Tuesday, October 11, 2022

BIDENOMICS - THE AMERICAN STOCK MARKET IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE

 VIDEO:


Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://masterworks.art/epiceconomist Purchase shares in great masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. 🎨 See important Masterworks disclosures: http://masterworks.io/cd This is not a drill. An October stock market crash can break out at any moment, experts alert. 2022 has already been a very painful year for investors, with all three major indexes falling into a bear market, stock market volatility remaining at its bumpiest level on record, and over $46 trillion in financial wealth being wiped out from global markets since January. But things could get a whole lot worse as we enter the most dangerous weeks of the year – and previous October crashes offer an eye-opening warning. Last week, Morgan Stanley offered a detailed breakdown of the impending economic dangers that are likely to result in further market losses in the weeks ahead. “This is one of the toughest macro forecasting environments most companies have ever encountered. It seems companies are reaching the point where they can’t take it anymore,” the bank noted. Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson highlights that the “key question in the minds of many investors has once again shifted to when the Federal Reserve is turning — not if,” adding that the economy has entered a “danger zone” in which the Fed policies have become restrictive and the growth outlook is compromised. Wilson says “it’s only a matter of time” before a “quick and furious” market event takes place. Even if September inflation levels do improve, Fed officials have repeatedly said they plan to continue with their policy of elevated rate hikes and have publicly said they’re worried that markets refuse to listen to their messaging. The central bank’s goal of 2% inflation means that an over 6% decline is still needed, which consequently implies that stocks still have a lot of room to fall. Morgan Stanley predicts that the S&P will end the year in a bear market low of between 3,000 and 3,400 points — suggesting that the index, which is already down 21.5% this year, with face another 20% crash. But still, these estimates seem a little too conservative when considering how unhinged stocks really are right now. Many market veterans are even more downbeat about future performance. For instance, John Hussman, who correctly called the dot-com bubble, is warning that stocks will end the current bear market 50 to 70% lower from current levels, “as investor positioning remains inconsistent with fundamentals and valuations linger at historically extreme levels,” he noted. "The way that bubbles unfold into preposterous losses – 89%, 82%, 50%, 55%, and I expect this time between 50-70% – is through multiple periods of decline and even free-fall, punctuated by fast, furious 'clearing rallies' that offer hope all the way down," Hussman said. "By the time investors experience the second or third free-fall, the psychology of investors is not 'this is the bottom' – but rather, 'there is no bottom.'” That thinking, however, is set to cause a lot of shock in the coming weeks. If history is a guide, the next few weeks could throw the market into disarray.Research releas ed by the analyst Clive Hale, head of Clive Hale Consulting, points out that the cumulative impact of escalating geopolitical conflicts, China’s economic slowdown, energy supply shortages, rising interest rates, lower consumer spending, a decline in property prices, and many other problems are setting the stage for the worst October shock seen since 1987 and 1929. In other words, there’s nothing that supports the idea that better days are coming for stocks. The carnage is starting to spread everywhere and the market continues to break. It’s safe to say that this isn’t going to end well, and we have already gotten to a point where this should be obvious to everyone. For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/ DISCLAIMERS: This video is not financial advise. Please see a financial adviser to discuss your own personal situation.



DIMON IS BARACK OBAMA'S FAVE BANKSTER FOR BAILOUTS   -  'CREDIT CARD' JOE BIDEN IS FOND OF JAMIE, TOO. THEY LUV THE BANKSTERS AND LUV THE BANKSTER SPEECH FEES EVEN MORE!

Dimon: U.S. ‘Likely’ to Have Recession in Six, Nine Months

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During a portion of an interview with CNBC released on Monday, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon stated that he believes that the U.S. is “likely” to enter a recession “six, nine months from now.”

Dimon said, “I think you’ve got to put two things in mind here. Currently, right now, the U.S. economy’s actually still doing well. Consumers have money, fiscal stimulus, they still have more than they had before. They’re spending 10% more than last year, 35% more than pre-COVID, their balance sheets are in great shape. Yes, debt’s gone up a little bit, but not nearly at the pre-COVID levels. And therefore, even if we go into a recession, they’re going to be in much better shape than ’08 and ’09. Companies are in good shape. Credit’s very good. Markets are still open, though rocky and stuff like that. But you’ve got to — you can’t talk about the economy without talking about the stuff in the future, and this is serious stuff, okay. This is inflation, which, obviously, is changing the effect of those numbers that I just told you about, it’s rates going up more than people expected already and probably a little bit more from here, it’s QT, which we’ve never had before. So, therefore, the unknown effects, and you see it today in bond markets around the world and sovereign markets and people selling you a Treasury debt, and it’s the war. And these are very, very serious things which I think are likely to push the U.S. and the world — I mean, Europe is already in a recession — and then they’re likely to put the U.S. into some kind of a recession six, nine months from now.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett



 VIDEO

Exclusive — Michael Yon: Globalist-Driven Energy Crisis Has Put Europe on Brink of Freezing, Widespread Food Shortages... IS AMERICA NEXT UNDER BIDENOMICS???

