Tag Archives: 5) Global Macro

How much energy, water and food will the “money” created out of thin air in the future buy? Finance is often cloaked in arcane terminology and math, but the one dynamic that governs the future is actually very simple. Here it is: all debt is borrowed against future supplies of affordable hydrocarbons (oil, coal and natural gas). Since global economic activity is ultimately dependent on a continued abundance of affordable energy, it follows that all money borrowed...

America’s financial system is nothing more than a toxic waste dump of speculation, fraud, collusion, corruption and rampant profiteering. What Poisoned America? The list of suspects is long: systemic bias, special interests dominating politics, political polarization, globalization and the offshoring of productive capacity, over-regulation, the rise of rapacious cartels and monopolies, Big Tech’s gulag of the mind, the permanent adolescence of consumerism, permanent...

Why would anyone sell when further gains are guaranteed? Because the gains are unreal but the losses are real. When markets are soaring and your portfolio is rocketing higher, the gains seem unreal. Did I really make that much in one day, week, month? Wow! With the gains higher every time you look, it would be foolish to sell because look at the flood of media reports on “the Roaring 20s” that are predicted with such certitude that it’s essentially guaranteed, the...

The middle class has already collapsed, but thanks to debt and bubbles, this reality has been temporarily cloaked. What collapsed the middle class? In many ways the answer echoes an Agatha Christie mystery: rather than there being one guilty party, a number of suspects participated in the collapse of the middle class. Can we consolidate these dynamics into a few core causal factors? I’ve made the case in the pst few posts that yes, we can: many of these causes are...

Please study these charts as a means of understanding the inevitability of economic stagnation and a revolt of the decapitalized middle class. I’ve been covering the decline of America’s middle class for over a decade with charts, data and commentary on the social depression that has accompanied the decline. While there are many mutually reinforcing dynamics in this 45-year decline–demographics, global energy costs, financialization and globalization, to name a few–...

Senate Democrats are setting the table for passage of President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trln relief bill; there were glimmers of possible bipartisanship in some of the votes; US January jobs data is the highlight; Canada also reports January jobs data; Colombia reports January CPI German data is showing further signs of weakness; BOE delivered a less dovish than expected hold; Deputy Governor Ramsden said he envisions slowing the pace of QE later this year Japan...

Our Nobility’s assessment of risk and their war-gaming of vulnerabilities are fatally deficient.Many people have heard of Nassim Taleb’s black swan but fewer understand how few events qualify as black swans. Per Wikipedia, a black swan is an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences, an event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their...

The FOMC delivered a dovish hold, as we expected; we get our first look at Q4 GDP; Fed manufacturing surveys for January will continue to roll out; weekly jobless claims data will be closely watched The vaccination gap between the UK and the US vs. Europe continues to wide, and grievances against suppliers are getting worse; Germany January CPI will be reported; if inflation risks were rising , ECB officials wouldn’t be so concerned about the strong euro and its...

That’s how Neofeudal systems collapse: the tax donkeys and debt-serfs finally rebel and start demanding the $50 trillion river of capital take a new course. The Great American Middle Class has stood meekly by while the New Nobility stripmined $50 trillion from the middle and working classes. As this RAND report documents, $50 trillion has been siphoned from labor and the lower 90% of the workforce to the New Nobility and their technocrat lackeys who own the vast...

The FOMC begins its two-day meeting today with a decision out tomorrow afternoon; Senate Minority Leader McConnell has finally agreed to a power-sharing deal based on the 2001 model; President Biden signaled willingness to negotiate his stimulus proposal in order to get a bipartisan deal; Fed manufacturing surveys for January will continue to roll out; Brazil reports mid-January IPCA inflation Italian Prime Minister Conte will reportedly resign today; Italian...