June 22, 2023 | UN’s Plan to Rule the World – The Summit for the Future & End of Individualism
Klaus Schwab is a control freak in how he runs the World Economic Forum. Make a single mistake and you are in trouble. Schwab seeks perfection and he is taking those ideas and seeking to indoctrinate the entire world. He has his young global leaders infiltrating governments around the world as we saw in […]
June 22, 2023 | Equifax: Canadian Business Revolving Debt is “Worrying Trend”
New data from Equifax shows that in the first quarter of 2023, Canadian businesses increased their credit card balances by 15 percent and lines of credit by 11 percent while the total balance outstanding on bank-issued installment loans fell 2.4 percent. See Businesses’ changing credit usage a “worrying trend”: Equifax. Jeff Brown, head of commercial solutions […]
June 21, 2023 | Kennedy Gains Traction
The Democrats said they would not host a presidential debate, so Robert F. Kennedy is starting his own. All eyes are on Kennedy right now after appearing on Joe Rogan. Rogan was accused of spreading misinformation by having Kennedy on his show, so he offered money to anyone who could disprove what was said. […]
June 21, 2023 | Becoming Invisible, Part 5: Your Phone Is A Surveillance Machine
This started as a post on how our phones are spying on us and what we can do about it. But it turns out that the first part — how they’re spying on us — is so big and complex that it needs its own post. So the “what we can do” part will come […]
June 21, 2023 | Home Buyer Math is Bonkers for Most
Many homes for sale in our area north of Toronto are priced in the $2 million range–many have been on the market for months now. If we do some math, we can appreciate why. Online calculators allow us to model numbers. To buy a $2,000,000 home with 20% down (400k) at a mortgage rate of 4.99% […]
June 20, 2023 | What You Get When You “Play Big
Wyndham Clark won the 2023 U.S. Open Golf Championship at the Los Angeles Country Club in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Clark, 29, made his pro debut in 2017 and this win was his first major championship. His Mom’s Words of Advice “Play big” is what […]
June 20, 2023 | Monetary Policy Magnifying Economic Downturn Most in Decades
The latest rebound in equity prices has pulled the S&P 500 and Canada’s TSX back to levels seen two years ago in June/July 2021. In the process, bullish sentiment among professional and retail participants is back to the highest readings since November 2021, and the spike in Google searches for “bull market” (below, since 2018, […]
June 20, 2023 | Another Stunning OCC Report
The new Office of the Comptroller of the Currency quarterly OTC derivatives report for positions held as of March 31 was, once again, a stunner. First, a few words on background about the report. This report is published by the OCC, a unit of the US Treasury Department, designed to highlight the Over the Counter […]
June 20, 2023 | When Will the World Wake Up?
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; It makes no sense for Poland to support Ukraine when they refused to ever apologize for their slaughter of 100,000 of us in their ethnic cleansing under Bandara. The rumor is that Poland had hoped that Russia would defeat Ukraine and take the Donbas and that Poland would retake the Western part […]
June 19, 2023 | Easy Money Makes You Stupid, Europe Edition
The eurozone is like a big Rube Goldberg machine sitting on a slab of bedrock called Germany. As long as the German economy — and the European Central Bank that Germany controls — are okay, then the currency union is viable. But recently several things have happened: Interest rates have spiked across the eurozone in response to […]
June 19, 2023 | NATO – The Greatest Threat to Europe & the World
We have all seen those videos of Killer Whales playing with their prey before killing it. This is sadly what is taking place with NATO. All these people do is promote war. Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine. It was indeed a special operation to secure the Donbas. NATO knows that but constantly pretends […]
June 19, 2023 | Scarce and Expensive Funding Brings Financial Sobriety
There’s a timeless adage that when money is cheap and easy, many people do dumb things with it. When money was free and easy (2010 through 2022), dumb things were all the rage. In 2021, $346 billion was handed out to startups by US venture capital firms alone, averaging more than $86 billion a […]
June 19, 2023 | Credit Slump
