Post: #76

(03-20-2016 12:05 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Anyone want to dig into unfunded liabilities (state AND federal) as well as the shaky status of the petrodollar?

With the facts in hand, predicting a mere depression would be wild optimism.

Petrodollar died a long time ago.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-07...ly-noticed

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-03...dy-noticed

As for why the USD is still so strong, look at NTP's analysis.

Post: #77

(03-20-2016 12:14 AM)blacknwhitespade Wrote:  I'm looking in middle and upper-middle class suburbs around Chicago. Property here has been very undervalued, and slowly climbing in value for at least a year now. I've heard rumors that Chicago could join NY/LA/SF/Toronto as a prime area for foreign investment, but haven't really seen proof of that yet. Economy/employment around here is more or less national average, pretty diversified workforce, neighborhoods I'm looking at are desirable for white collar professionals and families.

Proof? Take a stroll anywhere within a couple mile radius of the Loop and look up at the sky. Count the number of tower cranes you see.

I work construction in the city -elevators, and the amount of construction taking place right now is fucking mind boggling. We had to fly up some equipment to the 45th floor of the building I'm working at now and the tower crane operator was chatting us up. He said there are 15 more tower crane permits waiting to get approved by the city. That's 15 more scrappers. Insane. Further proof: I started a 45 story job in October. There was a dog park/regular park that I used to walk by -probably a square block, and within the last month it got tore down and is now getting excavated. For what you ask? A 60 to 70 story building.

Last year more skyscrapers were put up in Chicago than any other city in our country. Foreign money has been pouring in and there is still a lot more room to go up -South Loop specifically and eventually along the lake on the southside, I would imagine. Chicago has always been the capital of the midwest, but now people from the coasts are starting to come due to the cost of living, food, big buildings, summers, etc, etc, that attract people to Chicago.

I couldn't imagine owning a concrete company right now.

Post: #78

Shift of power from the West to the East.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/02/28/...-the-east/

World's biggest Ponzi Scheme.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/02/10/...y-busters/

Global Reset.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/01/09/...agreement/

Post: #79

Does anyone have an idea of how the eventual "collapse" will look like on the ground? 2008 wasn't a collapse, even the so called "Great Depression" was not a collapse. In the former case, the central banks and governments prevented deleveraging (healing) and the pain that would result by flooding financial markets with liquidity and, in the early stages, by massive deficit-driven fiscal stimuli. The Great Depression on the other hand occurred in saner days, so the authorities allowed the pain to happen in order to cure the ills plaguing the system. I'd argue that even hyperinflation in Weimar Germany was not a real collapse, because it was a localized phenomenon, unlike what would occur in a simultaneous destruction of Dollar/Euro fiat.

Today, we appear to be heading for a real collapse. The elites are no longer even trying to maintain a semblance of sanity. Every dip of the financial markets is now a cue for them to initiate yet another round of "quantitative easing." It's now taken for granted by the markets that the mandate of the central banks is not stewardship of the national economy, but bidding up portfolio prices to ever greater quarterly-highs even as the underlying economy liquifies and rots. And of course with each new round of money printing we are one step closer to a real collapse of the fiat.

So where do you think this ends? One of two things have to happen: a prolonged, painful period of economic contraction and financial deleveraging that will see unemployment skyrocket past today's already historic highs and asset prices collapse, or a damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead continuation of money printing to prop up the unsustainable status quo until the inevitable financial armageddon that wipes everything out.

Any thoughts on which way this will go?

Post: #80

Ill give it a shot.
When a collapse hits it will be precipitated by a catastrophic event giving just cause for the collapse. Think major fucking earthquake in California killing hundreds of thousands or a terrorist nuke in a major city.
Then there will be currency devaluation and debt renegotiation. All orchestrated by the fed and insiders. We will be spectators and the last to know. All savings will be fucked, no borrowing money for a while, no cars sales, no home sales, no lines of credit.
It will become survival of the fittest for 90-180 days until everything gets settled. Mass deaths due to crime, looting, loss of medicines, healthcare etc.
Russia will be like, how are you fuckers doing?! This shit happens to us every so often! Aint it great? Enjoy it.

