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February 20, 2024 | Rosenberg: The Economy is Weaker Than The Narrative Suggests
Economist David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research, shares his macroeconomic view of the economy and explains why he’s not throwing in the towel on his recession call. Here is a direct video link.
February 19, 2024 | US Govt Targets Private Enterprise – Eminent Domain – Private Property and Patents at Risk
A recent measure from the Biden Administration touted as a solution to lower prescription drug costs has a more sinister motive. The Bayh–Dole Act or Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act of 1980 permitted researchers to own the patents of their products developed through government funds. The legislation permitted “march-in” rights that enabled these agencies […]
February 19, 2024 | Grantham: Pollution, Population & Purpose
Thought-provoking, far-reaching discussion about things that matter in this segment. Worth a listen. On this episode, Nate is joined by co-founder of GMO Financial Holdings, Jeremy Grantham, to discuss how finance, human population, ecology, and pollution interact to shape current trends and what they could tell us about the future. Mr. Grantham unpacks why the […]
February 19, 2024 | No Reply
There has been no reply from the CFTC for 13 weeks to a question I posed through my congressman’s office about double-counting of silver inventories. However, two days ago my congressman’s office told me that the agency intends to respond although the office couldn’t say when. As a result, I still expect a response, although […]
February 18, 2024 | Harder To Get Insurance is a Game Changer
In the US inflation estimate for January, auto insurance premiums rose 20.6% year over year, while tenant and household insurance rose 6% annualized over just the last three months. Across the developed world, insurers are exiting some areas and demanding higher premiums and deductibles in others; affordable insurance — often a condition of mortgage and vehicle debt […]
February 18, 2024 | Choose Your Own Economy
If you’re a parent or grandparent, you may know of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” storybook series. Written in second person, they make “you” the hero. The reader makes choices as the story unfolds, leading to one of several possible endings. That format is disturbingly similar to a lot of economic forecasting. The economist—who of […]
February 18, 2024 | The Coming Crash of Bigness
[Globalism has peaked, says my colleague James Howard Kunstler, and with it a trend toward corporate bigness that has all but extinguished quality and vitality from the marketplace. Bloated corporatism is about to come crashing down, he says, in a process of creative destruction that will allow us to rescale the economy so that it better […]
February 17, 2024 | Too Many Payments, Too Little Income
In the fourth quarter of 2023, 7.7% of US auto loans transitioned to delinquency on an annualized basis (New York Fed data)—the highest rate in 13 years. The total annual cost of owning a new car, including expenses such as gas and insurance, climbed to $12,182 in 2023, up from $10,728 in 2022 (latest estimates […]
February 17, 2024 | People We Should Know: Mike Benz
Sorry to deluge you with new people to check out, but this video just dropped, and I’m going to go out on a limb and call it the single most important thing currently available online. The source is Mike Benz, a former State Department diplomat “responsible for formulating and negotiating US foreign policy on international communications […]
February 17, 2024 | Mainstream Money Tiptoes Into Gold Miners
The appeal of mining stocks is that they’re “leveraged bets on the underlying commodity.” So you’d think that with gold not far from an all-time high, the big gold miners like Newmont and Barrick would be crushing it. But the opposite has been true lately, as these stocks have become almost ridiculously unloved. Two possible conclusions can be […]
February 17, 2024 | The Fallout from The Extreme Left’s Judge Engoron Destroying NY City
Justice Arthur F. Engoron represents the vile, disgusting degree of the completely out-of-control judicial system in New York City. It has been people like him throughout history that spark revolutions. I have warned that New York is the most unconstitutional judicial system on the face of the earth, and it really should be shut […]
February 17, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For February 17, 2024
Leading US stock indices lose upside momentum The DJIA, S&P and the NAZ made new All-Time Highs this week but closed lower on the weekly charts. NDVA continued to rally this week, up 53% YTD, up 224% in the last 12 months, and now has the 3rd largest market cap (after MSFT and AAPL) of all US […]
February 17, 2024 | High Home Insurance Rates Driving Away Would-Be Buyers
A wave of new multifamily residential projects are coming online as migration slows and high mortgage rates weigh on housing demand. Add to the mix an insurance crisis, and a seller’s market is becoming a buyer’s one. See, In Southwest Florida, high home insurance rates are driving away would-be buyers: Florida’s southwestern coast — long one […]
February 17, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday 17th 2024
The Bottom Line Changes by key world equity indices were significant last week: U.S. equity indices moved lower following release of higher than consensus January CPI and PPI reports. Equity indices and related ETFs for India, Japan, China and Europe rose significantly. China iShares completed a double bottom pattern. EAFE iShares touched an all-time high. […]
February 16, 2024 | $50 Minimum Wage?
