The public is not concerned about “Russian aggression,” the Trump inditement, or even the MSM wrench about aliens. No one cares — the average person is struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living. Homelessness is on the rise as people cannot afford shelter. The blank checks to Ukraine are a slap in the face of those begging for help at home. These politicians need to work for us. No one campaigning is going to make a dent in the polls unless they clearly detail how they plan to address INFLATION! And no, the problem is not limited to America. The solution cannot be a universal income, currency, or Great Reset. The economy was strong before they attempted to BUILD BACK BETTER.
QUESTION: Looking at Socrates, do you think that these people who were constantly calling for a recession because there were two quarters that declined with covid really need revision? Socrates was correct, no recession. But it is showing major turning points in 2024 which seem to align with your old ECM forecast calling for commodity inflation into 2024. How would you define a recession?
EJ
ANSWER: In trading, reactions are 1 to 3 time units. I believe that the same definition should be used for classifying a recession. They define a recession as two consecutive quarterly declines. If you look at the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009, you will see three consecutive quarterly declines and a rebound. If we look at the COVID recession caused by locking everyone down, that was just two consecutive quarterly declines.
I personally would argue that a true economic recession MUST exceed three consecutive declines. Here is the chart of GNP from 1929 to 1940. There were three years of negative growth. I simply think that this definition of two quarters is wrong. You can have a slight decline of 1 to even 5%, but that does not suggest a recession. In the case of 1929, that was a decline of 9.5% in 1930 – the first year. Now look at the COVID Crash, which was also a decline of 9.53%. But the difference is that the COVID decline was forced and not natural. That is why it rebounded so quickly. Now the so-called “Great Recession” of 2008-2009 only saw a decline in GDP of 3.47%.
The “Great Recession” was not really so great. It wiped out real estate and bankers but did not fundamentally alter the economy. So who is right and who is wrong will always depend upon the definition. Yes, the AI Timing Arrays point to a recession starting Next Year by their definition. This will most likely be caused by the decline in confidence that will lead to UNCERTAINTY, and as such, the consumer will contract. Up to now, the continued expansion of the economy into 2024 has also been fueled by the shift in assets from public to private.
As originally forecast, we should have seen a commodity boom into 2023,
and we should expect a highly authoritarian attempt by 2028.
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong, could you please explain what happens in technical terms from a capital flow perspective, when confidence is lost and hyperinflation starts to begin? For example Turkey. When Erdogan was elected i think you wrote that ever since the lira started dropping. So confidence in politics is key. Do you think one day we will see hyperinflation in Turkey? And another example, is Yugoslavia: what caused the hyperinflation (in technical terms/capital flow perspective)? Are foreign investors getting rid of the dinars? Too many dinars than suddenly rushed back into Yugoslavia causing hyperinflation? Regards, Magdalena Š.
ANSWER: The misnomer about hyperinflation is that it is caused by printing money. It is a RESPONSE to the collapse in the confidence of the government. If we look at the 3rd century, this is where we find the greatest number of hoards of ancient coins. What began this was the capture of Valerian I by the Persians in 260AD.
Valerian was the first Roman Emperor to be captured and Rome was unable to recuse him. That shook the confidence of the Roman people, but it also was a signal to the barbarian tribes in the North that if the Persians could do it, they could as well. Within 10 years, Emperor Aurelian constructed the great wall around Rome. Never before did Romans have such a defensive wall. That had a powerful army.
There was a trend toward debasing the silver coinage which began with Nero to try to fund the rebuilding of Rome after the Great Fire. But that did not undermine the confidence in the Roman Monetary System any more than our perpetual deficit spending since World War II.
However, a spark is ignited and suddenly that trend turns into what I have called a Waterfall event in the purchasing power of the currency. Such an event has taken various forms. However, the end result is the collapse in the confidence of the government and as a result, that is when you get that waterfall event.
In the case of Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, etc, there was a 1918 Revolution where communists seized power and the emperor of Germany lost power. In that case, they actually asked Russia to take Germany after their revolution in 1917. This was the beginning of the Weimar Republic.
