March 28, 2023 | Battle for Deposits: Tired of Getting Screwed by Banks, People Yank their Cash Out, Forcing Banks to Pay Higher Interest Rates. Treasury Yields Are a Mess Though
People – and I mean massive numbers of people – have finally figured out that they’ve been getting screwed by near-0% interest rates on their bank deposits, and they’re moving huge sums of money around, as deposits have suddenly turned into hot money, forcing banks to respond by offering better deals. And the land is […]
March 27, 2023 | Leaked Texts – Liberal Govt Plotted to De-Bank Freedom Convoy Protestors Before Invoking Emergencies Act
Tyrant Justin Trudeau gave the green light to the Western world to begin de-banking citizens based on political beliefs. New text messages emerged that show the Liberal government pressured banks to freeze accounts long before the Emergencies Act (EA) was invoked amid the Freedom Convoy (also known as the Trucker Convoy). Trudeau invoked the Emergencies […]
March 27, 2023 | De-Dollarization Just Got Real
Since the 1970s it’s been virtually impossible for a country to function without access to US dollars. And Washington maintained this highly-favorable status quo by putting various kinds of pressure — from sanctions to election theft to outright invasion — on anyone who stepped out of line. This weaponization of the world’s reserve currency has, […]
March 27, 2023 | The Art of War/Investing
The Art of War has a wider application than warfare. It also applies to successful investing: Victory tends to go to those Generals who know when to fight – and when not to fight. The wise General does not engage with the enemy until the odds of victory are high.
March 27, 2023 | Everything is a Choice
Happy Monday Morning! Many of the issues we are facing today are policy decisions. They are choices made by elected officials. While I believe most policy makers are well intentioned it doesn’t mean we should not hold them accountable when mistakes are made. After all, elected officials are put in place to serve the best […]
March 27, 2023 | Shock and Awful in Commercial Real Estate
Over the past year, bonds and mortgage-backed securities dropped in value as central banks hiked base rates in the banking system—that’s interest rate risk. The sound ones also rebound in value as central banks pause and then start cutting rates again. But that doesn’t mean these instruments all have the same risk profile. Government bonds […]
March 27, 2023 | Science or Political Propaganda?
Politics has no place in science. I mentioned the publication Nature in my article on Fauci’s failed door to door vaccine campaign, and how it claimed that incentivizing vaccinations did not have negative consequences. I am already skeptical about most scientific studies since I always follow the money. A reader pointed out that Nature, like […]
March 26, 2023 | Danielle on CBC Weekend Business Panel
Danielle was a guest with Dennis Mitchell and Hillary Johnstone on the CBC Weekend Business Panel. Here is a direct video link.
March 26, 2023 | Has the US Gone to DEFCON 3?
NATO has effectively declared war on Russia hiding behind Ukrainian surrogates. Ukraine launched new versions of their marine drones in an attempt to sink the Russian Fleet base in Sevastopol. They were blown up just before hitting Russian ships as the Russians managed to intercept them. The Russians know that these attacks are carried out […]
March 26, 2023 | Recession Odds Rising
Recently I saw someone share a clip from their weather app. It said, “Rain expected at 3 pm,” right above a little graphic showing a 30% chance of rain at 3 pm. What’s wrong with that picture? Well, if the calculated odds of rain were only 30%, then “expected” wasn’t the right word. The odds […]
March 25, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For March 25, 2023
Classic signs of stress across financial markets The banking sector has been the epicentre of the “stress” which started over a month ago in the USA and then spread to the Eurozone. A couple hundred billion dollars worth of deposits have apparently left the banks in search of “safe havens,” and bank share prices have fallen. Canadian […]
March 25, 2023 | People We Should Know: James Howard Kunstler
There are a lot of writers in this — let’s call it the “rational” — space, where limited government, individual freedom, and sound money are considered basic common sense. Stylistically, most of us fall into the journalist category, which is to say we convey what we hope is useful information as clearly and accessibly as […]
March 25, 2023 | Brenner & Kondratieff Waves v Economic Confidence Model