Post: #81

I've seen food go up from 40-70 cents within the past few months. I'm talking cheap bullshit for my weekly drinking day, so it's a big percentage. Hyperinflation on food would cause large scale riots, I for one would be in "let's get it" mode if I didn't have food in the fridge.

Post: #82

What would really suck is if you figured out how to read all the pre-indicators of societal collapse, and listened to the media lies, but saw through the bullshit, got all of your bugout bags into your bugout vehicle, put on your camo, blacked under your eyes, got your samurai sword, and hit the freaking road, only to find out you had jumped the gun by about a month.

You'd be sitting there in traffic, looking from left to right at other drivers smiling, saying, "Yeah. Heh. Costume party. So what's up with you guys?'

Post: #83

(02-24-2016 05:52 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(02-24-2016 05:50 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

(02-24-2016 05:31 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  He also plans to drastically reduce the government. I know off the top of my head he plans on gutting the Department of Education. One can only hope he will drastically shrink other departments of the federal government as well.

I'm as big a fan of Trump as anyone, but to be honest, there is not much he can do to stave off financial catastrophe. The big items are Social Security, Medicare, and the national debt, and one can't simply magic wand those liabilities away, not even Trump. Everything else is a pittance in comparison.

This is one of the things I think he'll have to back out on. He's going to have to kill social security in one fashion or another. The unfunded liabilities are what will do us in.

Shame really, it's going to hurt quite a lot of people.

Anybody watch "House of Cards"? When Frank Underwood talks about his "America Works" program, it straight up makes me think of a Trump presidency.

Post: #84

The thing is, as long as third-world countries peg their currency to the American dollar, there will be no hyperinflation here. We can print money all day long, and all that happens are third-world slaves have their savings wiped out and are forced back into the factories to work for our confetti money.

For example, China has a 6 to 1 peg, so if we print a trillion bucks, all of this worthless paper is still worth 6x more than any Chinese dollar. Our slaves are still forced to work for the American dollar which is mandated by Communist fiat as 6x as valuable as their own currency. Meanwhile our people go unemployed and fail to create families but everyone gets their bread and circuses provided to us by our slaves.

The slave situation totally fucks up the Austrian credit cycle, and there is no reason this ponzi cannot continue until our third-world slaves stop breathing. The moral rot created by this situation is evident everywhere in first-world countries while the virtue of the third-world slaves is evident by the amount of first-world men who travel to get a decent wife from these places.

Post: #85

(03-20-2016 05:23 PM)Samseau Wrote:  The thing is, as long as third-world countries peg their currency to the American dollar, there will be no hyperinflation here. We can print money all day long, and all that happens are third-world slaves have their savings wiped out and are forced back into the factories to work for our confetti money.

For example, China has a 6 to 1 peg, so if we print a trillion bucks, all of this worthless paper is still worth 6x more than any Chinese dollar. Our slaves are still forced to work for the American dollar which is mandated by Communist fiat as 6x as valuable as their own currency. Meanwhile our people go unemployed and fail to create families but everyone gets their bread and circuses provided to us by our slaves.

The slave situation totally fucks up the Austrian credit cycle, and there is no reason this ponzi cannot continue until our third-world slaves stop breathing. The moral rot created by this situation is evident everywhere in first-world countries while the virtue of the third-world slaves is evident by the amount of first-world men who travel to get a decent wife from these places.

Thanks for the insight Samseau.

I have a couple of follow up questions:

1. Won't the third-world workers eventually rise up and rebel, À la "Hunger Games"?

2. How do we avoid hyperinflation via the third world currencies? I understand what you're saying, but if we (Americans) aren't trading our currency in China, how do we benefit? My guess is that what you're saying is that so much of our wealth is from the third world, through Chinese factories, Indian labor, etc that we will never feel the brunt of our out of control money printing. Is that correct?

3. The end result of this would seem to imply further lack of American jobs, since even though we won't see hyperinflation due to the currency peg, we will still find ourselves with more manufactures being REQUIRED to go overseas in order to make profit. The snake eats it's own tail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is that an accurate assumption?

