Credit Suisse has gone from one crisis to the next. Last month alone, the bank reported that customers have withdrawn $120 billion. A rogue employee stole the names of people with $50 million or more and probably gave that to tax authorities for a bribe – the second time this has taken place in Switzerland.
The Swiss bank is telling some top clients with $50 million or more in the bank that sensitive personal information including social security identification, employment information, and contact details has been compromised. The leaked information came from a whistle-blower, for money, who shared his findings with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, according to a press release. Credit Suisse wrote that a rogue employee has taken individuals’ data, “an individual employee, who has since left the firm and had legitimate access to your personal data at the time for their daily work, inappropriately copied this information without Credit Suisse’s authorization onto their personal device.”
The bank told clients that it would enroll them in an identity theft protection service, Identity Works, but wouldn’t pay for other fees, some as low as $20, associated with protecting their identity as a result of the theft, sources add. While Credit Suisse said clients can file a report with the Federal Trade Commission or a state Attorney General, the bank won’t cover any of those filing costs either.
While the major support lies at the 2.37 followed by extreme long-term support at the 1.60 level, it still appears that we should see a temporary low form here in 2023. We would need to rally and close above the 3.60 level for year-end to imply a 2023 low would hold.
Are you too poor for the basic human necessity of shelter in Biden’s America? The average home price in Q4 of 2022 was $535,800, according to the St. Louis Fed. If you live in a highly desirable area, expect to pay more. To simplify the math, let’s say that you are looking to purchase a $500,000 property. To heighten the fantasy, let us also pretend you are one of the rare Americans with zero monthly debt. This means that you do not have student loans, car payments, childcare expenses, medical bills, credit card debt, or any major outstanding bill. Fewer than 25% of American households are debt free and this number is rapidly dwindling.
Ok, so you decide to put 5% down on the house or $25,000 for a loan of $475,000. You manage to lock in a 6.7% interest rate for a 30-year mortgage under a conventional loan. Nationwide averages in real estate drastically undercut true averages due to the outliers, but the average annual property tax in America is around $3,000. I personally have not seen a property tax this low between FL or NJ, but I’ll attempt some optimism. After all, this should be a simple price breakdown that does not lead to a mental one.
We will average the PMI payment of 0.5% at $197.92 for 125 months. We will also incorporate the low home insurance average estimate of $1,000 annually. To be most forgiving in my calculations, I will also assume that your monthly HOA fee is $0. This is utterly impossible for anyone seeking to purchase a condo. In my area, the average HOA fee is $600 per month, and a $500,000 property will not afford you a single-family house. At best, you’d be lucky to find a two-bedroom property at that price point in my area. In contrast, home prices here were about 40% to 60% lower in 2019.
Therefore, the overall total monthly payment for a $500K home is $3,596.32. This home can be yours by 2053 if you close this year. Forget “starter homes” as once you are locked into a good rate, you will likely not leave. So how much income do you need to afford this monthly payment? The MAXIMUM debt that the bank will allow you to qualify for is around 50% of your total gross income if you have good credit. If you choose this method, you will be “house poor” and unable to afford other basic human needs. So based on these calculations, you would need to make at least $7,192.64GROSS per month to afford this property and live “house poor.” This would equate to a salary of $86,311.68 per year BEFORE TAXES.
I did not factor in closing costs, inspections, maintenance, moving, or even furniture. So should you continue renting while establishing zero equity? The median rental price in America as of February 2023 was $1,978. Inventory is low, and landlords are compensating for the money lost during COVID moratoriums. Most leasing offices require tenants to earn 3X the monthly rental price, equating to a monthly gross income of$5,934. This has left countless Americans stuck on the rental carousel of paying the majority of their monthly income to the landlord and being unable to save for a future that includes home ownership. Landlords can raise rental costs yearly at whim, and there is no guarantee that you will comfortably be situated in your rental unit from one contract to the next. Rental properties have also begun charging fees for everything under the sun, such as repairs and parking, which was one of the reasons people chose this method.