Igor Ploskin / Getty Images Plus
Igor Ploskin / Getty Images Plus
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Michael Yon, a photojournalist specializing in war and a retired U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, said on Monday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow that the manufactured energy crisis in Europe will lead to famines and freezing across the continent.

The government-driven suppression of fossil fuels by “greenists” and “globalists,” Yon observed, inevitably drives up the costs of food due to inflation of nitrogen-based fertilizers and the logistical costs of transporting foodstuff commodities.

“We’re actually beyond the precipice at this point,” Yon stated. “We’re falling. It’s too late. There’s going to be famine, and the question is, ‘How big and how many people are going to get hit?'”

Fossil fuels cannot be replaced by alternatives marketed by the left as “green” and “renewable” sources of energy, Yon held.

He said, “Some people talk about energy as if everything’s interchangeable, as if solar panels and windmills and nuclear plants can replace natural gas, which [they] simply cannot.”

“Now, of the 26 major plants in Europe that produce nitrogen-based fertilizers, all of them are either closed down or almost closed down,” Yon added. “This will lead to famine. It’s just mathematics at this point.”

The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline exacerbated an ongoing energy crisis that had already driven Germans and others Europeans to cut down trees for use as heating fuel in winter. 

“People are going to literally freeze to death in Germany,” Yon warned. “They’re going to freeze, and then they’re going to starve,” he said of Poland and other European countries.

Yon projected that government-driven suppression of fertilizer production, marketed as a measure to combat “climate change,” will further drive famines in Brazil and India due to globalization of relevant supply chains.

“Countries like Brazil and India, who are entirely dependent on European nitrogen-based fertilizers, they’re simply going to have famine,” he remarked. “There’s just no way out of it at this point.”

Yon has repeatedly cautioned of a growing “triangle of death” and “human osmotic pressure” causing mass migration driven by globalist machinations: pandemics, famines, and wars.

Pandemics, famines, and war “go together,” he emphasized. “You get one, you always get the other two. There is no exception. If you get a large war or a large famine or a large pandemic, you will always get the other two. No exception.”

Yon concluded by highlighting his editorial independence built upon audience and reader support, including a professional fundraising campaign hosted on GiveSendGo.

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.

Poll: 62% Say Joe Biden’s Economy Getting Worse 29 Days from Election

US President Joe Biden speak about the economy and inflation from the deck of the USS Iowa at the Port of Los Angeles on June 10, 2022. - US inflation surged to a new four-decade high in May, defying hopes that price pressures had peaked and deepening President Joe Biden's …
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images, FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images, Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Sixty-two percent of voters say President Joe Biden’s economy is deteriorating just 29 days from the midterm elections, a Civiqs poll found Monday.

Only 17 percent of respondents say Biden’s economy is getting better. Seventeen percent say it is staying the same.

Seventy percent believe the current condition of Biden’s economy is very bad or fairly bad. Just 25 percent say it is very good or fairly good.

The Civiqs poll averaged 772,597 responses tracked between January 15, 2015 and October 9, 2022. The Civiqs tracking model captures the shifts in attitudes of various groups over time across all 50 states and Washington, DC. These changes can happen either rapidly or over time.

According to a recent Ipsos poll, 43 percent of Americans fear that inflation will continue to increase if the Democrat Party remains in power after the midterm election. Only 24 percent say the same of Republicans.

Inflation is the number one issue among voters. Surging costs have greatly impacted American families’ wallets. Seventy-one percent of employees are poorer under the weight of Biden’s inflation, up from 58 percent in February, a Bank of America-sponsored survey showed in September

A Heritage Foundation study showed Americans have lost $4,200 in annual income since Biden assumed office. Other experts project inflation will cost American families $5,520 in 2022.

Biden’s sagging economy is hurting his party’s chances of retaining the Senate. Biden’s average approval rating in seven of the top Senate swing states is underwater by an average of 15 points, a key midterm election bellwether that will impact November 8.

