sins while they continue to rise in power and wealth.

  3. Ping from Rumplestiltskin:

    Trump, after the inauguration needs to step before Congress and tell them Flat Out; “You men and women need to stop playing partisan politics and think in terms of how you can help solve our problems as a unified group who understand what it takes to bring a nation back from the brink of disaster.”

    Partisan politics is always about a competition for who gets the resources and the money. This comes off like squabbling children instead of adults helping to secure our nation’s future. They need to be told that there is no alternative and they must work together or else.

    That, “or else” is the real crux, because our country has been exposed as a corrupt and bankrupt nation and nothing but a concentrated effort by an engaged administration and Congress will save us.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Aye, but therein lies the rub. The president has no “or else” power over congress. He has his veto, which can’t DO anything, but can only undo things. Other than that, he has no say at all over what congress does.

      I do think you are right, though, that he should use the bully pulpit against them repeatedly, and he has certainly shown he is the man to do that! He can just keep drumming on their heads — both parties — and let’s hope it drives congresses popularity down and down until they finally work together and do something. I hope he keeps beating the media raw, too. (You know, the mainstream purveyors of false news like the kind that kept repeating “Trump said all Mexicans are rapists.”)

      Maybe he can save us by convincing the Eurozone and China to buy up all our debt and then default. (Not going to happen, but it’s a pleasant thought.) That way, those who are smart enough to exit first would be saved. Only the dumb globalists would inherit the debt.

  4. Ping from Jeanine:

    Glad I voted for Trump in the natural, but in the spiritual iOS all about Jesus. My heart is for Jesus so my ARK is prepared so I know who my Savior is, and in the natural my part like Noah is to stock up with food, water, supplies. for when the economic flood comes and everything collapsed in civil unrest and death for those not prepared. No need to open the door of my ARK while it is all happening. Covered by the blood of Jesus and like Noah will wait on the Lord to send the all clear

    • Ping from Rumplestiltskin:

      Aaaahhh, isn’t that nice, another God Fearing moron. When you find yourself living under a freeway overpass after TSHTF, try and convince me that Jesus and your Gods love you.

      • Ping from tbmuch:

        There is no need for you to be so bombastic toward Jeanine opinion, she has only expressed her thoughts, don’t like them, move on.

        • Ping from Rumplestiltskin:

          Funny that you would call someone Bombastic when they are speaking the truth. Or is it that you don’t to hear the truth?

          Religion my friend is the opiate of the masses, and anyone who falls for that idiocy needs to be told the truth to their face. We are trying to wake civilization up and to do so they need to be told the truth. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are also fictions, and you don’t believe in them as an adult, do you?

          Don’t want to be called a moron, then stop believing in fairy tales. Sometimes a parent must grab a hold of the child to force them to listen when they are acting like a brat. If you believe the bible is fact then you DO NEED TO HAVE YOUR WORLD SHAKEN, because it is not fact, it is a compilation of dictated stories written by scribes sometimes 40 or more years after the fact.

          • Ping from jakartaman:

            Thank God we have such intelligent huumble people like yourself. Man for eons has alwys thought they have the ansewers to everything only to be proven wrong. You sir can not tell me what IS holding your dumb ass in the chair
            and nobody else can – its gravity but we have not figured out what gravity isonly what it does. I think that pretty much give an idea as to how intelligent our specie is.
            But good luck with your complete numbing arrogance.

      • Ping from Knave_Dave:

        Here’s the way I look at it, Rumple. When I find myself living under a freeway overpass, even though I try to do all the right things by having a farm that will grow stuff, I’ll be glad I have Jesus’ example of how to treat others under the overpass when people are angry and not very lovable (and it won’t be easy I’m sure) and will be glad I believe that God will see me though tough times — not by making those times easier (or even less deadly), but by making me better through them. (Just my experience when I have faced such times in which I learned I can live in the “wilderness” as a desert dweller and still be a happy and hopeful person. I think that’s the most important provision you can take with you into such times to get you through and to help you remember that getting through is not enough; you need to help others get through, too.) For what it’s worth.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Well, God bless you Jeanine … and every reader here. We will all need it, and it certainly bolsters confidence to know we have it. (You scared me a little though when you said you voted for “Trump in the natural.” I thought, “Yikes, I don’t think I could handle seeing Trump in the natural for the next four years.” But I read on and caught your drift.)