Post: #86

(03-20-2016 06:04 PM)Aristotle Wrote:  

(03-20-2016 05:23 PM)Samseau Wrote:  The thing is, as long as third-world countries peg their currency to the American dollar, there will be no hyperinflation here. We can print money all day long, and all that happens are third-world slaves have their savings wiped out and are forced back into the factories to work for our confetti money.

For example, China has a 6 to 1 peg, so if we print a trillion bucks, all of this worthless paper is still worth 6x more than any Chinese dollar. Our slaves are still forced to work for the American dollar which is mandated by Communist fiat as 6x as valuable as their own currency. Meanwhile our people go unemployed and fail to create families but everyone gets their bread and circuses provided to us by our slaves.

The slave situation totally fucks up the Austrian credit cycle, and there is no reason this ponzi cannot continue until our third-world slaves stop breathing. The moral rot created by this situation is evident everywhere in first-world countries while the virtue of the third-world slaves is evident by the amount of first-world men who travel to get a decent wife from these places.

Thanks for the insight Samseau.

I have a couple of follow up questions:

1. Won't the third-world workers eventually rise up and rebel, À la "Hunger Games"?

You would think that, but Communist China is remarkably effective at suppressing dissent. Not to mention other third-world countries have such uneducated people, most have no idea how currency manipulation works or that it is even occurring.

Quote:2. How do we avoid hyperinflation via the third world currencies? I understand what you're saying, but if we (Americans) aren't trading our currency in China, how do we benefit? My guess is that what you're saying is that so much of our wealth is from the third world, through Chinese factories, Indian labor, etc that we will never feel the brunt of our out of control money printing. Is that correct?

In theory, if we do print too much, we will see hyperinflation in third-world shitholes. For example, Venezuela is hyperinflating right now.

In China, the extra money printing is spent on government funded projects to divert the extra cash into projects so there isn't excess liquidity in their markets, hence China's "ghost cities":

http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-gh...-of-china/

We did see massive GDP growth in the immediate aftermath of 2008 in China, for example, as American bailouts and money printing caused the Chinese economy to overheat. As we've temporarily cooled down our money jets, we're seeing the "hard landing" occur in China but if we rev up the presses again China will go back into double-digit GDP growth as they will be forced to spend the funny money lest they are left with extreme liquidity and no where to spend it.

If China was a normal economy, their citizens would be able to spend their cash in countries outside of China, but the CCCP has strict capital controls which prevents this. Thus the central gov must spend those dollars within their country which means building lots of buildings no one lives in or can afford because if they don't spend that money inflation there would be totally out of control and probably enter hyperinflation territory.

Quote:3. The end result of this would seem to imply further lack of American jobs, since even though we won't see hyperinflation due to the currency peg, we will still find ourselves with more manufactures being REQUIRED to go overseas in order to make profit. The snake eats it's own tail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is that an accurate assumption?

Yes. Eventually something has to give (hyperinflation, slave revolt, American revolt), the question is for how much of our lives do we need to waste before this situation corrects itself? That is why electing a pro-tariff guy like Trump is so important. Do we really want 8 more wasted years leading to poverty and civil war, or 8 years of weaning ourselves off slave labor?

NOTE: If we do see hyperinflation in a big place like China, that means it's only a matter of months before hyperinflation hits America. The currency peg system means the world is a bunch of dominoes.

Post: #87

(03-20-2016 01:42 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Does anyone have an idea of how the eventual "collapse" will look like on the ground? 2008 wasn't a collapse, even the so called "Great Depression" was not a collapse. In the former case, the central banks and governments prevented deleveraging (healing) and the pain that would result by flooding financial markets with liquidity and, in the early stages, by massive deficit-driven fiscal stimuli. The Great Depression on the other hand occurred in saner days, so the authorities allowed the pain to happen in order to cure the ills plaguing the system. I'd argue that even hyperinflation in Weimar Germany was not a real collapse, because it was a localized phenomenon, unlike what would occur in a simultaneous destruction of Dollar/Euro fiat.