Germany was saddled with reparation payments demanded by France. First, you had a communist revolution and people with capital began to flee to other places in Europe or certainly move their money out of German banks. It was this drain of wealth that forced the Weimar Republic to print money to try to make their reparation payments. Then in December 1922, they seized 10% of everyone’s assets and handed them a bond.
Here you can see that after that December 1922 confiscation, hyperinflation simply took over. It was NOT the printing of money that caused the hyperinflation it was the collapse of confidence FIRST which then compels the government to expand the money supply lacking taxation revenues etc.
I suspect the spark this time may be the Digital Currency and the proposed cancellation of paper currency. This is why people are moving to anything tangible from real estate, gold, silver, ancient coins, and even equities. With DIGITAL CURRENCY they will have capital controls and prevent you from even moving money outside of your country.
The precise day of the ECM was the announcement of the IMF Digital Currency which they intend to replace the US dollar as the reserve currency. This may be timed with the turning point in 2024. It is unlikely that they would cancel paper currencies before the 2024 election. This is all being
New mortgage originations have reached their lowest level since Q2 of 2014. Inventory remains historically low, shelter costs are historically high, and it makes no sense for most to refinance with current mortgage rates over 6% on the 30-year. Originations, including refinances, came in at $323.5 billion during Q1 of 2023. The NY Fed reported that borrowing in general has reached $17.5 trillion, a $150 billion increase, as families grapple with inflation. The refinance boom in 2020 and 2021 will impact real estate for generations to come.
The NY Fed discusses the COVID refinance boom (Q2 of 2020 to Q4 of 2021) in a recent article. Fourteen million mortgages were refinanced during this period when mortgage rates reached record lows. Mortgage rates plummeted 200 bp from Nov. 2018 to November 2020. The last upticks in refinances occurred in 2003 and again in 2013 when rates also fell 200 bp. However, rates were at their lowest level during the COVID refinance boom, allowing many to take out equity from their homes and reinvest. Home equity reached a record high in the time leading up to the pandemic, and the continued rise in home prices provided numerous owners with additional equity.
One-third of all outstanding mortgages were refinanced over the span of 7 quarters. About 64% of refinances were “rate refinances,” classified as those with a balance increase of less than 5% of the mortgage amount. Those who chose this route saved an average of $220 per month. Cash-out refinancers took out $82,000 on average, increasing monthly payments by $150. Around 5 million borrowers extracted a total of $430 billion during the COVID refinance boom—a significant sum.
The 9 million who did not extract equity reduced mortgage payments by $24 billion annually. These figures are something I do not expect to see again in my lifetime. Those holding their breath for rates to drop under 3% again should come up for air. Homeowners are disincentivized to sell at current rates, not to mention home prices are AT LEAST 36% higher than before the pandemic. Everyone’s investment strategy is unique, but those who were able to use their home’s equity to invest during the bottom of the market made out well. The period between Q2 of 2020 to Q4 of 2021 will be a reference point for years to come.
Posted originally on the CTH on May 1, 2023 | Sundance
Everything about the process of cutting down energy exploitation, then driving supply side inflation, then raising interest rates to shrink demand (stem inflation) created by a desire to lower economic activity to the scale of diminished energy production, is a game of pretending.
The collateral damage from the rate hikes has been the banking destabilization, which shows the priority of the government officials and central banks to support the climate change agenda. Into the game of pretending comes the second unavoidable consequence with inflation continuing as a result of the energy policy.
They simply cannot cut energy demand enough to meet the diminished scale of production. There is no alternative ‘green’ energy system in place to make up the difference. That is the reality. Now, the fed is scheduled to raise rates again, then begin to debate the collateral damage as they continue the pretending game.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] Another quarter-percentage point increase would lift the benchmark federal-funds rate to a 16-year high. The Fed began raising rates from near zero in March 2022.
Fed officials increased rates by a quarter point on March 22 to a range between 4.75% and 5%. That increase occurred with officials just beginning to grapple with the potential fallout of two midsize bank failures in March.
The sale of First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase & Co. by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced early Monday is the latest reminder of how banking stress is clouding the economic outlook.
