As debt implodes and the economy collapses, many will make their acquaintance with reality for the first time. From Tom Luongo at tomloungo.me:
Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics, Propaganda, Tyranny
You can’t fool all the markets all of the time. From Egon von Greyerz at goldswitzerland.com:
Propaganda, lies and censorship are all part of desperate governments actions as the economy disintegrates.
We are today seeing both news and history being rewritten to suit the woke trends that permeate society at every level, be it covid, the number of genders, the Ukraine war or government finances.
I have in many articles covered the explosion of money printing and debt which is an obvious sign that the global financial system is approaching collapse and default . The consequences will be far reaching to every corner of the globe and all parts of society.
See my recent article “In The End The Dollar Goes To Zero And The US Defaults” which outlines the probable course of events in 2023 and afterwards.
Later on in this article, I will look at the consequences in relation to markets and what ordinary people (investors?) can do to prepare themselves.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”― George Orwell, 1984
Let’s just look at government finances. As we are entering the end of an era with deficits and debts running out of control, the truth becomes an inconvenience to governments and must therefore be suppressed or rewritten.
Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Financial markets, Governments, Horseshit, Politics, Propaganda
Tagged Federal Reserve, Gold, Monetary inflation
The world has never been more primed for a financial accident. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:
A recent Bank for International Settlements paper warning of unappreciated risks in foreign exchange markets echoes my earlier warning in an article for Goldmoney published over a month ago describing derivative risks in FX markets.[i]
In this article I also show evidence that banks in both the US and Eurozone are reducing the deposit side of their balance sheets by turning away big deposits which are ending up in central bank reverse repos, parking unwanted liquidity out of public circulation. The great unwind is well under way.
Credit contraction is not only driving a bear market in financial assets, but the exposure to malinvestments by rising interest rates is having negative consequences for the non-financial economy as well. Private equity, which has thrived on cheap finance used to leverage targeted businesses, is showing signs of unwinding with two major Blackrock funds suspending redemptions.
As we approach the season for year-end window dressing, we must hope that the volatility in thin markets that often accompanies it does not destabilise global financial markets.
Make no mistake: interest rates have bottomed at the zero bound and can go no lower. The forty-year trend of declining interest rates has ended, with an initial rally, which six weeks ago had halved the value of the 30-year US Treasury bond. The suddenness of this change probably needed a pause, and that is what we have today. Since October, there has been a spectacular recovery in bond prices with this UST bond yield dropping ¾% to 3.5%.
Fears of price inflation have been replaced in large measure by fear of recession. Having dismissed monetarism, bizarrely for a Keynesian led establishment analysts and commentators are now frequently citing the slowing of monetary growth as evidence of a looming recession. Perhaps this means that the failure of their economic models has them grasping at straws, rather than being evidence of a conversion to monetarism. But what is definitely not in the Keynesians’ playbook is a combination of inflation and recession, commonly attributed to an unexplained phenomenon of stagflation.
Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Financial markets, Governments
Tagged derivatives, interest rates
Bit by bit the dollar is losing its reserve currency status. If the Middle East and China do their oil business in currencies other than the dollar, particularly the yuan, it will hasten the process. From Pepe Escobar at thecradle.co:
Photo Credit: The Cradle
It would be so tempting to qualify Chinese President Xi Jinping landing in Riyadh a week ago, welcomed with royal pomp and circumstance, as Xi of Arabia proclaiming the dawn of the petroyuan era.
But it’s more complicated than that. As much as the seismic shift implied by the petroyuan move applies, Chinese diplomacy is way too sophisticated to engage in direct confrontation, especially with a wounded, ferocious Empire. So there’s way more going here than meets the (Eurasian) eye.
Xi of Arabia’s announcement was a prodigy of finesse: it was packaged as the internationalization of the yuan. From now on, Xi said, China will use the yuan for oil trade, through the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange, and invited the Persian Gulf monarchies to get on board. Nearly 80 percent of trade in the global oil market continues to be priced in US dollars.
Ostensibly, Xi of Arabia, and his large Chinese delegation of officials and business leaders, met with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to promote increased trade. Beijing promised to “import crude oil in a consistent manner and in large quantities from the GCC.” And the same goes for natural gas.
China has been the largest importer of crude on the planet for five years now – half of it from the Arabian peninsula, and more than a quarter from Saudi Arabia. So it’s no wonder that the prelude for Xi of Arabia’s lavish welcome in Riyadh was a special op-ed expanding the trading scope, and praising increased strategic/commercial partnerships across the GCC, complete with “5G communications, new energy, space and digital economy.”
Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Energy, Eurasian Axis, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics
Tagged China, Saudi Arabia, Xi Jinping
The dollar’s reserve currency status has allowed the U.S. the privilege of paying for goods and service with debt instruments it can create at will. The rest of the world is tired of this unfair arrangement. From Vijay Prashad at consortiumnews.com:
As part of their concern about “currency power,” many countries in the Global South are eager to develop non-dollar trade and investment systems, writes Vijay Prashad.
Xi Jinping and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Dec. 9. (CCTV/Wikimedia Commons)
On Dec. 9, China’s President Xi Jinping met with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss deepening ties between the Gulf countries and China.
At the top of the agenda was increased trade between China and the GCC, with the former pledging to “import crude oil in a consistent manner and in large quantities from the GCC” as well to increase imports of natural gas.
In 1993, China became a net importer of oil, surpassing the United States as the largest importer of crude oil by 2017. Half of that oil comes from the Arabian Peninsula, and more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports go to China. Despite being a major importer of oil, China has reduced its carbon emissions.
A few days before he arrived in Riyadh, Xi published an article in al-Riyadh that announced greater strategic and commercial partnerships with the region, including “cooperation in high-tech sectors including 5G communications, new energy, space, and digital economy.”
Saudi Arabia and China signed commercial deals worth $30 billion, including in areas that would strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Xi’s visit to Riyadh is one of his few overseas trips since the Covid-19 pandemic.
His first was to Central Asia for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in September, where the nine member states (which represent 40 percent of the world’s population) agreed to increase trade with each other using their local currencies.
Posted in Banking, Business, Civil Liberties, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, Trade
Tagged China, Petrodollars, Reserve Currency, Saudi Arabia
A competent prosecutor would let Sam Bankman-Fried just keep talking until he shut up. From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:
The arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried yesterday was sudden and unexpected in light of Bankman-Fried’s plan to testify before Congress. As a criminal defense attorney, my reaction to the arrest last night remains unchanged: this is the first time that I can recall where prosecutors moved aggressively to stop a defendant from making self-incriminating statements. His testimony would have been entirely admissible and likely devastating at trial.
I previously wrote how Bankman-Fried was doing harm to his case by speaking in the media and to Congress. So why would the Justice Department move to stop the self-inflicted damage? You have a major target who was about to voluntarily testify for hours.
That is ordinarily a dream for prosecutors, but the Justice Department moved quickly to prevent that from happening. At that stage, Bankman-Fried was not charged or in custody. He was not protected by Miranda or other constitutional rules from self-incriminating statements.
Indeed, some of us had already warned that he was causing himself considerable damage in making such statements. This was a defendant with a large legal team facing possible criminal charges who seemed eager to speak about his actions and motivations. Most prosecutors would sit back, make popcorn, and watch this unfold.
The curious move led many to question whether the Biden Administration was eager to prevent questions on Bankman-Fried’s political contributions and associations. He was the second highest donor to Democratic causes in the last election cycle. His mother, a law professor at Stanford also heads a major Democratic campaign fund.
Posted in Business, Crime, Currencies, Government, Politics
Tagged Justice Department, Sam Bankman-Fried
SLL puts the over/under on SBF’s “suicide” in jail, a la Jeffrey Epstein, at January 31, 2023. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
Update (1700ET): Following his arrest last night, with its expectations of an imminent deportation, Sam Bankman-Fried told a Bahamian judge at an arraignment Tuesday that he wouldn’t waive his right to an extradition hearing.
A defense lawyer said Bankman-Fried planned to fight being sent to the US.
Counsel for SBF has requested bail be set at $250,000.
Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams called the case “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” and said the investigation of the alleged scheme is “very much ongoing.”
Which may explain why presiding judge JoyAnn Ferguson-Pratt denied SBF’s bail application, highlighting his “risk of flight” and ordered the crypto executive to be held in custody at the Bahamas Department of Corrections until Feb. 8.
The case has been adjourned to the said date..
Posted in Business, Collapse, Crime, Currencies, Financial markets, Investigations
Tagged Arrest, FTX collapse, Sam Bankman-Fried
Whenever they say they’re doing some planned “improvement” for us, they’re doing it for them. Their power, their control. From Leo Hohmann at leohohmann.com:
The Central Bank of Nigeria announced it will begin, effective in January, restricting cash withdrawals from banks and ATMs to just $45 per day as part of a push to move the country toward a cashless economy.