Today, we appear to be heading for a real collapse. The elites are no longer even trying to maintain a semblance of sanity. Every dip of the financial markets is now a cue for them to initiate yet another round of "quantitative easing." It's now taken for granted by the markets that the mandate of the central banks is not stewardship of the national economy, but bidding up portfolio prices to ever greater quarterly-highs even as the underlying economy liquifies and rots. And of course with each new round of money printing we are one step closer to a real collapse of the fiat.

So where do you think this ends? One of two things have to happen: a prolonged, painful period of economic contraction and financial deleveraging that will see unemployment skyrocket past today's already historic highs and asset prices collapse, or a damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead continuation of money printing to prop up the unsustainable status quo until the inevitable financial armageddon that wipes everything out.

Any thoughts on which way this will go?

It is a gradual process, like a frog in a hot pot. The heat will gradually get turned up.

You cannot continue to print money forever out of thin air, I believe that is what quantitative easing is. Also the huge debt will have to be paid off at some point or you must declare bankruptcy.

Unemployment is very high and not going to be turned around anytime soon.

1 in 7 on food stamps

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-04...ood-stamps

Post: #88

United States went bankrupt in 1933

http://anticorruptionsociety.com/the-ban...rica-1933/

The United States is a corporation not a government.

Post: #89

(03-20-2016 06:29 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(03-20-2016 12:05 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Anyone want to dig into unfunded liabilities (state AND federal) as well as the shaky status of the petrodollar?

With the facts in hand, predicting a mere depression would be wild optimism.

Petrodollar died a long time ago.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-07...ly-noticed

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-03...dy-noticed

As for why the USD is still so strong, look at NTP's analysis.

Typical ZH exaggeration to grab the attention of readers. You could similarly create a headline "150 residents of a nursing home died last night" and when pressed say "well they're still alive but they're effectively dead..."

The petrodollar will be dead when it is no longer the primary means for trading oil. At that point there will be a sudden and massive devaluation of the USD for obvious reasons.

After it happens it will not be said that the "petrodollar quietly died and nobody noticed".

Post: #90

This is a pretty big deal.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/20/goldman-sac...ury-bonds/

Quote:Washington’s probe into the alleged rigging of the $13 trillion US Treasurys market by Wall Street banks has narrowed its focus to a handful of firms — including Goldman Sachs, The Post has learned.

In addition, European authorities have opened up their own investigation into possible Treasurys bid-rigging, sources said.

Investigators in the fraud division of the Justice Department have obtained chats and e-mails from Goldman that appear to implicate the company in manipulating the price of Treasury bonds, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

Those chats and e-mails are being analyzed to determine if traders at other banks could be involved with any possible bid-rigging of US government debt, those two people said.

The identities of any traders in investigators’ cross-hairs couldn’t be learned.

Goldman is said to be cooperating with the probe, one person said.

In June, The Post reported exclusively that Justice was in the early stages of investigating banks for rigging the price of Treasurys, the largest and most easily tradable asset in the world.

Goldman is one of about 22 financial institutions that have been probed for any evidence that they may have manipulated Treasury auctions — a secretive process where banks and other financial services companies bid on the price of government debt, sources said.

Justice is also looking into whether there was price-rigging in the secondary market for Treasurys, where debt is sold at a premium, sources added. It’s unclear if investigators have yet found any improprieties or criminality.

Goldman, run by Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, is a major player in US government bond trading, and regularly submits bids for auctions.

In November, Goldman disclosed in a regulatory document that it was being probed for possible manipulation of government bond prices. Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, the European Commission, the law enforcement arm of the European Union, has opened its own investigation, joining Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the New York Department of Financial Services, according to two sources.

The rigging investigation is the biggest scandal to hit the quiet — but crucial — Treasurys market since 1990 when Paul Mozer, a former Salomon Brothers partner, illegally cornered the government debt market. Mozer’s actions are known to readers of Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker.”