Gone are the days when Americans comfortably paid ¼ of their monthly salary toward living expenses. We have not even touched on the astronomically cost of other basic living necessities such as food or energy. You must make a decent income if you want to buy a home in 2023. The bank does not care if you are unable to pay because they will simply take your house. Some are lucky enough to secure an interest-free loan from the central bank of mom and dad. Others, the majority of the Great Unwashed, are scraping by—YOU WILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY!
QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode! They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt bubble will burst and everything will decline. The story seems to be that this decades-long Boom Bust cycle was created over and over by the Federal Reserve.
This seems to be like you have said, they try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect.
What really happens?
PCJ
ANSWER: These people seem to keep preaching the same story but have no historical understanding whatsoever of how the monetary system has ever worked. Their focus on the Federal Reserve shows that they are not looking at the world economy and they do not even comprehend how bad things really are outside the United States. They do not comprehend what is an interest rate. It is the compensation to a lender for his anticipation of inflation plus a profit. If I think the dollar will decline by 50%, why would I lend you dollars for a year if when you pay me back it buys half of what it did when I lent it to you?
Debt can be a performing asset. I advised many of the Takeover Boys during the 1980s. We would borrow in one currency to buy the asset in another using the computer to distinguish the long-term trends. I would not recommend that to someone just operating on a gut feeling.
We were also advising on real values, which Hollywood distorted and based the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas and his famous speech on greed. What they did not really understand was that after a Public Wave that peaked in 1981, stocks were suppressed and the full-faith in government created the broadly supported bond market. Hence – bonds were conservative and stocks were risky. There were two aspects that were behind the entire Takeover Boom.
First, I was showing these charts and how in terms of book value, the Dow Jones bottomed in 1977. It was obvious that if you could buy a company, sell its assets, and double or triple your money, then the market was obviously not overpriced. We had forecast that the Dow was undervalued and that it would rise from the 1982 low of 769.98 and test the 2500 level in two years in 1985. Indeed, it reached 2695.47 by September 1987. We also projected that by the next decade, the Dow would test 6,000 on its next rally.
Even the press in Japan was shocked. We were also projected that Crude would fall below $10 in 1998. Indeed, that forecast was covered by Mark Pitman at Bloomberg News. It bottomed at $10.65 in 1998. In gold would forecast that it would drop to test $250 by 1999 completing a 19-year cycle low. Then gold would rally to test 1,000. Gold reached the $1,000 level by 2008. The Japanese press thought those forecasts were wild, to say the least.
The SECOND aspect of our advice to the takeover boys of the ’80s was something the press NEVER understood. We would advise borrowing in one currency for an asset in another. We were able to turn debt into a performing asset. We would make 20-40% profit on the currency alone. Often, the press would just look at the debt and not understand what we were even doing.
Most of this reasoning stems from Sir Tomas Gresham’s observations when he represented England at the Amsterdam exchange during the reign of Henry VI’s reign and debasement. As Henry debased the silver coinage as was taking place in Spain, the more they debased the coinage, the higher the inflation took place. His observation that bad money drives out the good has been grossly misunderstood. When I was growing up, they took the silver out of the coinage in 1965. People were culling out the silver showing that the debased new coinage of 1965 drove out of circulation the old silver coinage. The same thing has taken place with the copper pennings.
Because people hoard old coinage, the money supply shrinks. That then forces the government to issue far more debased coinage to compensate for the coinage that has been withdrawn from hoarding. Consequently, inflation unfolds for all tangible assets to rise in value as expressed in the newly debased coinage.
What these people always try to sell is the same old scenario that they cannot point to a single instance in history where everything collapses to dust but only gold survives. Such periods will typically result in revolution. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that was also all bout a debt crisis.
You must also understand that interest rates will be at their LOWEST internationally in the core economy of the Financial Capital of the World – which is the USA right now. The further you move from the center, the higher the interest rate will be. Hence, I have warned that the United States will be the LAST to fall – never the first. This is not based upon my opinion, this is simply historical fact.
The Bottom Line is very simple. There is just no such period as people describe where everything turns to dust and only gold survives. Even if that were true, they what good would the gold do if everything else is worth ZERO? Gold would have also ZERO value since nothing would have value.