      –David

  5. Ping from Tom Tom:

    Its why I hoped Killary would win the election so the Keynesians would finally have to admit they were wrong when it all goes south. Now they’ll blame the Donald and I believe ultimately they’ll attack Christians in this country as 85% of Christians voted for the Donald (mostly due to the belief he is pro-life).

    One systemic economic collapse, comin’ up!

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      My sentiments exactly. It’s going down anyway, so would be better if it flushed on their watch.

      • Ping from Recyvuym:

        This is basically my issue with what’s happening. It actually turns out awful convenient for the globalists to have Trump in the White House and far-right parties across Europe right on the brink of the biggest financial crash in modern history. Not only will they get blamed for everything, they’re also going to take the blame for other things that globalists were going to do anyway. For example: going to war with China.

        This war will be the biggest since WWII if not bigger, and as unthinkable as people believe it is today, that’s how inevitable it will look three or four years from now. Regional tensions with Taiwan, Japan and Korea are boiling over. China is asserting itself in the South China Sea and aiming to quadruple its military spending. Jinping and Trump will both need a war to stimulate growth and justify emergency reforms in light of their countries’ respective depressions and civil unrest, and it’ll be the only way for Trump to get re-elected. The trade war can’t be resolved peacefully and China’s ‘peaceful economic takeover’ is a total myth. You can find reports by the Department of Defence indicating the Chinese arms buildup will make war prolonged and catastrophic for the US and her allies by 2025, which indicates the US will seek to act pre-emptively. All this factored, I expect to see open war against China and North Korea by the year 2020.

        How bad will this be? It’s hard to say, but worst case, it could easily set off other geopolitical crunch points, especially India and Pakistan, who may annihilate each other with nuclear weapons. America, with their overwhelming strategic and tactical dominance, will eventually defeat China, but even this is its own kind of disaster, since an internal collapse of the PRC would make the Syrian Civil War seem like a warm fuzzy dream. Use of nuclear weapons against small countries would likely be normalised during this period and we’d be facing the prospect of imminent global systemic collapse.

        By the time the Republicans get swept out of office in 2024, people will be begging to have the globalists back in charge. They’ll instate their own reforms on top of the borderline totalitarian cutbacks the Republicans are going to make to the Constitution. The state of chaos will fully justify both their domestic and interventionist policies, and the backlash against nationalism will be so strong they could aim to dissolve sovereignty to the point it becomes purely tokenistic from Europe to Australia to the US. By 2030, they will have provided some form of the stability and security everyone’s going to crave, in the form of a neo-totalitarian, AI-centric globalist corporatocracy. The middle class will be history, capitalism as we know it dead in the water, the entire developing world an endless warzone of pandemics and terror, the borders of the burgeoning superstate locked down against hundreds of millions of refugees.

        And if you’re feeling bummed about it, just remember, “this never would’ve happened if you had’ve just voted for Hillary in 2016!” See, it was all Trump’s fault really, and Le Pen’s, and Nigel Farage’s. If only the Democrats had won in 2016, it would’ve been all rainbows and sunshine. (Actually it would’ve been a nuclear war with Russia by 2018, but that’s neither here nor there.)

        So really, the globalists needed Trump to win at this juncture, and they need his party to hold office for eight devastating years. Just long enough to discredit everything the nationalists say so hard that the psyche of the populace will be scarred for generations. Throughout this decade to come, the real nexus of power – the plutocrats, corporates, intelligence agencies, military-industrial complex and other bipartisan bureaucrats – will of course not be retrenched. So the idea of the power being handed back to the people is just another cruel and convenient illusion.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Wow! You’ve got it figured far into the future well beyond where my mind can see. I can agree with you on the more immediate part, which is that Trump will get all the blame along with those “Deplorables” who rejected the established wisdom of the elite globalists by voting Trump into office. (Not that I would be surprised by war with China, but I think Trump is least likely to take us there … IF he lives up to his word.)

          • Ping from Recyvuym:

            We’ll see how it develops of course, but this is the picture that’s started to fall into place in my mind. Is it part of a long game, or just the way things are going to turn out? In the end, does it matter? My longer-term predictions seem understandably far-fetched at present, but keep them in the back of your mind and see what happens.

