Tag Archives: Panic

David Stockman on Washington’s Panicked Bailout of Bank Deposits… Here’s What Comes Next

Posted on March 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

To his credit, David Stockman was one of the few who had a clue in the 2008-2009 crisis. No surprise, he’s demonstrating that he’s up to speed on this one as well. From Stockman at internationalman.com:

Bailout of Bank Deposits

Why would you throw-in the towel now? We are referring to the Fed’s belated battle against inflation, which evidences few signs of having been successful.

Yet that’s what the entitled herd on Wall Street is loudly demanding. As usual, they want the stock indexes to start going back up after an extended drought and are using the purported “financial crisis” among smaller banks as the pretext.

Well, no, there isn’t any preventable crisis in the small banking sector. As we have demonstrated with respect to SVB and Signature Bank, and these are only the tip of the iceberg, the reckless cowboys who were running these institutions put their uninsured depositors at risk, and both should now be getting their just deserts.

To wit, executive stock options in the sector have plunged or become worthless, and that’s exactly the way capitalism is supposed to work. Likewise, on an honest free market their negligent large depositors should be losing their shirts, too.

After all, who ever told the latter that they were guaranteed 100 cents on the dollar by Uncle Sam? So it was their job, not the responsibility of the state, to look out for the safety of their money.

If the American people actually wanted the big boys bailed out, the Congress has had decades since at least the savings and loan crisis back in the 1980s to legislate a safety net for all depositors. But it didn’t for the good reason that 100% deposit guarantees would be a sure-fire recipe for reckless speculation by bankers on the asset-side of their balance sheets; and also because there was no consensus to put taxpayers in harms’ way in behalf of the working cash of Fortune 500 companies, smaller businesses, hedge funds, affluent depositors and an assortment of Silicon Valley VCs, founders, start-ups and billionaires, among countless others of the undeserving.

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Zero Covid is a mirage, says JONATHAN SUMPTION – the virus is here to stay and we all (even Sage scientists) need to learn to live with it

Posted on February 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

That you’re never going to eliminate a virus should be a non-controversial proposition, but it’s not. From Jonathan Sumption at dailymail.co.uk:

Coronavirus has divided society. A chasm of mutual misunderstanding and resentment has opened up.

On one side are people who want to be allowed to make their own judgments about risk, in the light of their own vulnerabilities and those of the people around them. On the other side are people who think their safety depends on coercing their fellow citizens into accepting the judgment of Government Ministers.

Despite the optimism created by the vaccines, powerful voices are still exploiting public fears to keep us locked up for longer and impose distancing rules indefinitely in pursuit of the mirage of zero Covid.

There is concern that medical scientists are moving the goalposts, changing their objectives in a way that would keep us locked up for longer, perhaps indefinitely.

Those of us who point to the staggering collateral cost of such policies are drowned out by outbursts of emotion and abuse from people who behave as if nothing matters except reducing the Covid death toll.

Despite the optimism created by the vaccines, powerful voices are still exploiting public fears to keep us locked up for longer. Pictured: Commuters on a Jubilee Line train on the London Underground network (file photo)
 
Despite the optimism created by the vaccines, powerful voices are still exploiting public fears to keep us locked up for longer. Pictured: Commuters on a Jubilee Line train on the London Underground network (file photo)
 
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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Economy, Government, Media, Medicine, Science

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COVID-19 Has Replaced Osama bin Laden as the Fall Guy for Lost Liberties, by Robert Bridge

Posted on May 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

It’s hard to scare anyone with Osama bin Laden anymore, seeing how he’s dead and all. But Covid-19 has stepped up as the new scary thing to get people to surrender their freedom. From Robert Bridge at strategic-culture.org:

The government and media have dumped at the doorstep of the coronavirus many of the political, economic and social afflictions that are now ravaging much of the global population. In reality, they need to point the finger at themselves.

As the mainstream media saturates the airwaves with a daily overdose of coronavirus fear porn, the majority of journalists have given their governments a free pass to enact any draconian measure they see fit. From the closure of public beaches to forbidding power boats on waterways, the insanity seems to have no limits or logic. And as the media would have us believe, it was the coronavirus that enacted these measures, as opposed to living, breathing, unthinking humans.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Government, Media, Medicine, Propaganda, Psychology

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The Great UnReason of 2020: Thoughts for Corona Walkers and OPERATION COSMIC CONFINEMENT, by Jack Kerwick

Posted on April 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

The so-called science concerning the coronavirus outbreak has been atrocious. From Jack Kerwick at lewrockwell.com:

Whenever you read of the effects of “the Coronavirus Pandemic” or anything along these lines, know that it is not COVID-19, but the reaction to it, the rise of the Flat-Curve Society and the Corona Walkers (or, as my friend calls them, the “Coronaites”), that has left, within the span of about a month, has fundamentally transformed everyday life in America for the worst.

It is the Great UnReason of 2020, not The Virus (as COVID-19 is now known), that has driven tens of millions of Americans out of their jobs and divested thousands of American small business owners of their livelihoods.