The real issue is that as government defaults unfold, tangible assets will rise in value for the amount of money in debt always dwarfs that in even the stock market. We are in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and that is very different from a private debt crisis.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 9, 2023 | Sundance
Tucker Carlson has been under blistering attacks from the administrative state in Washington DC, the professional media, Democrats and Republicans in congress as well as the agencies of the FBI, DHS and DOJ. {Direct Rumble Link Here}
Mr. Carlson responded again tonight to the vitriol from the apparatus of government for his airing of the January 6th CCTV tapes and the fallout from the sunlight. Extensive segment as aired – WATCH:
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has made it clear that he sees higher interest rates ahead in his battle against inflation and their unrealistic 2% target. Many traders are now scrambling talking about how Powell said the Fed will probably raise rates more and possibly faster than previously anticipated. They are now taking that as a warning he may do a 50-bp hike this month. Our computer projected a Directional Change in 2022 and everything is on schedule for the rise into 2024.
Powell also restated his warnings to US banks about the risks of getting involved in the crypto industry. He expressed very clearly that lenders must take “great care” when engaging with cryptocurrencies. He added that the central bank didn’t want to prevent innovation, but it is not bullish on this industry and views it more like the DOT.COM Bubble.
COMMENT: Lazar Kagan-ovich, Starved 6 million people in Ukraine and was the great-grandfather of Robert Kagan, the name came up at ancestry.com. It’s my suspicion, and I thought I would pass that on, I searched this when you wrote the article about the movie of the NYT journalist in Russia. in the 1930s I read the article today about Victoria Nuland-men Thanks for your work been following me for almost 10yrs.
RM
REPLY: I can’t confirm that Lazar Kagan-ovich’s offspring include Robert Kagan. I do find it ironic that he was the architect of starving Ukraine and Stalin’s right-hand man. What I find curious is that Lazar Kagan-ovich was born by Kiev and was Ukrainian by heritage. Stalin was Georgian. The Ukrainians hate Russians yet it is ironic that the architect of the starvation of Ukraine came from there. Even Wikipedia states:
“Kaganovich (together with Vyacheslav Molotov) participated with the All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and were given the task of implementation of the collectivization policy that influenced the 1932–33 famine (known as the Holodomor in Ukraine).”
His father died by the time he was two and his mother left Lithuania and migrated to the USA. Beyond that, only the name links him to the notorious Lazar Kaganovich. The blank slate is curious. The 1569 Union of Lublin created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that lasted until 1795. The final Partition of Poland ended both independent Lithuania and Poland. Thereafter, Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century. Therefore, as Lazar came from Ukraine, his father was perhaps in Lithuania and was also Russian at that time. The Washington Post wrote of his father:
“Like fellow neoconservatives such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, he was a Democrat in his youth who turned right in response to the cultural and political upheavals in the 1960s. “
If Robert is connected to Lazar Kaganovich, it certainly would explain his hatred of Russia as well. I cannot confirm such a link. Yet, he too is linked to Russia.
Our sources in Ukraine, not Russia, are warning of serious dissent building against Zelensky. He is a high-heel actor who has been playing a confidence game. He is by no means a military leader and the Ukrainian Military is at its ends with him. The Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny, is having a serious conflict with Zelensky. Even others have come out and commented to the German newspaper, the Bild, that the General called for a withdrawal from the Donbas city weeks ago, but Zelensky orders his men to die all for his endless PR campaign to pretend that Ukraine is winning.
The General told Zelensky to withdraw from Bakhmut. But Zelensky pretends for PR that it is a fortress despite the fact that it has been cut off and completely;y surrounded with only one road available for possible evacuation and Zelensky refuses to withdraw. Even the Biden Administration has been urging Zelensky to pull out and focus on preparing a major counteroffensive for the spring. Yet, Zelensky fears admitting publicly a defeat that would hurt the billions flowing into Ukraine. This was part of the Ukrainian defense line that they created when Kiev began its invasion of the Donbas in 2014 on their claimed Anti-Terrorist offensive to kill all Russians and deny them any right to separate seeking their independence in the 2014 Revolution.