        • Ping from jakartaman:

          No – China is not and will not be ready to do what you believe. Also, as was shown this year most Americans do love OUR country – the ideologists – lost!

  6. Ping from CharlesH:

    Thanks for a great article, although I have to admit it didn’t make me all warm and fuzzy. I really appreciate the way you use straight forward, every day words to describe things.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Thanks, Charles. I, at least, made sure to post it on Black Friday and not chill your Thanksgiving with it because I figured Black Friday would be full of news of people knocking each other off to rush for Walmart bargains, anyway. Oh, the humanity!

  7. Ping from Alleged Comment:

    There should be an immediate uptick in the economy as a white male is back in control and people instinctively know things will get better.

    Everyone knows Negroes should never be in charge because they never invent or build anything and live strictly off the white man.

    Who the hell would put a negro in charge? The damn stupid and deluded lieberal and the backward Demoncrap.

    • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

      So you read a Serious Economic Article and that is what you got out of it? Seriously?

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I would. I have an adopted niece from Zimbabwe who is brilliant, beautiful and athletic. I’ve known many black people that I’m glad to have counted as friends who are smart and kind. Don’t care for Obama, but not due to his race.

      • Ping from Alleged Comment:

        Fer sure, they are good ones in every batch! My complaint is the ones that desire to remain racist Negroes; first, foremost, and only, and not Americans.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Good and bad in every kind. Wise and not wise; but you had indicated an entire race wasn’t suitable to be president. In Obama’s case, he’s a smart guy, but I certainly don’t agree with his globalist politics. There are just as many white people that I would find just as objectionable … like George Bush, for example, who presiding over the bankruptcy of a nation and the final end of capitalism (in order save capitalists by socializing all their losses).

          —David

      • Ping from shropster:

        Odd that you should mention the basket case, Zimbabwe. When it was Rhodesia, it was called the “bread basket” of Africa. Now that it is under Black rule, all that is left is the basket.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          I think the problem is not the shade of the man in charge but the darkness in his heart. Mugabe is a villain extraordinaire. The risk of revolution is anarchy. And the risk of anarchy is that a strongman dictator will take power where there is no rule.

          South Africa turned to a Black man for leadership right next-door to Zimbabwe, and it has suffered its problems due to revolt, too; but it seems to be muddling through. Maybe it’s worse off; I don’t know, as I haven’t followed South Africa. Would be nice to hear from our South African reader. My thought is that SA’s troubles have far less to do with color than with the fact that a long-suppressed population taking control is a population that has been long-deprived of gaining leadership skills.

    • Ping from Tom Tom:

      450 trillion in credit default swaps says you’re wrong.

      • Ping from Alleged Comment:

        The negro does not know about an “economy”. Negroes never had one. But WHITE man did.

        The debt is so huge no man is going to be able to fix it. But just attacking it is giving the deficit spenders hope.

        But unless you do something about the debt there is a BIG crash coming. Make that HUGE crash is coming.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Really? Because I’m pretty sure it was White men who destroyed the economy we had. Pretty sure they are the ones who made the decisions to heap up that debt you talk about by not paying for anything we did for the last thirty years so we could stack it on the backs of our grandkids. Pretty sure they were the ones behind thirty years of trickle-down economics and free-trade that left the middle class decimated. And pretty sure it was a White guy named Bush who said he had to give up his “capitalist principles,” as if he ever had any, in order to “save capitalism.” But what he really meant was that he was saving capitalISTS by socializing the cost of their greedy failures. I’m pretty sure that Obama just continued the globalist nonsense that White people had put in play for decades. I’m thinking it appears to be all White people who are running the Federal Reserve, including one especially blanched little old lady who hasn’t seen the light of day in years and needs a beach and a mai tai (retirement) right away to brown her up a little. I’m thinking it was a gang of White men who voted in congress to create the Fed in the first place. So, the track record isn’t really supporting your theme.

          • Ping from Alleged Comment:

            Read about the negro sodomite. He has a lot of FIRST as a usurper which is also a first.

            Tons and tons of first – all BAD! I think you can startpage this feat. I never had because I already know the negro is not fit to be up there.

            The last one I heard was how he is the first to commute so many people before he leaves office than any other president legally in that office.

