ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
January 15, 2024 | Gerrymandering – Are All Elections Fraudulent?
COMMENT: Marty, Just like leading the country in election cheating (this isn’t a great site to reference, but it does list some of the “irregularities” https://www.factcheck.org/2009/01/mining-the-minnesota-recount/). It appears Minnesota was also ahead of the con game with the results of the last census where Minnesota kept all its congressional seats even though it should have lost […]
January 15, 2024 | Two Year Warning
Happy Monday Morning! We’ve talked a lot about immigration in this newsletter over the past couple of years. Immigration in Canada has always been considered an economic strength, the fact that people want to move here in large numbers is a testament to the desirability of this great nation. However, in recent years something has […]
January 15, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: Nationally -18% in December from Peak, Toronto -20%. Even in Calgary, House Prices Dropped. End of Easy Money
House prices in Canada have now fallen by 18% from the peak in March 2022 – or by $171,500 (all in Canadian dollars) – after the 1.2% drop in December from November, the sixth month-to-month drop in a row, according to the Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses by the Canadian Real Estate […]
January 14, 2024 | Peaceful Resistance is Not Futile
The NYSE is closed today in remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. King was a firm believer in peaceful resistance as a means to bring about social change, and he consistently emphasized the importance of unity and brotherhood among all people. King’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance was inspired by figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, and […]
January 14, 2024 | No Way Out
Having now spent almost six months describing the historical cycles and massive debt that surround us, I find myself looking for an “easy” exit. Maybe one exists, but I haven’t found it yet. I think we’re stuck. The building will have to collapse around us before we can leave. This is obviously not a great […]
January 14, 2024 | Deflating a Weak Argument Against Deflation
Reader Scott Baker took issue last week with my unsettling prediction of a deflationary bust. The mountain of debts that I believe will cause this is really no big deal, says Baker. He quotes economist Michael Hudson to back him up: “Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be.” That certainly doesn’t sound very menacing. So […]
January 13, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For January 13, 2024
The cash S&P 500 index closed green for 10 of the last 11 weeks, registering an All-Time High weekly close Stock market sentiment and positioning are very bullish. Capital has flowed to “quality” stocks and away from unprofitable or “meme” stocks YTD. MSFT closed this week at an All-Time High with a market cap of ~$2.89 Trillion […]
January 13, 2024 | Britain Ready to Send Troops to Die for Ukraine
I have been warning that the West desperately needs to create World War III as an excuse to cover up their fiscal mismanagement since World War II, which will inevitably result in the collapse of sovereign debt. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has now gone to Kiev to sign a “defense agreement” committing British […]
January 13, 2024 | Recession Watch: Spiking Layoffs – Citigroup, Twitch, and Pixar, oh my…
Healthy economies have a natural background rate of hiring and firing, as employers adjust to changes in their environment. But when the firing part of the process starts to dominate, trouble frequently follows. This might be one of those times, based on the surge in layoff announcements by brand-name companies. Here’s a list that just […]
January 13, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday January 13th 2024
The Bottom Line Here come fourth quarter 2023 results by S&P 500 companies! Responses to results released to date have been mixed to slightly negative. Stocks that moved higher last week following release of results included Blackrock, Citigroup and Bank of New York Mellon. Stocks that moved lower included KB Homes, Delta Airlines, UnitedHealth Group, […]
January 12, 2024 | Death by Taxation for Gig Economy
The gig economy has exploded in recent years as people seek additional income to keep up with the rising living costs. The government has been attempting to exploit these workers for additional taxes for years. A new law implemented by the Biden Administration will force some businesses to classify gig workers as employees, raising costs for […]
January 12, 2024 | So… About Bitcoin
Everyone on Earth wishes they’d loaded up on Bitcoin back when it was, like, $10. The fact that most investors have chosen not to ride that particular rollercoaster can be attributed to two things. First, cryptocurrencies were complicated to buy and store safely, which put them beyond the reach of most non-techies (myself included). Second, […]
January 12, 2024 | The Speculative Commodity Boom That Might Have Been