Fed officials are likely to keep an eye on how investors react to that deal ahead of Wednesday’s decision, just as they did before their rate increase six weeks ago when Swiss authorities merged investment banks UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. (read more)
There is no other way to look at the combined policy without seeing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the future. All of these combined policies are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All we hear is the same claims that the dollar is dead and it will be totally worthless any day now. Over the last few weeks, all we hear from the majority now is that the dollar is finished. Virtually every page you turn or site you visit claims the death of the dollar. They are calling this the de-dollarization of the world economy and that the future of the US dollar as well as the American empire itself is now collapsing. The general claim is that the group of economically-aligned nations known collectively as BRICS is a major threat to the greenback. That was the same story we heard about the Euro back in 1997.
As their scenario goes, the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa] have moved to form an anti-dollar colation and Saudi Arabia is considering jumping on board. They insist that once that happens, the “petrodollar” will die and cease to be a reserve currency.
This is then followed by the forecast that the economy will suffer and that any bounce in exports will be short-lived simply because the dollar will be dead for the long term. Of course, this has been the favorite forecast that they keep putting out since Bretton Woods collapsed. They were wrong back then for the dollar rose between 1972 and 1976 against the British pound, with the collapse of Bretton Woods. To try to explain why the dollar did not collapse, that is when they claimed that the dollar was backed now by oil rather than gold. That was just an excuse as always to cover up their wrong forecast.
They sold that story to Newsweek and now the dollar rally was because of oil which replace gold. Suddenly the dollar became de facto backed by oil. They needed an explanation to explain why all the old theories were wrong. They sold this theory and it made the front cover of Newsweek. Everyone said YES! That must be the reason. OPEC priced oil in dollars! Naturally, everything was priced in dollars because, under the fixed exchange rate of Bretton Woods, everything from wheat and corn to copper and gold was all priced in dollars.
Now they are saying the American empire is threatened by the potential commercial real estate collapse and the BRICS anti-dollar venture. So they are forecasting a great depression-style crash is possible in the not-too-distant future. They spin this to forecast the end of the America Empire. The London FT, always anti-American/Pro WEF, reports that the dollar as a reserve currency has declined from 73% in 2001 to around 55% by 2021. Yet the FT did state an obvious fact:
“But if you are a reserve-rich central bank elsewhere that isn’t going to be a lot of comfort. Moreover, would you really feel more comfortable in, say, the renminbi? Even if it was fully convertible and liquid, would you honestly feel more sure that Beijing will behave lawfully than DC? The dollar still looks like the proverbial least dirty shirt in the closet.”
COVID actually has played a major role in shifting the world economy. In 2020, the US economy was 24.75% of the world’s GDP. By the start of 2022, it had fallen marginally to 24.15%. What these dollar-forecasting jockeys do not understand, is that if they were correct and the dollar collapsed, then the very BRICS would collapse even further. Economically speaking, when the United States gets a head cold, the rest of the world catches ammonia. You can’t have it both ways. The strength of the dollar is not gold or oil, it is the American consumer.
The risk to the entire world is runaway inflation thanks to Biden pouring untold amounts of money into the black hole known as Ukraine. The Neocons, who control Biden, are planning to launch a war against Russia and China before 2024. This will only continue to accelerate inflation. That reduces the spending power of the American consumer and in the process, the US economic growth declines in real terms and with it, the rest of the world plunges into recession.
While Macron has figured it out that the Neocons are in charge of US foreign policy and he is telling Europe to stop being the puppet of the USA, that all sounds nice but Europe is marching into war with Russia. NATO is firmly in control of the American Neocons and they need war or face losing power. With Trump in the lead, they must stop him at all costs for he is anti-war, would haul the Neocons out by the necks, and defund NATO, as well as stop the climate change agenda.
The US dollar in the global economy has been supported by the size and strength of the US consumer-based economy. Its stability and openness to trade and capital flows without restrictions and it has never been canceled, are the major foundation of the dollar in addition to strong property rights and the rule of law. That is why Russians and Chinese buy US property for they are secure in their ownership of US property which cannot always be guaranteed outside the US.