            As you know the negro is not a legal sitting US president but I say this because so many people do not know the negro otherwise

            • Ping from Knave_Dave:

              You relish emphasizing that it is all because the president is a “negro” in order to be as insulting to all Blacks as you can, but his positions have nothing to do with his being Black. There are hordes of Whites who agree with him on all he’s done AND who would have done the same. I guarantee you Hillary would be every bit as bad. You can say that’s because she’s a woman. But all of that is blind. Globalism knows no color. In fact, I would say that most of the worst globalists are European … so predominantly (by far) White.

            • Ping from Alleged Comment:

              You relish emphasizing that it is all because the president is a “negro” in order to be as insulting to all Blacks as you can,

              Only thing is I would change the “you” to “he” (obama – the sodomite negro)

              What I have been trying to say all these years about this Negro hater.

  8. Ping from Craig Mouldey:

    I got a laugh also at Bannon’s ‘it will be like the 30’s again and throw it at the wall to see if it sticks’. Perhaps he just finished watching Road Warrior-Beyond Thunderdome for the tenth time when he made that remark.
    I do have a question since we are talking about Obama’s trillions. 10 extra trillion? What the hell was it spent on? Shovel ready jobs? was it just given to crony banks all across the planet? Obama gave several million to Solar Energy companies who were bankrupt a year later. And he and Michael (lol) spent millions on vacations and golfing. But that is millions which is a long way off of trillions.
    One thing that would have to be done is massively shrinking government. There is so much useless and intrusive bureaucracy which needs to be ended but I’ve not heard any mention of doing this.
    My gut feeling is they will let Trump get sworn in and then soon after will bring the entire financial house down so he gets blamed. Not just him. Everyone who is a supporter, white, conservative, freedom loving, self sufficient, Christian etc. We will all be blamed too. And over there in the corner we have George Soros funding good for nothing radicals and Obama doing the same. I listened to Clinton’s so called concession speech and not far into it I thought “Oh crap she is really pissed off and she has just told her minions to go to the streets and burn up the town”. Just imagine: Trump is sworn in. The protests continue and get more heated. the economic system comes down and all these Marxist dupes no longer have their welfare cheques, food stamps etc. And in fact there will likely be major disruptions in some basic but much needed areas such as food distribution.
    There is another story I’m following with keen interest also. It has to do with a conspiracy to separate California from the U.S. This involves politicians, drug cartels, the bank of China, a Japanese crime family and Obama himself. They intend to do this one way or another. Then they will force all the white people to leave. Coming very soon, so I’ve read.
    I’m self employed Dave. Wood flooring. I moved to a rural setting over 3 years ago and have been slowly rebuilding my business. I have two potential jobs which the owners likely want done soon, before spring. Given my age and the terrain here I’m inclined to say no way until winter is over. But what is pushing me over the edge is what I see coming as near imminent. I think I just want to stay close to home. Yes, I’m in Canada. An economic collapse is going to kill us too. But the civil war? How much of that will spill over to us? Beans and rice Dave. And lots of it.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Good to hear from you again, Craig.

      Beats me what he spent it on. I can’t see that we have anything to show for it, but it’s easy enough to see how much the national debt has run up since George Bush. I’ve never seen so much money spent with so little to show for it. (And we still have to pay it all off, though that will never happen; but nice to know we owe a unpayable fortune and have nothing to show for it.) Like you, I’ve heard no serious mention of shrinking government.

      Like you, I’ve thought and said the Fed will keep things floating until Obama is out of office so Trump can squarely take the blame (in order to teach us all lesson about going against the establishment); but I’ve also said I think they may likely lose control of the whole mess before that day comes, and that seems to be the case in that the Fed still states a target interest rate that has blown apart. It started to correct a little finally today, so maybe they are throwing some extra ammo by buying up bonds; but the speed and duration of the recent move indicates they are losing control or that they’ve decided Trump will already get the blame from most people, so they’re letting it slip now.

      Everyone should bear in mind that the Fed doesn’t need to actively bring the house down. The house only stands due to years of artificial propping that I have been saying is nearing its absolute limit anyway. So, all they have to do is give up their attempts at artificial life support, and that appears to a choice the failing economy is already doing for them (as I expected would be likely right after the election).