Lawmakers should be required by law to pass a financial literacy test before taking office. California has repeatedly raised the minimum wage as the cost of living continues to rise. They have not lowered the amount of taxes that the state will collect from these workers. California has the highest debt of any state in […]
February 16, 2024 | People We Should Know: Elon and RFK Jr
These two need no introduction. Just kidding. You’ve heard their names, but if you’re mostly consuming legacy media, you only know them as caricatures. So here’s a video where one interviews the other. Two quick spoilers: They trash both the pharmaceutical companies and the military/industrial complex in the first 15 minutes. And their understanding of […]
February 16, 2024 | Commercial Real Estate Slump in U.S. Could Trigger a Crisis
Commercial real estate is a major asset class for businesses, institutional investors, and banks. For decades, most lenders were eager to accept commercial real estate as collateral for loans. Also pension plans and insurance companies regarded properties like office towers as safe, long-term investments. But doubts are appearing over the quality of those holdings with […]
February 16, 2024 | Bad Loans Mount in ‘Greatest Real Estate Crisis Since The Financial Crisis’
The credit cycle is alive and well. But credit cycles typically move with multi-quarter time lags, and that’s longer than the attention span of most. Moreover, massive government subsidies slowed the monetary impacts more than average this time. Nevertheless, twenty-three months since this epic tightening cycle began, wheels are coming off all around for those […]
February 15, 2024 | New Tax Filing Requirements For Jointly Held Assets in Canada
New bare trust reporting requirements for the 2023 tax year include accounts where adults have been added to the bank and investment accounts of another relative. For Bare Trusts ending December 31, 2023, you have to file a T3 tax return, says Ali Spinner, tax partner at Crowe Soberman LLP. Here is a direct video link.
February 15, 2024 | Soros Now Controls the Radio
George Soros has acquired a 40% stake in Audacy, America’s second-largest radio network that broadcasts over 220 stations across the country. The man who openly meddles in global politics on behalf of the global elite pounced on the opportunity to purchase a large portion of the agency when it fell into bankruptcy, shelling out […]
February 15, 2024 | Defusing the Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions
This is a sequel to a Jan. 15 article titled “Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?”, discussing the threat of a 2024 “black swan” event that could pop the derivatives bubble. That bubble is now over ten times the GDP of the world and is so interconnected and fragile that […]
February 15, 2024 | Crude Oil War Premium Expands US$3.50/B Over The Last Week as Houthis Continue Attacks in Red Sea
GLOBAL ECONOMIC, POLITICAL & MILITARY UPDATE The surprisingly hot US CPI data yesterday drove the Dow down over 520 points to 38,273 and at its worst was down over 700 points, before a late afternoon recovery. The US Treasury 10-Year yield rose to 4.31%, up 44 BP in just over a week, which spooked investors […]
February 14, 2024 | Recession Watch: Inflation Won’t Die Until The Economy Kills It
A previously obscure inflation metric called Core Services CPI shocked the world this week by rising at an annual rate of 8%. This pretty much rules out a Fed rate cut in the near term. Responding to the prospect of “higher for longer,” the 10-year Treasury yield spiked back up to 4.3%, guaranteeing 7%+ mortgages and 10%+ […]
February 14, 2024 | What It Means To Restore Home Affordability in Canada
To restore Canadian home affordability to historically sustainable levels, prices need to halve, incomes double or some combination of both. All options are painful in the short to medium term for asset prices, the leveraged and Canada’s real estate-concentrated economy. Charles St. Arnaud, Chief Economist at Alberta Central and former economist at the Bank of […]
February 14, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: National Price Drops Further in January -18.3% from Peak. End of Easy Money
House prices in Canada overall fell 1.2% seasonally adjusted in January from December. Not seasonally adjusted, they fell 0.4%, having now fallen by 18.3% from the peak in March 2022, according to the Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. In dollar terms, the national index […]