Traders are thought to have rigged the market in two possible ways: by agreeing beforehand to keep bond prices higher than normal in order to boost profits in other positions that depend on higher rates, similar to how banks rigged the London-based Libor rate.

Banks also could have colluded to keep prices lower than normal to sell them at a higher price — and score a bigger spread — to their clients, who agreed to pay a fixed amount beforehand.

A Justice department spokesman didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment, while EC spokesman Ricardo Cardoso declined to comment.

Post: #91

(03-20-2016 11:29 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  The petrodollar will be dead when it is no longer the primary means for trading oil. At that point there will be a sudden and massive devaluation of the USD for obvious reasons.

After it happens it will not be said that the "petrodollar quietly died and nobody noticed".

If/when the petrodollar dies, WW3 begins.

Post: #92

(03-20-2016 11:29 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(03-20-2016 06:29 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(03-20-2016 12:05 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Anyone want to dig into unfunded liabilities (state AND federal) as well as the shaky status of the petrodollar?

With the facts in hand, predicting a mere depression would be wild optimism.

Petrodollar died a long time ago.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-07...ly-noticed

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-03...dy-noticed

As for why the USD is still so strong, look at NTP's analysis.

Typical ZH exaggeration to grab the attention of readers. You could similarly create a headline "150 residents of a nursing home died last night" and when pressed say "well they're still alive but they're effectively dead..."

The petrodollar will be dead when it is no longer the primary means for trading oil. At that point there will be a sudden and massive devaluation of the USD for obvious reasons.

After it happens it will not be said that the "petrodollar quietly died and nobody noticed".

It's not exaggeration, it's just that the article was too complex for you and went completely over your head.

The problem with ZH is that it is much too intelligent for the internet. I've been following them for years, and they've saved me thousands and spotted bad investments over and over. I've yet to see them make any serious errors.

Post: #93

Today's Newsletter from Bill Bonner:

We’re All Mad Here…

Time is the ultimate unyielding human resource. And the ultimate measure of how wealthy a society is how much you can get paid per hour.

Cometh another depressing report for millennials from conservative website Red Alert Politics:

Compared to the national average, you are poorer than most people of your age in the past.

The youngest millennials are the worst off. In 1979, the average American 20 to 24 years old had average incomes 10.1% below the national average. Today, it’s 31.5% below the average.


Not that we’re going to whine on behalf of the young. They’re doing their own whining at the ballot box. The youngest voters are going for the oldest candidate: democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

But what entertains us today is the nonsense of the entire system.

“We’re all mad here,” says Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat… perhaps anticipating Janet Yellen’s Fed.

Actually, the whole system is not just mad. It is also corrupt and phony.
A Phony System

It begins with PHONY MONEY.

Dollars are supposed to represent wealth. How do you get wealth? By working, investing, and saving, right?

But after 1971 – when President Nixon ended the direct convertibility of dollars to gold – the Fed created new dollars with no wealth backing them.

Post-1971 dollars are IOUs from Uncle Sam, nothing more. The Fed carries them on its books as a liability.

Then there is the problem of PHONY SAVINGS.

In a healthy economy, you earn money, and you save part of it. This can be lent out, as credit, to fund new projects and earn interest. Savings – and credit – are limited. They are based on real surplus wealth.

But in today’s mad system, central banks and banks create credit out of thin air… using nothing but keystrokes on a computer. No savings are needed.

Savers might as well not bother. Thanks to the Fed’s regime of ultra-low interest rates, over the past 10 years, Bloomberg estimates that about $8 trillion has been confiscated from savers – money they should have earned in interest.

On top of this, the government has a PHONY FISCAL POLICY.

It borrows phony money from banks in return for Treasury bonds. Under QE, the Fed then buys these bonds from the banks. The Treasury then pays the Fed interest on these bonds… the Fed then gives this interest back to the Treasury.

Neat, huh?

It’s free money for the feds. They borrow nothing for nothing… and everyone pretends it’s real.

This is all made possible by PHONY MONETARY POLICY.

The Fed sets interest rates at the lowest levels in history. So borrowers – especially the largest borrower in history, the U.S. government – can get funds cheaply.