COMMENT: Marty, I began following you in 1985. That is when everyone was using the Kondratieff Wave and admitted it averaged 45 to 60 years. They were all predicting another Great Depression. You were the only one right back then as well. I remember your advertisement in the Economist saying a new Private Wave was […]
March 25, 2023 | Tech Talk for Saturday March 25th, 2023
The Bottom Line Between a rock and a hard place! That’s where the Federal Reserve finds itself. The FOMC raised its Fed Fund rate by another 0.25% to 4.75%-5.00% on Wednesday as anticipated. Efforts to dampen inflation by raising the Fed Fund rates in recent months are working, but selected regional and specialty banks (e.g. […]
March 24, 2023 | Financial Stress Spreading
Deutsche Bank shares are off more than 10% this morning as credit default swaps on its senior euro debt blow out. Contagion fears are spreading after Credit Suisse’s shot-gun sale last weekend. Other banks are tumbling in sympathy. As shown below courtesy of Blomberg, financial shares have plunged sharply in the last month; see Deutsche Bank […]
March 24, 2023 | Central Banks Must Choose Between Fighting Inflation and Saving The Banks
Central banks, especially the Federal Reserve, are caught between a rock and a hard place. It seems that they might have to choose between saving the banking system and fighting inflation. Their recent statements, until this week, indicated that they would make fighting inflation their only priority, even if that means triggering a recession. But […]
March 23, 2023 | The World’s Best Chartbook, A Preview
Incrementum (profiled in this post from January) is about to release the 2023 version of its massive chartbook. Click here to download a preview, or scroll down for nine sample charts that point to a great decade for precious metals.
March 23, 2023 | CNN is Dying – Thank God!
COMMENT: Marty, You have a bigger readership than CNN. They dropped to 80,000 primetime. I think you are well beyond 600,000 these days. Maybe put in an offer to buy CNN for $1.49 and hire all new staff and Socrates should get his own show. WL REPLY: That is just amazing. I think the price […]
March 23, 2023 | The 1933 Bank Holiday – Can it Happen Again?
QUESTION: Marty there are a lot of people who seem to be trying to create a panic. Some are claiming the stock market will plunge by 50%. Others are saying nothing will survive other than gold. It seems like none of these people have any sense of what is really unfolding. They were saying the […]
March 23, 2023 | Fed Wrecking Ball
With consumer credit conditions already as tight as the 2008 financial crisis (shown below courtesy of The Daily Shot), yesterday, the US Fed hiked its overnight rate 25 bps to the highest level since September 2007 (4.75 to 5%). After insisting in 2021 that the Fed would not even consider raising rates in 2022, yesterday, […]
March 22, 2023 | The Fed Does Not Back Down
COMMENT: Marty, it’s refreshing to have Socrates that is totally unbiased. It projected continued rising rates into next year and the Fed just prove its point. It is not backing down. Thank you. Socrates is very enlightening. GS ANSWER: I know there were a lot of talks that surely the Fed had to lower rates and […]
March 22, 2023 | Fed Today and Done?
At the last FOMC announcement on February 1st, the Fed hiked base rates by 25 bps and said it expected to tighten through 2023, with no easing before 2024, at the earliest. That was before retreating bank deposits sparked a liquidity crunch at highly levered financial institutions. Expectations are now that the Fed will hike […]
March 22, 2023 | Powell Explains the Fed’s New Regime: Rate Hikes & QT to Fight Inflation while Offering Liquidity to Banks to Keep them from Toppling
It makes sense in this era of high inflation, QT, rising policy interest rates, and high financial fragility in the banking system, after years of money printing and interest rate repression. The new regime was already tested successfully by the Bank of England last fall: Tightening through rate hikes and QT while simultaneously providing liquidity […]
March 21, 2023 | Soros – Taking Down America
Alvan Bragg in his vendetta against Donald Trump is clearly not just abusing his power, but he is attempting to interfere in the presidential election of 2024 by harassing Trump and trying to make him so toxic that nobody will donate to him. While I personally thought that Trump had fallen too far to be […]
March 21, 2023 | And Just Like That, The Tight Money Era Is Over
At the beginning of last week, everyone expected central banks to “tighten until something breaks”. By the end of the week it was clear that they’d already broken everything. Two middling US banks imploded, European mega-bank Credit Suisse finally died a well-justified death, and “who’s next?” speculation ran wild. And just like that, the era of […]