The commodity boom that was expected by many in this period of elevated inflation has not happened. While inflation soared, reaching 10 percent annually in some countries, the prices of commodities that are often used by speculators to make quick profits have not kept pace. For example, gold and silver reached all-time highs during high […]
January 12, 2024 | Rate Cuts Come in Response To Intensifying Financial Strife
With inflation cooling and unemployment rising, rate cuts are coming into view. Permanent job losses have already accelerated in line with the onset of the past three recessions since 1995 (see arrows and grey bars below, courtesy of Game of Trades). Since 1969, the longest Fed pause time between the last rate hike and […]
January 11, 2024 | Migrant Crisis Motive Revealed
Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke is running for re-election this year in New York’s 9th District to FINISH THE JOB of utterly destroying New York. To achieve her goal of ruining a once great city, Clarke is demanding MORE illegal migrants. Clarke actually admitted that the Democrats need more migrants to overrun their cities and […]
January 11, 2024 | Prices Fall and Home Listings Rise as Canadians Struggle with Overhead
When Canadians sell a property for less than is owed in the mortgage, lenders are entitled to pursue any balance remaining plus interest, fees, and legal costs; this includes garnishing bank accounts and income. For those in debt strife, it’s wise to speak with an Insolvency Trustee to consider if you may be a candidate […]
January 11, 2024 | Heating Up
At year’s end, silver was more undervalued relative to gold than at any year in history. I’d hate to think about how much more undervalued silver could get if it weren’t already in a widely documented physical shortage, the first ever such shortage. The only explanation for the greatest price disparity in history is the […]
January 10, 2024 | Bureau of Labor Statistics Fabricated One-Third of Newly Created Jobs in 2023
The US government consistently lies on their jobs reports released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The agency initially cheered at the 3,140,000 new positions created in 2023, but later revised the figure down to 443,000. But wait, the BLS made another miscalculation in March to the tune of 306,000 jobs. This means […]
January 10, 2024 | Financial Predation is Major Throughline
There are so many incredible developments in financial markets right now it isn’t easy to choose what to write about. And there are so many complex interconnections. Suffice it to say the throughlines are rampant financial fraud and unusually high capital risk, with very few people positioned to prosper in 2024. Just one area of […]
January 9, 2024 | Why We Should Not Blame the Federal Reserve
One piece of analysis commonly misconstrued is the Federal Reserve’s role in the nation’s economic health. Even those who have the ability to piece together other variables that often go unnoticed commonly point their finger at the Federal Reserve. No one is factoring in the largest driver of inflation – WAR – nor are […]
January 9, 2024 | Speculative Builds Adding To Deflationary Pressure in Real Estate
During the supply disruptions of the pandemic, stockpiling became an international obsession and warehouse space was in high demand. That’s reversing now. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the US had 5.2% of warehouse space empty versus 4.7% in 2019. Construction doesn’t turn on a dime, though. Hundreds of millions of new square footage are […]
January 8, 2024 | Polish Trucker and Farmer Protests Nearing Resolution
Ukrainian goods are flooding into the European Union through neighboring nations and undermining business. Poland-Ukraine relations have turned sour in recent months as both truckers and farmers from the former believe EU regulations are favoring Ukraine’s economy over their own. Truckers in Poland began blocking four ports of entry from Ukraine in November. Polish […]
January 8, 2024 | Recession Alarm with No False Positives
There has never been an incidence in history where the US Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) had a six-month average growth rate sub -4.5%, and the US economy did not enter an NBER-defined recession. The six-month smoothed LEI growth rate in November was -7.5% (chart below since 2000, courtesy of ISABELNET.com) and has been […]
January 8, 2024 | Poetic Justice, Part 1: The Corporate Profit Squeeze
The past few years were — we were told — an emergency in which all had to sacrifice for the greater good. So how did corporate profits rise by $1 trillion during that same time? Charles Hugh Smith, whose excellent substack recently launched, just posted an explanation for this seemingly impossible (or at least counterintuitive) event. I’m […]
January 8, 2024 | The Fate of the Housing Market
Happy Monday Morning! We’re back after a two week hiatus, hope everyone had an enjoyable holidays. I’m back in the saddle and gearing up for what will surely be an entertaining year ahead. I have seen a plethora of predictions for 2024, from soft landings to no landings, rate hikes to rate cuts, and everything […]