This is done to strengthen the economy, but the economy grows weaker under the burden of so much more debt.
Corrupt and Fraudulent

This all leads to a PHONY STOCK MARKET, in which corporate bosses use the cheap money to loot their own businesses.

Companies borrow heavily to buy back their own shares and cancel them. This increases the earnings per share of the outstanding shares, boosting their value. Top execs then collect fat bonuses based on rising share prices. Shareholders get a temporary boost as their stocks go up, but their businesses are weakened by the additional debt.

And the entire system creates PHONY WEALTH.

This is not capitalism. It’s phony, crony capitalism. Its phony money leads to phony investments – short-term speculations… scams… and rent seeking.

These do not build real wealth; they extract real wealth from the rest of the economy and shift it to the well-connected sectors.

Here’s how it works in housing, for example.

The banks get the phony money and lend it to house buyers. They collect interest on “money” that cost them next to nothing. Naturally, they lend more and more… in order to maximize their own income. This leads to rising house prices… and eventually, a bust, when too many people own too much money on houses they can’t really afford.

This is what happened in 2007. Home buyers couldn’t make their payments. Home prices fell. Families lost their homes. And then, even the banks were in trouble.

So, the Fed came and bailed out the banks, so the extraction could continue.

And today, almost every one of America’s taxpayers continues to make payments to the credit industry – for student loans, housing loans, auto loans, credit cards – transferring more and more real wealth from the people who earned it to the privileged elite.

But it is not just Wall Street that comes out ahead. The entire Deep State complex is at the heart of the nonsensical, corrupt, and fraudulent system…

Expecting the Mad Hatter to protect you? Or the Cheshire Cat?

Good luck with that!

Regards,

Signature
Bill

Further Reading: In his online presentation, Bill explains exactly how his this whole phony scheme will unwind. He believes it will be a collapse even bigger than 2008, 2000, 1987… even 1929. And that’s what makes it so frightening.

This time around, it will hit not only stocks but also your credit cards, checkbook, and bank account… even the cash in your wallet. The first step in protecting yourself is to understand what’s really going on.

Post: #94

Remember most of the "money" floating out there is in 1s and 0s. The actual paper money floating around is probably 2 trillion which is modest.

The fed could easily soak up all of that electronic money if need be. Prices for those goods priced in dollars would jump to reach parity with the trade imbalance we have which would look like hyperinflation to the average american.

Domestic goods wouldn't be affected too much, just all of the crap produced abroad.

Post: #95

Aside from wall street rigging treasury auctions..

More evidence of storm clouds on the horizon.

When commercial real estate starts looking very shaky:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/turning-poin...1458639002




When business fundamentals start making less sense or the feeling the numbers are being rigged. Tip: look at gaap and not pro forma b.s. The word is that 2016 earnings are not looking too good so far either.

Post: #96

(03-21-2016 08:17 AM)Samseau Wrote:  It's not exaggeration, it's just that the article was too complex for you and went completely over your head.

The problem with ZH is that it is much too intelligent for the internet. I've been following them for years, and they've saved me thousands and spotted bad investments over and over. I've yet to see them make any serious errors.

Ignoring the insult and focusing on your insistence that the petrodollar is dead, and that is to say not "dying" but "dee ee ay dee dead".

Are you inferring that there is not a single nation on earth that still trades oil in US dollars? That the trade of oil has shifted to an entirely non-USD platform and that the petrodollars in question have been either ignored or absorbed back into the world economy?

Post: #97

(03-22-2016 08:40 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 08:17 AM)Samseau Wrote:  It's not exaggeration, it's just that the article was too complex for you and went completely over your head.

The problem with ZH is that it is much too intelligent for the internet. I've been following them for years, and they've saved me thousands and spotted bad investments over and over. I've yet to see them make any serious errors.

Ignoring the insult and focusing on your insistence that the petrodollar is dead, and that is to say not "dying" but "dee ee ay dee dead".

Are you inferring that there is not a single nation on earth that still trades oil in US dollars? That the trade of oil has shifted to an entirely non-USD platform and that the petrodollars in question have been either ignored or absorbed back into the world economy?