It is the Great UnReason of 2020—spearheaded by the Flat-Curvers in Big Government and Big Media—that, under “Shelter-in-Place” orders, has isolated people from their families, friends, and communities.

It is the Great UnReason of 2020 that has devastated with one fell swoop a 22 trillion dollar economy while transforming all other “essential businesses” into something like prison cafeterias where food servers operate from behind cages and, at least in the case of some grocery stores, armed security officers watch to make sure that everyone is observing “Social Distancing” protocols.

It is the Great UnReason of 2020 that has led to the indefinite revocation of the United States Constitution.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Economy, Governments, Medicine

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The Cat Leaves The Bag, by Eric Peters

Posted on March 23, 2020 | Leave a comment
The US numbers, particularly deaths supposedly due to Covid-19, certainly aren’t supporting the hysterical case being made for the draconian evisceration of our remaining liberties and the shutdown of the economy. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Hysterical headlines today – Sunday, March 21 – about the number of Americans supposedly identified as having been infected with Coronavirus. The modifier supposedly used because the tests being used to identify the virus are of dubious reliability. But, regardless – 25,493 as of today. A big number, banner-headlined across the Internet.

But there’s another number you have to look for, which isn’t being banner-headlined around the Internet.

307.

That’s how many Americans have supposedly died from WuFlu so far. The modifier added – and italicized – to emphasize the fact that it is not known whether it was the WuFlu that killed all these people or old age/underlying infirmity pushed over the edge by what would otherwise have just been a nasty cold.

But regardless, 307.

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Is the Panic Worse than the Virus? by MN Gordon

Posted on March 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here’s an answer to the title question: if it isn’t now it will be. From MN Gordon at economicprism.com:

The Great Panic of 2020 is already one for the history books.  Yet the damage has only just begun.  We suspect the stock market crash, economic destruction, and forfeiture of freedoms will persist long after the coronavirus hobgoblin has been put to bed.

With respect to the stock market, the modus operandi of the last 11 years is being stood on its head.  Rather than ‘buy the dip.’  The new divine mantra is ‘sell the rip.’  Here’s why…

If you recall, the U.S. stock market commenced a multi-year swan dive in autumn of 1929.  About that time, the economy also commenced a decade long Great Depression.  Given the rapid and relentless stock market carnage over the last month, and the prospect of a lengthy depression, a closer look is in order.

From September 3, 1929 to November 13, 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lost 48.9 percent.  Then, as rarely noted, it rallied 48.1 percent through April 17, 1930.  This had the adverse effect of luring the buy the dip crowd back into the stock market just in time for the next massacre.

The 1929 through 1932 bear market, as noted by Pater Tenebrarum, was like a rubber ball bouncing down stairs.  With each bounce, even the most savvy of investors were given another chance to lose their money.  Taken in sequence, the repeated bounces provided many opportunities to lose money over and over again.

In the end, the bounce up between November 13, 1929 and April 30, 1930, turned out to be the ultimate sucker’s rally.  The DJIA subsequently crashed 89.2 percent from its initial peak, along with the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of an entire generation.

Such a colossal collapse could never, ever happen again, right?

Well, if it happened before, by definition, it could happen again.  Hence, if an interim bottom is put in over the next several weeks, and the DJIA attempts to retrace towards its February 12 all-time closing high, take this as a gift.  An opportunity to sell the rip.

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Observations From the Farm, by Hardscrabble Farmer

Posted on March 14, 2020 | 3 comments

Hardscrabble Farmer’s take on coronavirus at theburningplatform.com:

I’ve watched it morph from a 2-4 day period of infection, to a 2 week, to a 27 day, to a 44 day period since this stuff first came about. And that’s from the professionals at CDC and WHO who spend tens of billions of dollars every year in order to prevent these things from spreading.

I see that there are 22 inbound flights from China arriving in the US today.

I remember seeing the instagrams of the Asiatics dropping like flies and laying in pools of blood two months ago but we haven’t seen anything like that anywhere else.

The US reported its first case 11 days before the Italians claimed one and for some odd reason they are losing 15 times as many people as we are and not one person has offered any kind of explanation for the disparity between the two countries and if anything, Italy took far more stringent methods to deal with this problem. At least they cut off flights from China.

I have watched a large portion of my own community as well as the rest of America descend into some consumer driven madness that sends them out into the (supposedly) virus filled world at large to do battle over toilet paper.

I’ve talked to people at three different hospitals that have all asked the same question, where the hell are all the people with coronavirus?

I’ve seen countries so filthy and backward that people shit in the streets, places like Equatorial Africa, India and Pakistan go about their business seemingly unaffected by it.

I’ve heard the experts tell me so many different versions of the same story you’d think it was a live version of the blind men and the elephant.

It’s bullshit. It’s just another flu. There’s no AIDS or SARS in it, it isn’t going to fill up the hospital corridors with dead bodies left unattended and the world will continue on. The economic unwind of this shit show is an entirely different latter and was- almost certainly- the prime motivator in turning this rather innocuous strain of virus into a worldwide crisis of epic proportions to explain away where all the non-existent money went.

Aaaaaand, it’s gone.