      I think you are completely right that, however it comes apart, it is certain the mainstream media will try to lay all blame at the feet of those who voted against the establishment. That might be a reason for letting it come down now, too — so that they can control the message.

      • Ping from Craig Mouldey:

        Absolutely agree Dave that the Bankers don’t have to ‘bring the system down’. They only need to stand back and do nothing to prop it up. As I mentioned, I now view these events as near imminent. It can happen at any time.
        I only have about an acre. Working to try to feed the soil. The problem here in the Haliburton highlands is the short growing season. Frost is possible in early June and later in August. So this is something we still need to master. Sounds like you have a real good set up. I’m also surrounded by lakes so if something went bad with my well I can get water somewhere and I use Berkey water filters.

        • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

          Craig,
          Same as you have an acre, but have already mastered gardens. Had chickens for a couple years to learn the tricks for when necessary. The way I solved my water problem is the big swimming pool in the back yard holding 27,000 gallons of water. Just need to accelerate my solar power plans.

          • Ping from Craig Mouldey:

            Knowing what one is doing with a garden is a big deal. We’ve thought of chickens and solar also. Just don’t know if there is going to be enough time. If there is we will. If not…well. We heat with a wood stove. I can cook on it. I have multiple ways to cook. There is a hand pump on the well head. We have an outhouse. If the electric grid goes away it won’t kill us.

    • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

      I Don’t know what they spent it on, but since a Real Budget has never passed since he was President, I suspect that the 900 Billion Stimulus he did in his first year was spent again every since he was President and hidden in the Continuing Resolutions & Omnibus Spending Bills.

  9. Ping from 153 Words of God:

    Trump just appointed Wilbur Ross as the Commerce Secretary. Billionaire investor Ross is considered the “king of bankruptcy”. Is this an ominous sign for the USA?

    This appointment should prove to everyone that Donald Trump, like Hillary and Bill Clinton, is nothing more than a puppet of the Crowne Trust, which means he serves Queen Elizabeth II and Baron Jacob Rothschild. Trump just appointed Wilbur Ross as the Commerce Secretary. This is the man that ran Crowne Trust’s Rothschild Banking arm that oversaw the bankruptcy of their assets when they used them to strip out technologies and licenses so that they could secretly and illegally provide those assets to foreign countries like China and Russia, etc., in order to further the Crowne Trust’s One World Order Agenda. There is lots more about the connection to the secret side of the Crowne Trust, but it is dangerous for me to speak about. When this man shows up, black clouds follow and the darkside operations always increase resources for their long term evil agenda.

    Trump taps billionaire investor Ross for commerce secretary
    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-taps-billionaire-investor-ross-for-commerce-secretary/ar-AAkHUco?li=BBmkt5R

    http://www.153WordsOfGod.com/

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I had the same thought about Ross today, Words. On the one hand, we are looking like we could quickly need his bankruptcy talents. On the other hand, he is certain to make sure the banks come through the bankruptcy while the average person in the middle class takes the fall again. I would never trust him to step outside the mold of thinking, “We must first save the rich in order to save the little guy.”

  10. Ping from patrick varencaus:

    write a book @_@

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Article too long? Eyes blurry. Mine, too. Reader input on that question welcome here:

      • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

        Great Article, Everything carefully explained so the laymen can understand! I finally have something to point others to that I have been preaching about for the last 8 years……..only to get confused stares or being called a kook. Most won’t listen when you point to a problem staring them in the face, they prefer to live in their little bubble and try to ignore it. I find it is the most educated that seem to get the most mad, seem the most liberal and while Obutthead was in charge would never have thought about it, I told them all these Continuing Resolutions & Omnibus Spending Bills were to hide the fact that we are close to default and a real budget can’t be passed, I suspect they will be the first blaming Trump!

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Thanks, Once. You’ve identified exactly my dilemma. On the one hand I hear from readers that articles are too long (and want to hear from more if they feel the same way). On the other hand it is trying to carefully explain EVERYTHING that makes them long. I feel like, if I don’t cover the topic as broadly as I can from the evidence of the past week, that people will just attempt to poke holes by looking at what wasn’t covered. Then I have to use the reply section to answer all of that (which I assume a lot fewer people read). I am sure a number of people quickly scan an article before reading, and if they see their scroll bar running out real long, just say, “Forget it. I don’t have that much time.”

          • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

            I actually take the time to read the article and a lot of the comments. If I don’t comprehend or understand the article after the first read, I’ll read it again. Unfortunately this happens a lot, a bunch of stuff on Zero Hedge just goes over my level of understanding. Your article was perfect for anybody to understand! I was watching those Bond points going up after the election and thinking to myself this has to be it, because everybody else like China, Russia, Etc is selling at an Alarming Rate.

  11. Ping from Musivick:

    TRump has the perfect opportunity to write off the Obama & Globalist Debt of the past 8-16 years of WAR/etc.
    while pressing for the Trump Strategic Infrastructure and Industry Rebuilding Capital Outlays which includes ‘new’ debt

  12. Ping from thomas jefferson:

    MAYBE if anyone looked at what the money has been spent on you could save a few hundred billion,FOR instance,I talked to some russian soldiers in Colorado springs who told me their being PAID $500 dollars a day to be here,and the Russian army captain I talked to,said theres 470,000 russians soldiers here,So what about the canadian soldiers,OR the german soldiers,or the chinese soldiers,or a dozen other nations who have their soldiers here,ARE they all collecting $500 dollars a day to be here to,HOW stupid are americans to be paying these foreign military troops to be here,THE police gangs go around and arrest homeless people,BUT they get on their knees to suck off foreign military troops who are here for less the any good reasons,and NO ONE would like what that russian army captain had to say why their here……….

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I haven’t heard this one before. Did they say WHY they are here at the cost of $235 million a day?

      • Ping from thomas jefferson:

        AS you know Dave,russia is a big country(9 time zones)THE russian army captain I talked to told me OBOOZO promised the russians EVERYTHING WE OWN if they help take down america,BULLDOZERS,dump trucks,backhoes,trailers,cars,trucks,boats,airplanes,hot rod cars,YOU name it,the russians are WELL VERSED IN WHAT america has in the yards and garages,not to mention construction equipment,and LIKE HE said when we leave,IT WILL ALL BE TAKEN HOME including any young WOMEN they want,and their gearing up to take it all as we speak and NO ONE believes it,AFTER the asteroid,IT WILL Begin..I really hope america is ready,its going to be a bloodbath here after that….EVERYONE in the government is in on it too,WE’LL have to fight them all,including americas HERO’S the police gangs who have alined themselves with the chinese military,WHEN you hear CURFEW,its has started,their putting it all in place for the take over,their all fair game after that,CURFEW stay in your homes,….LIKE HELL we will..opening day of hunting season starts..LET everyone KNOW whats going down DAVE,and BE READY………..

  13. Ping from Black Hole Sun:

    Blow it up. last man standing inherits the earth. He will have to rebuild this country so fast it will make FDR look like a piker. Meanwhile other countries will do exactly the same thing. Then reset. Those with assets at the end will have a place at the table. Sounds like a plan except the neocons will be begging for war. I am tired of charts and predictions because this synthetic economy is impossible to predict.

  14. Ping from Michael:

    COLLAPSE ALREADY, OR STFU. Tired of hearing doomsday collapse material for 2 years now. DO IT ALREADY.

    • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

      2 Years, I am still wondering how they kept everything going this long! After 2007, I give the FED credit for keeping the Ponzi Scheme going on for 9 years!

  15. Ping from Knave_Dave:

    And the jury is coming in already:

    “One week after the BIS issued an unexpectedly stern, if completely ignored warning, that the surge in the USD is leading to an abrupt tightening in financial conditions around the globe, making the repayment of trillions in USD-denominated cross-border debt increasingly more difficult and suggesting that the Dollar index itself is the new “fear indicator”, overnight another central bank, the European Central Bank warned that the risk of “abrupt” global asset market corrections “have intensified” on the back of rising political uncertainty, posing a threat to banks, stability and economic growth.”