If this were a one-off, I wouldn’t bother writing about it. But it comes on the heels of mega-banks announcing similarly creepy new policies in recent months in China, India, Russia, Brazil, Sweden, the U.S. and many other nations, all pointing to an imminent switch over to a global digital money system.
In the U.S., the Federal Reserve put out an announcement in November that it is launching a 12-week “pilot program” to test out a new central bank digital currency, or CBDC, with six major banks.
Thursday’s announcement in Nigeria is also a big deal because Nigeria is one of only nine countries that have already launched an official CBDC. That happened earlier this year, and now they are already moving to restrict the use of cash. This proves that digital currencies were never designed to function alongside paper currencies but rather to replace them.
Fox News reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria will limit weekly cash withdrawals to 100,000 naira ($225) for individuals and 500,000 naira ($1,124) for corporations, with a processing fee required to access more.
Posted in Banking, Civil Liberties, Currencies, Governments, Propaganda, Tyranny
Like the Covid response, digital currencies have nothing to do with their ostensibly cited justifications and everything to do with power and totalitarian control. From André Marques at mises.org:
The Federal Reserve is sowing the seeds for its central bank digital currency (CBDC). It may seem that the purpose of a CBDC is to facilitate transactions and enhance economic activity, but CBDCs are mainly about more government control over individuals. If a CBDC were implemented, the central bank would have access to all transactions in addition to being capable of freezing accounts.
It may seem dystopian—something that only totalitarian governments would do—but there have been recent cases of asset freezing in Canada and Brazil. Moreover, a CBDC would give the government the power to determine how much a person can spend, establish expiration dates for deposits, and even penalize people who saved money.
The war on cash is also a reason why governments want to implement CBDCs. The end of cash would mean less privacy for individuals and would allow central banks to maintain a monetary policy of negative interest rates with greater ease (since individuals would be unable to withdraw money commercial banks to avoid losses).
Once the CBDC arrives, instead of a deposit being a commercial bank’s liability, a deposit would be the central bank’s liability.
In 2020, China launched a digital yuan pilot program. As mentioned by Seeking Alpha, China wants to implement a CBDC because “this would give [the government] a remarkable amount of information about what consumers are spending their money on.”
Posted in Banking, Currencies, Government, Tyranny
The third part of Sam Hill’s series on Sam Bankman-Fried and his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. Will there be any consequences for Democratic darling SBF? From Sam Hill at bombthrower.com:
This is the third and final part in our recap of the collapse of FTX. In the first two issues we covered what happened in the weeks leading up to the failure of the exchange and how Alameda Research and FTX became so entangled and fraudulent in the first place.
Today we’ll cover the contagion and fallout throughout the Crypto industry and some lessons learned by Crypto investors and industry insiders.
The Contagion that we are seeing from the failure of FTX is mainly an unwind of built up debt between Crypto companies. This is acting with a lag as a majority of companies with financial problems were already on the ropes from earlier in the year as a result of the collapse of Luna/Terraform labs and Three Arrows Capital.
The list of Crypto lenders that have so far filed for bankruptcy as a result of these earlier problems include Voyager, Celsius and BlockFi. Gemini’s yield program has halted withdrawals. Nexo has announced that they will exit US markets but have not yet announced financial problems.
If you haven’t already, you should strongly consider whether any of the yield generating accounts at Crypto companies are worth the risk.
These failures are all a result of counterparties defaulting on loans. Essentially, Crypto hedge funds and other entities took on loans from these lenders during the bull market and have failed to repay this year. To compound this issue towards the end of 2021 and in early 2022 the Crypto lending space was so competitive that loan terms were extremely favorable.
Posted in Collapse, Crime, Currencies, Debt, Morality, Politics
Tagged Cryptocurrencies, FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried
 | Anonymous on Great Insight on Iran Situatio… |
| Outlook 2026: Chaos… on AI is a Crock, by Robert Gore | |
 | fourth world turd on Great Insight on Iran Situatio… |
 | Not Sure on Great Insight on Iran Situatio… |
 | zrpradyer on Great Insight on Iran Situatio… |
 | Robert Gore on Mom |
| Anonymous on Mom |
 | Paddy O'Furniture on Back to work, by Robert Gore |