Consequently, the depth and liquidity of US financial markets remain unmatched. For institutions parking billions, the United States represents a large supply of extremely safe dollar-denominated assets. Are they really going to switch to China or buy debt from Brazil? Not a single institutional client will take that bait.
China has been divesting of dollar reserves because it KNOWS that the American Neocons want war. You do not fund your adversary who intends to wage war against you. China cannot shift reserve assets to Europe or Japan. They have been buying gold because it is geopolitically neutral territory. They are NOT buying gold as an investor thinking it will rally. That is irrelevant. If gold drops 25%, that does not translate into them becoming a seller.
The dollar in international reserves stood at 60+% at the start of 2022 against the US share of GDP at 24.25%. This comparison belittles the argument that the dollar is finished. Eventually, the US will lose the wars it is starting and the dollar will be replaced perhaps as soon as 2028. The IMF is already licking its lips and rubbing its hands together eager to get control of the reserve currency. But they too will collapse. We have a Directional Change next year and a Panic Cycle in 2025. So buckle up.!
Remember one thing, even with the debasement and collapse of the Roman Denarius between 260AD and 268AD, it still took 224 years for Rome to completely collapse. When war breaks out, capital flight will still be to the dollar. It will not be to public assets, but private. The United States is still supporting the entire world economy. The BRICS need the US consumer to keep their economies functioning. All this talk of the dollar being finished is really nonsense. That day will come, but when the US consumer no longer buys.
Remember 1997? The Euro was going to dethrone the dollar. They claimed the new EU will be a bigger economy than the US. The problem was, they lacked a consumer economy, and low taxes, and they routinely canceled their currency to force people to pay taxes. It is always the same story over and over again.
It provided the government with an opportunity to eliminate our energy independence. We did not have an energy crisis before Joe Biden took office. He killed the Keystone deal on his very first day in office and has been promoting the larger WEF Build Back Better plan at the expense of the nation. Biden implemented policies that worsened inflation and then convinced mindless politicians, who never read the large bills put forward, to vote for a $369 billion act under the premise of fixing a problem he created.
Now Joe Manchin, who brokered the deal with Biden, claims he was duped into believing the act was actually designed to reduce inflation. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Manchin criticized the need to raise the debt ceiling as a “needless emergency.” Manchin wrote:
“America is fast approaching another needless emergency—the raising of the national debt ceiling. This impending crisis isn’t an accident but a result of the inaction of various actors who refuse to confront fiscal reality, sit down, negotiate and make hard decisions for the sake of our nation’s future. While all parties have a responsibility to negotiate in good faith, recent actions make clear to me that the Biden administration is determined to pursue an ideological agenda rather than confront the clear and present danger that debts and deficits pose to our nation.”
He goes on to state that the national debt is nearly $31.5 trillion, “or close to $95,000 for every man, woman, and child, and represents 120% of our gross domestic product.” He proposes negotiating the debt ceiling and is pleading with “Mr. Biden to instruct his administration to implement the Inflation Reduction Act as written and stop redefining its credits and other subsidies.”
The Senator from West Virginia stated that Americans will pay the price for generations if Biden fails to act, but Yellen has now admitted that the goal of the IRA has been achieved. As Trump said, if you put the worst five presidents in American history together, they’ve done less damage to the nation than Biden in under three years.
Honest journalism has become a crime. I have appeared numerous times on Maria Zaric’s program, Zeee Media. Maria is a professional journalist who asks thought-provoking questions to the experts that appear on her show. Her content goes against the grain and traditional narrative. The Australian-based journalist has been questioning COVID, the Great Reset, governments, globalists, the war in Ukraine, and many other topics that are completely taboo in the mainstream media. They attempted to shut down her channel in the past. Now, she has been de-banked with no explanation.
“Do you shut down peoples accounts due to their political views by any chance?” Maria asked the bank representative, only to be met with silence. Maria had been banking with ING Bank for numerous years without issues. Her account was suddenly shut down shortly after releasing a story on domestic terrorism in Australia. ING Bank has been unable to explain why her account was canceled.