Even those speaking to the Bild expressed deep concern that they “do not understand why the city is being held”and believe they should have withdrawn a long time ago. Zelensky proclaims that his Ukrainian forces would defend Bakhmut as long as it “remains reasonable” to do so.
Our sources are clearly saying that Zelensky is losing support and if anyone will becomes the next President it will be General Zaluzhny.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 7, 2023 | Sundance
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivers testimony today before the Senate Banking and Finance Committee. During his statements Powell says, “The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated.” Powell continued, “If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes.“… “We will continue to make our decisions meeting by meeting.” … “Although inflation has been moderating in recent months, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy.”
Everything about the testimony to the Senate, and almost everything within the questioning as presented, ignores the key and central component that inflation is being driven by energy policy. The scale of the pretending around this issue is jaw dropping.
Western governments, including the U.S. through Joe Biden, have limited and curtailed the production and exploitation of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas. At the core of the inflation within those same governments, this is the issue at hand. Energy prices have skyrocketed, driving the cost of everything through the roof. The central banks are raising interest rates in an attempt to shrink the economy to match the drop in energy production. This is their monetary policy (interest rates) attempting to support economic policy (Green New Deal / Build Back Better).
There are no lines for consumers in the U.S and Europe of people buying durable goods, electronics or shopping for non-essential items. Prices on the products within the durable goods economy are not being driven by excess consumer demand. There are not 25% more people buying lemons and milk than this time last year. The prices for goods in general, and for essential goods specifically, have risen as an outcome of the input costs around energy skyrocketing.
Everything is impacted by diminished energy production, and losses in infrastructure due to drops in investment, that contribute to the efficiency of energy distribution. Oil prices have jumped, gasoline prices, diesel prices, natural gas prices and electricity prices have all skyrocketed.
With those raw material production policies, farming costs, fertilizer costs, cooling and heating costs, electricity costs, home heating costs, transportation costs, packaging costs, storage and warehouse costs, refrigeration costs and everything impacted by major energy costs have increased. This is the main driver of consumer inflation.
When Jerome Powell says they are raising interest rates to “cool the economy,” the raw truth behind the statement is the central banks are trying to reduce the western economies in order to meet the diminished energy production created by policy. If they can make the economy smaller, less energy is needed….. and this should stem the rising costs from limiting the resource development.
Their problem is that baseline energy demand remains high. This is keeping energy prices high…. this is keeping inflation high. Their approach to continue raising interest rates, will only work if they achieve an economic outcome similar to the pandemic lockdown period.
Yes, excessive money does create devalued money, which in turn does create inflation. However, in the current inflationary dynamic it is not excessive money in the hands of working-class people that is driving high demand for goods. All of the consumer and sales data show that cash carrying consumers are not chasing limited goods. Consumers and workers are trying to afford essential goods and services that have increased in price as a result of energy policy.
Every economic analysis that does not take this majority factor into consideration is either: (a) making a mistake; (b) being intentionally obtuse and willfully blind; or (c) intentionally not discussing it because the motives of the analyst are to support the climate change agenda.
Once you accept that energy policy is the majority driving influence of current inflation (6.4%), then you can estimate how much economic damage will be needed in order to drop energy demand to a level that matches the diminished energy development, production and investment.
COMMENT #1: I have been watching Colonel Douglas MacGregor (ret), on alt news sites. He is a former tank commander in the Gulf war and has worked extensively with NATO, before retiring. I love his direct commentary – so in a nutshell he says the following: 1. Ukraine has lost up to 250k troops and they are in dire straits. They will lose the war badly. 2. The US military is in dire straits too and if push, comes to shove, could only provide 50k troops within weeks. They are down on ammunition (all gone to Ukraine) and the recruitment targets for all 4 branches are lower than what the DoD is telling us. 3. The European military is not ready at all and would be ineffective. 4. Which leads to him saying that the USA/NATO will not enter the war, because sane heads in the military will not allow it. I hope he is right, but he does not rule out false flags or Biden’s ineptitude. You should watch him, he’s great, a man with genuine battle experience and knows the political machinations of DC, yet strongly anti war.