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      And then this:

      “Last week we posted the report by ADM ISI’s Paul Mylchreest “Dollar Liquidity Threat is Getting Critical and the Fed is M.I.A” which summarized some of the key points in the ongoing, second phase of global dollar shortage, profiled here first in the start of 2015 and validated recently by the BIS. We discussed the bitter (and all too predictable) irony that the Federal Reserve doesn’t “get it”, having recently declared that that liquidity in financial markets was “adequate.” It isn’t. More than 68,000 hits later, we suspect that many ZH readers are tracking the dollar liquidity crisis (and Fed ignorance)”

      Maybe it is not Fed ignorance. Maybe it is the Fed letting things fall apart, as I said they would if Trump won. Of course, the dollar liquidity crisis has been building for a long time, but ZH also points out:

      “Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar argues that [the Fed is facing an] ‘existential trilemma’ … in which ‘it is impossible to have constraints on bank balance sheets,… a par exchange rate between onshore dollars and Eurodollars, and a domestically oriented monetary policy mandate. Something will have to give. It’s either the cross-currency basis, the foreign exchange value of the dollar or the hiking cycle. It’s either the Fed’s regulatory and monetary objectives, or control over the Fed’s balance sheet size. It’s either quantities or prices…’”

      It looks like what is giving is the Fed’s monetary objectives. The alternative is that it cede’s control of its balance sheet size to Trump in order to keep his plan affordable.

  16. Ping from jakartaman:

    I have been waiting for the collapse for YEARS.
    The math would say we should already be in a depression
    I am now of the opinion that this is now the economic normal
    Why should it crash? What event(s) will bring it down?
    When will the music stop and who/what is going to stop it??

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      It appears it is going to crash because the Federal Reserve has lost control of interest rates (or just stopped controlling them as I suggested would be likely if Trump won). If rates keep soaring, it won’t take more than a month or two before nations have to take drastic measures to keep their national debts affordable. It may be the Fed is stopping the music in order to let the inevitable crash happen as Trump takes office.

      Bond funds could become illiquid and crash before then. Right now the stock market may be going up because money is moving from bonds to stocks with stocks appearing the safer investment (upside down from the old world where a crash meant money fled from stocks to bonds but rightside up if the financial crash begins from the popping of the enormous bond bubble.

  17. Ping from Recyvuym:

    I had been thinking we would eventually see hyperinflation. If everyone’s a millionaire the US has no trouble paying off its debts. Too bad it would collapse the dollar. Simply defaulting on the debt is equally unthinkable though. But those are the only two options we’re left with at this juncture.

    As far as I’m concerned we are now living out the last few weeks of apparent normalcy. In Italy, Monte dei Paschi will be the first to go. The EU could disintegrate entirely next year, possibly in a much shorter space of time than anyone realises. With DB now banking on a global default, I don’t think they’ll be lucky enough to make it that long, so there goes $75tril in derivatives at some point next year. Then over the course of 2017, the Fed’s 0.5% rate hike is going to pop one bubble after another. Trump will simultaneously stimulate and further destabilise the economy. And who knows when China’s going down, but it’s probably not much later than Europe. The entire developing world will go down with them. South America is entering another ‘lost decade’ and the Middle East is a warzone. Australia’s housing market has peaked and they’re about a year out from recession regardless of what else is happening in the world.

    The only countries I can see being even remotely all right for the next ten years might be Russia and Switzerland, both due to their isolationist and exploitative policies. For everybody else, the GFC II, or rather, the second wave of the global depression spanning roughly 2008 to 2030, starts in December.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I think that is an excellent layout of the likely cascade of events. The order is flexible of course, but those look like the likely pieces to fall early on. (Though I think the Fed’s rate hike may have just become irrelevant because interest is already soaring well above their target. They will simply be raising their stated target to keep up with reality.) Well done, Rec.

      • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

        I was once told that the FED doesn’t actually set the interest rate, they have some influence, but they raise or lower to what the market is setting. Maybe we see them raise rates higher in December?

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          That’s correct. They do not set rates directly. They do it by purchasing bonds or other instruments in large numbers with their infinite supply of fiat money. So, they manipulate the interest rates into place, rather than control them by decree. The question is … why aren’t they doing that now? Why haven’t they bought enough bonds to keep their target interest firmly in place. (Perhaps their target rate has remained in place, but it is losing its effect on market-rate interest, which is their objective with the target rate for interbank loans/Fed loans.)

    • Ping from oncefiredbrass:

      Don’t forget about Japan, they have been at this QE much longer, they have lost 25 years?

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