Interestingly, ING is a partner of the World Economic Forum. Maria has extensively covered the WEF’s agenda to “enslave humanity.” Is Australia secretly keeping track of journalists’ “social credit scores” to silence skepticism?
The idea of eliminating someone’s ability to bank is essentially eliminating them from society. We saw Canadado the same thing to those protesting the Trucker Convoy. Trudeau took things a step further by also de-banking people who simply donated to the cause. The Canadian government used the premise of money laundering as a way to coerce the banks into reporting any activity that could have been intended to help the protestors. I know of numerous people who were frantically attempting to remove their funds from the bank during this time.
As if the public needed more reasons to lose trust in the banking system. This is not limited to one bank or country. I discussed how banks have the ability to “cancel” someone after JPMorgan Chase de-banked the rapper Kanye West for antisemitic remarks. The bank acts as the jury and judge. Epstein was permitted to hold funds at JPMorgan Chase despite an ongoing pedophile ring trial. Bernie Madoff banked with JPMorgan Chase. The bank has secret ties to the Third Reich and helped the group funnel money through South America during World War II. Again, the bank acts as the jury and judge; anyone can be de-banked anytime for any reason.
Most countries may not openly have social credit scores, but they’re keeping tabs on us. They are keenly aware that resistance to this New World Order is building. So they are now using professional journalists as examples hoping that people will stop asking questions to learn the truth. That is one of the reasons why this blog is free of charge – you deserve to know the truth.
For the life of me, I have stated the obvious that the Biden Administration has been pushing China and Russia together not to mention North Korea, Iran, and perhaps even Turkey. I cannot believe that I am so brilliant that none of these people in the White House understood the historical event that just took place. That leaves me with the only possible conclusion that they KNEW what they were doing, and that this was DELIBERATE with the intention of creating World War III.
They made it clear that Russia is willing to negotiate but the USA wants war – not peace. All they need to do is honor the Minsk Agreement which they refuse to do. In addition, they expressed concern about the West effectively creating NATO in Asia and the AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and their plans to build nuclear submarines that would violate the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Russian and China came to an agreement concerning a comprehensive partnership in the energy sector. They also expressed concern for the American Neocons who have been pushing military-biological activities and demand full disclosure. They are furthermore pushing for the US to accelerate the elimination of its stockpile of chemical weapons, which the Neocons seem to be dragging their feet intentionally under the Biden Administration.
They also stressed that the United States is pushing Ukraine into this proxy war that they viewed as leading “to an uncontrollable phase.” Moreover, they have also pointed out that the United States and the UK are bypassing the UN Security Council and acting in a rogue manner. The Biden Administration has already divided the world economy. Now, China and Russia are moving to a joint security policy on food and energy which will include defense.
NATO is by no means a defensive organization. They violated the agreements of 1991 and moved Eastward to the border of Russia. In return, China and Russia have called on NATO to strictly observe the defensive nature of their organization and respect the foreign sovereignty of nations, which they have not. Aside from the fact that they invited Russia to join in 1991 which led to the Gorbachev coup, the need for Russia to be the evil empire has been vital. Without an enemy, NATO serves no purpose.
They have also expressed concern that the United States has clearly intensified its activities in the field of missile weapons and has called out the US insisting that it is undermining international security. The Biden threats have been rejected and imposing sanctions on China will only further destroy the world economy.
Without question, this alliance between Russia and China has been created by the American Neocons who assumed that they could intimidate China into remaining distant from Russia so they could wage war and destroy Russia once and for all. This has undone everything that President Nixon did to separate the two MNixon went to China on February 21, 1972, and this is 51.6 years from that target – just UNBELIEVABLE. This also confirms that we are staring into the eyes of history in the making.
Consequently, the China-Russian alliance is historically a true game changer. The Neocons have upset the entire world and NEVER do they ever consider what if their judgment was wrong. The world we have known it is changing and the Neocons have succeeded in undermining not just our future in the United States, but that of the entire world.
Just as World War I and World War II marked the collapse of the British imperial empire, the stupidity of the Biden Administration has sealed the fate of the world and the United States. The world is now firmly divided and the future will never be the same. Welcome to the 2023 Financial Crisis.
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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