Happy Monday Morning! As mentioned in last weeks note, the great big housing boom is over. You see housing booms need credit, lots of it, to keep the wheels churning. The single largest driver of home prices over the past few years has been cheap and abundant credit. When money is basically free you tend to […]
June 18, 2023 | Accessory Dwelling Units Grow in Popularity
The push for the 15-minute city is underway. Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are becoming increasingly popular as cities across the globe are rezoning neighborhoods to permit additional properties to be built on the same land as existing homes. Some are now referring to these units as “backyard homes” as they are becoming a normalized part […]
June 18, 2023 | They’re Coming For Your Bank Account
Two trends are converging to end the era of local bank accounts: Central banks are conspiring to force us out of traditional savings and checking accounts and into central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Deposits are now fleeing local and regional banks because an inverted yield curve makes it impossible for those banks to pay competitive […]
June 18, 2023 | Frustrated Bear? Temporary Relief Is on the Way
When will the rampaging bull run out of steam? A good question, considering how Wall Street has been flouting a slew of good reasons for the broad averages to be at multiyear lows rather than revving up for a shot at new record highs. Two destructive juggernauts in particular are bearing down on the economy […]
June 18, 2023 | A Skip, Not a Stop
A year ago, the US Consumer Price Index was rising at an almost 9% annual rate. The Federal Reserve was trying to change that trend with tighter policy. But it wasn’t just the Fed. All of us—businesses, consumers, everyone—responded to the pain. Good news: Our collective decisions seem to have had the desired effect. Annual […]
June 17, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For June 17, 2023
Central banks are determined to get inflation down The Fed and the ECB reminded markets again this week that they are determined to slow inflation, echoing recent statements from the BoE, the BoC and the RBA. The “explicit” message is that rates will stay higher for longer. The underlying rationale for current central bank policies is that rising inflation […]
June 17, 2023 | Biden – Admits He is a Puppet
COMMENT: You are just anti-Democrat and always against Biden. WU REPLY: Sorry, you are so biased you cannot look objectively at anything. When Biden utters the phrase “I’m deviating from the script, and I going to get in trouble” don’t you understand that someone is scolding him if he speaks his own mind? I’m sorry. That is irrefutable evidence […]
June 17, 2023 | Tech Talk for Saturday June 17th 2023
The Bottom Line Changes in currencies are having an important impact on equity and commodity prices. The U.S. Dollar Index and its related Exchange Traded Note (Symbol: UUP) moved significantly lower following news on Wednesday from the Federal Reserve that it plans to maintain the Fed Fund Rate at 5.00%-5.25% for now. In response, world […]
June 16, 2023 | Espionage Act & Abuse of Power
Many people have written in and asked how can Trump be charged under the Espionage Act. There is probably no other Act that has been so abused than this statute. It has been responsible for witch hunts and the deliberate execution of people the prosecutors knew were innocent. This Act has silenced people, been used to […]
June 16, 2023 | The Fed Remains Committed To Fighting Inflation
The Federal Reserve delivered a “hawkish pause” this week. The Fed funds rate was held steady, as the Fed continued to tighten monetary policy and suggested that further rate hikes are inevitable. Will the Fed stay the course until inflation is at its 2 percent target? The official statement says that the Fed is committed to a […]
June 15, 2023 | Biden Wannabe Dictator? No Way.
Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 15, 2023
June 15, 2023 | How You Store It, Part 1: Gold In Hand
Gold bugs have a saying: “If you can’t hold it, you don’t own it.” This is emphatically true. Our banks, brokers, and crypto wallets can be looted by hackers or rapacious governments, or they can simply go dark during a power outage, cyberattack, or bank holiday. So the only wealth we truly own is what […]
June 15, 2023 | “Skip”, QT and High For Longer–Not Bullish
A world of bullish commentators asserts that Fed pauses are positive, even though the worst economic and stock market downturns have always come after the Federal Reserve stops tightening. After ten consecutive rate increases and the sharpest rate of change since 1980–yesterday, Fed Chair Powell announced a “skip” with ongoing quantitative tightening (QT) and possibly […]