You want to protect yourself, I get it, prepare, stay frosty and limit your contacts for the next year or so and you may dodge it completely. Of course there may be another just around the corner, so that strategy while efficacious seems wildly overcautious.

We all die, that’s the secret to life.

You want to live in fear or do you want to take your chances with the time you’ve been given on a precious piece of galactic real estate?

I know what my plans are, make yours accordingly.

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Panic? You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet…, by Brandon Smith

Posted on March 13, 2020 | 1 comment

By and large people in the US are not panicking over the coronavirus, although they are buying a lot of extra stuff in case there are quarantines. The mainstream media are saying not to panic, but what else can they say? Brandon Smith argues that advising against panic may produce passivity, but that doesn’t jibe with what’s going on at the grocery stores and the Targets, Walmarts, and Costcos. From Smith at zerohedge.com:

One rule every preparedness expert should go by is to always be concerned when establishment authorities, the media and “shoe shine boys” start volunteering their “expert” opinions on why you should not be concerned about a particular danger.  The establishment most likely has an agenda to keep you passive, and the shoe shine boys are simply regurgitating what they hear from the media like good little robots.  These people are far too interested in whether or not you are preparing for a threat; in fact they seem hell bent on talking you out of preparation in general.  Why is that?

In the past two months I have seen an endless flow of mainstream news stories arguing first, that Covid 19 is nothing to worry, and second, that the public is “in a panic” over the virus.

  • The first assertion is obviously ridiculous. With an official death rate of around 6% in Italy alone, I think we are starting to see what the Chinese government has been trying to hide as they continue to threaten their citizens with punishment for leaking “fake news” (FACTS) on the coronavirus. This event is not something to be taken lightly; it is a paradigm shifting scenario which will change the world forever.
  • The second assertion seems to be a calculated exaggeration; a form of reverse psychology. Keep telling people they are “panicking” when they are not and maybe they will go to the other extreme and passively do nothing at all just to avoid the label. I have to say, I don’t think people in this day and age know what a mass “panic” actually is, especially if their only point of reference is some empty toilet paper shelves at Costco.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Debt, Economy, Financial markets, Government, Media, Medicine

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The Evolution Of The Bank Run, by Claudio Grass

Posted on November 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

Bank runs are demonstrations of crowd psychology, but they’re usually not irrational. From Claudio Grass at lewrockwell.com:

There are numerous and wide-ranging reasons why someone may choose to invest in physical precious metals. A deep understanding of monetary history provides plenty of solid arguments, and so do the mounting geopolitical risks, the spiking probability of a recession and the long-term goal of many conservative investors to safeguard their financial self-determination. For me, while all of these reasons are important, there is also another argument that I find especially powerful and extremely relevant today. The vulnerability of the current banking system itself is a risk that is often overlooked or dismissed, as most mainstream investors, having short memories and a narrow attention span, tend to believe blindly in the banking sector’s ability to protect and preserve their assets and their savings.

A clear and present danger

For most people, the very idea of a bank run is quaint and anachronistic. It conjures up black-and-white images of 1929, and it harks back to the old fears of the analog times. Today, they think, these risks are a distant memory and nothing for the modern investor, or bank customer, to seriously worry about. We have sophisticated systems in place, strict regulations in the banking sector and computers that cut out emotional impulses and smoothly control everything. Surely, banks are safer than ever. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Bank runs, far from being a thing of the past, still present a very real risk. Customer confidence can collapse as easily and as rapidly as it did a century ago. Any bank’s creditworthiness and reputation can come under fire and mass withdrawals can cripple any financial institution.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Capitalism, Collapse, Debt, Economics, Economy, Financial markets, Governments, History

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Panic Now! Avoid The Rush, by Lee Adler

Posted on September 2, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Lee Adler at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

How many times have you heard or read this in Big Media the past few days? “Don’t panic. It’s just a correction.” Since it’s, “As seen on TV!” it must be good advice, right?

“10% is an official correction,” the big media pundits tell you. Apparently, the 10% Rule was passed by Congress, signed by the President, and ratified by the UN, making it the “official” worldwide standard for a correction. Same with 20% rule for “official” bear market. These are laws passed by all world governments and happily obeyed by Big Media pundits, who know all about “official” and unofficial. When their back scratching buds in the Washington-Wall Street Big Media echo chamber agree, it’s official!

If Cramer or Kelly or Maria said it, then by God, Virginia, it must be so! And if it’s the Wall Street Journal, that, my friends, is the Word. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as an “Official Correction!” They come around every so often with bags full of gifts, correcting the minor “excesses” of the recent past, just so you can sleep better and even average down!

Here’s something else you’ll read in Big Media. “This market is crazy.” Both bulls and bears love that one. Bears use it all the time on the way up. Bulls repeat it on the way down. What it means is that the market isn’t behaving as they think it should. But here’s a little secret. Markets are neither crazy nor sane. They merely measure and reflect liquidity. Depending on our particular point of view, that may seem to be “crazy.” What it really means is that, “Hey buddy, look in the mirror. You’re wrong.” Both bulls and bears may fight the trend for a long, long time. Now, that’s crazy.

To continue reading: Panic Now! Avoid The Rush

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