Your definition of the petrodollar is too loose. It is not merely trading the USD for oil which creates the petrodollar, all of which is clearly explained in the ZH articles you linked.

Post: #98

It's quite unlikely that there will be a recession within this year. If it does happen, then the fed has screwed up immensely and any recession that occurs before the election is over will usher in a Trump presidency, which is the worst possible outcome for the fed.

Even having a recession that occurs shortly after power is handed over will be interpreted as cause to blame on the Obama administration and the fed policies during Obama's administration, which is also unacceptable. If possible, the fed would like to postpone the next downcycle until well into the next presidency.

You can tell this is the case because the fed has been very reluctant on raising rates despite the economy supposedly being good. Trump has also called them out on this, and you may wonder why the fed has been slow in raising the interest rate.

The answer is because from their own research, the biggest indicator of an impending recession is the so called death cross, which is when the ten year yields are inverted to the base fed rate, which is close to the 3 month yields:

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/capi...ycfaq.html

From their research, all of the previous recessions have occurred within a year of the death cross.

The ten year yields are falling because of the terrible economy and capital fleeing to the perceived safety of the ten year treasuries. The fed has been waiting patiently for the economy to stimulate itself and cause people to invest in something other than the ten year so that the ten year yields can raise, thereby allowing them to raise rates. This has not happened, but yet the Fed in view of the present economic reports, feels compelled to make token raises (as reflected by the raises in the 3 Mo) in order to send a signal that the economy is doing well.

The fed has announced that they will make two more raises in the year, which will probably be token amounts so that the death cross won't occur.

If Trump becomes president, the fed will probably crash the economy by causing the death cross at an opportune time. However, the recession tends to have a one year lead time to the death cross, and they probably won't try to push for this until 2017-2018.

Post: #99

(03-22-2016 06:14 PM)Mr. Accuride Wrote:  It's quite unlikely that there will be a recession within this year. If it does happen, then the fed has screwed up immensely and any recession that occurs before the election is over will usher in a Trump presidency, which is the worst possible outcome for the fed.

Even having a recession that occurs shortly after power is handed over will be interpreted as cause to blame on the Obama administration and the fed policies during Obama's administration, which is also unacceptable. If possible, the fed would like to postpone the next downcycle until well into the next presidency.

You can tell this is the case because the fed has been very reluctant on raising rates despite the economy supposedly being good. Trump has also called them out on this, and you may wonder why the fed has been slow in raising the interest rate.

The answer is because from their own research, the biggest indicator of an impending recession is the so called death cross, which is when the ten year yields are inverted to the base fed rate, which is close to the 3 month yields:

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/capi...ycfaq.html

From their research, all of the previous recessions have occurred within a year of the death cross.

The ten year yields are falling because of the terrible economy and capital fleeing to the perceived safety of the ten year treasuries. The fed has been waiting patiently for the economy to stimulate itself and cause people to invest in something other than the ten year so that the ten year yields can raise, thereby allowing them to raise rates. This has not happened, but yet the Fed in view of the present economic reports, feels compelled to make token raises (as reflected by the raises in the 3 Mo) in order to send a signal that the economy is doing well.

The fed has announced that they will make two more raises in the year, which will probably be token amounts so that the death cross won't occur.

If Trump becomes president, the fed will probably crash the economy by causing the death cross at an opportune time. However, the recession tends to have a one year lead time to the death cross, and they probably won't try to push for this until 2017-2018.

You shouldn't rely on academic definitions of recessions. They measure recessions by GDP, but GDP is easily gamed by government spending. Meanwhile, the Labor Force Participation Rate and M2 Money Velocity is at all time lows.

We're in an extended economic depression. GDP is a meaningless stat when it's based on money printing and regular citizens go without jobs or money.

Post: #100

(03-22-2016 01:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Your definition of the petrodollar is too loose. It is not merely trading the USD for oil which creates the petrodollar, all of which is clearly explained in the ZH articles you linked.

I'll take that under advisement (no sarcasm).