NC
COMMENT #2: Colonel Douglas MacGregor has often come out and confirmed what you have said weeks or months before. It looks like he has similar sources. He went to West Point. Did they also teach your War Model as did the Citadel? A lot of generals graduated from the Citadel.
Keep up the great work
HB
REPLY: Perhaps we both have similar contacts. As far as West Point, I do not know if they ever taught our models. What I do know, is that there is a serious risk that Uktaine loses and all the fake news that keeps putting out the propaganda has not considered what happens if Ukraine loses.
Zelinsky has tried to portray himself as a military leader, cloaked in the symbolism of a military strongman. Gaddafi, Hussein, Stalin, and even Hitler come to mind. All were seen as ardent nationalists. Zelinsky did this to attract enormous weapons and capital to this country, ensuring that his face becomes the symbol of the military leader.
In truth, Zelinsky is a figurehead whose survival depends on outside assistance. Ukraine continues to bleed out citizens, while its military gets eviscerated. Even with the weapons provided by the West, Ukraine’s military was never of the caliber of Russia’s. A Heroic figure he is not.
The West probably bet the sanctions and outside pressures would force Putin to withdraw. No one counted on Putin to stand his ground. Putin’s determination to crush Zelinsky means his tenure is linked with his war record and battlefield performance. Panic is now setting in. Zelinsky is as much a puppet regime as we saw in South Vietnam. It lacks broad support and like the one in Saigon, Kiev will collapse sooner or later from outside pressure.
Once collapse happens, military defeat means political defeat. Therefore, the West is panicked to raise the stakes and step in to bolster a puppet regime. The US entered Vietnam slowly, then suddenly. It now appears NATO is following this same process, first indirectly, now perhaps directly. They have turned Ukraine’s future into some kind of existential life-or-death battle. For NATO, that is certainly the case. Having squandered untold billions, their military readiness is now on the line.
Kennedy tried to block the expansion of the US presence in Vietnam and was assassinated for it. Johnson enthusiastically took over and then realized his generals, Westmoreland to be precise, had no real plan. Johnson lost by blindly following the military. Trump tried to keep the US out of wars and was ousted by a fraudulent election. Biden enthusiastically took over echoing Johnson. As with Vietnam, an unpopular regime with no support, Ukraine is likely even more corrupt and ripe for destruction. Pumping in billions won’t stop the eventual collapse. Zelinsky’s failures on the battlefield are synonymous with Vietnam.
The US congress has disgraced itself. As with Vietnam, there was no declaration of war. It became incremental and it took nearly 15 years to extricate ourselves from this mess. The blank check spending then is now in overdrive in Ukraine. That country will disappear but unlike Vietnam, from which we would eventually retreat, the US now is so deep inside Ukraine. Retreat would mean the collapse of Nato and the withdrawal of the US.
Who today is the Republican version of Nixon who will get us out of this mess? And who is the next Henry Kissinger to negotiate out of this modern disgrace? No, this is not like Vietnam. This is much worse. We have no leadership, just as is now evident with the puppet in Kiev. We, too, have a puppet in Washington. So two puppets trying to pretend they have each other’s backs ensures that what unfolds has no coda ending like Vietnam. Rather, it looks more like some roll of dice all-or-nothing gamble, echoing the epic debacle of Hitler’s Germany. It’s really the end of the US hegemony now in play.
MS
REPLY: We have followed the same exact path as Athens following the Defeat of the Persian Invasion. They became arrogant and compelled other Greek city-states to pay tribute to them for protection against another possible Persian invasion which never came. The various city-states began to rebel and a coalition was formed led by Sparta ushering in the Peloponnesian War. In the end, Athen lost if status as the financial capital of the known world.
The United States has lost every war contrived by the Neocons ever since World War II. There have been no overwhelming victories. Even the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Jamie Dimon, has come out and said that his top concerns include Ukraine and China. Only a fool does not look at the geopolitical events unfolding. The Biden administration is firmly in the hands of the Neocons. God help us!
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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
Centinel2012 