Because of the downward trajectory of the economy, the overall momentum appears to be in Republicans’ favor to retake the Senate. Democrats must either reclaim North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania or prevent Republicans from winning any of five currently held Democrat seats: Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona, or Washington State.

Recent polling shows Republicans tied or leading in Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia. In New Hampshire, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, Democrats appear to have a slight lead, though Republicans could take the lead in the coming weeks.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxECQyrWoSQ


The Democrats Wrecked My Retirement

If you're fortunate enough to lead a reasonably normal American life, things go something like this: you go through school and graduate from either high school or college, somewhere in the middle of the class.  You get a job, move out on your own, and meet your eventual spouse.  You marry, have a family, and work at a series of jobs to support yourself and others.  With any luck, you like (or at least tolerate) your chosen profession and derive a reasonable degree of satisfaction from having done pretty well.  Then, at some point in your 60s, you retire, with the expectation that your so-called golden years will be a 15- or 20-year span characterized by decent health; minimal financial pressures and obligations; and a general enjoyment of a more relaxed, leisurely pace.  Maybe there will be a few long-delayed material indulgences thrown in.  What the heck — you've earned those, right?  This is all the retirement that any of us really wants.

This describes me fairly well.  After having spent my working career in the consumer electronics and musical instrument industries in marketing, product development, and engineering management, I retired two years ago.  (By the way — if you need someone to design some killer new speakers for your stereo rig or play smokin' jazz drums at your daughter's wedding, I'm your guy.)  I was really looking forward to relaxing and enjoying my retirement, but the Democrats have ruined those plans.  I only get one retirement — just this one — and the Democrats have wrecked it.

Since I retired in 2020, this is what has happened, all courtesy of the Democrats:

COVID

Whether it was a legitimate mistake from sloppy lab practices in Wuhan or a deliberate plot by Communist China to upset the Western world or something else altogether, it descended upon the world like a ton of bricks dropped from the back of a huge construction dump truck.  Worldwide panic ensued.  The Democrats, utterly horrified that everything — everything — was going so well under President Trump that he'd easily win re-election that year, took advantage of the COVID scare to rewrite the presidential election voting procedures and execute their elaborately designed fraud plans.  Drop boxes, mail-in/absentee ballots that weren't cross-checked for proper signature ID, Democrat state legislatures illegally changing the voting deadlines to make post-election vote manipulation that much easier, etc. — all manner of voting fraud was committed under the guise of "COVID" and "public safety."  That ruse, the most blatant, damaging election gambit in American history, gave us this blitheringly incompetent, ideologically driven Biden administration.

Inflation

Biden printed billions of dollars to spread around and bribe voters, calling it "COVID relief," and paid people to stay home and not work.  Now, under Biden, we have 8–9% inflation and a labor participation rate that is the lowest it's been since the 1970s.  Prices are out of sight.  The supply chain has collapsed, and shortages of household staples have become so commonplace that it's just an accepted way of life in 2022.  The administration puts forth an abomination deceitfully labeled the "Inflation Reduction Act," knowing there is not one single thing in that bill that is intended to reduce inflation.  Now the Fed is raising interest rates to try to calm inflation.  In order for that to work, it has to crush consumer demand so suppliers will reduce their pricing in order to entice a weak and shrinking pool of customers to buy something.  Nice going, Joe.  My favorite salad dressing is hardly available these days because of supply shortages, and when I can find it, it's nearly double in price.

Shut Down Oil/Gas Industry

On Day One, Biden cut the legs out from under American energy independence.  Oil, gasoline, and natural gas prices skyrocketed.  Why did the administration do this?  Because they think it's cool and woke to be Green.  The Squad likes Green, and the administration wants to be "in" with that ilk and with the extreme voters who support that.  Green energy and renewables can't come close to supporting our energy needs and won't for the foreseeable future.  Remember, Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Obama, Gore, etc., etc. — none of them lives by Green rules.  But they expect you to.  All I know is, now that I'm a retiree, gasoline has gone from $2.11/gallon to $3.76/gallon.  And it'll be back over $4.00/gallon shortly, as soon as Biden's game-playing with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve runs out of tricks.  And we just got a letter from our electric company — in November, the rate per/kWh will double.  Double, just like that, for no reason.  Bad enough as a retiree.  Good thing I don't own a small business operating on a tight margin, like a restaurant or bakery or hair salon.

Unstable Foreign Policy

Biden is a weak, befuddled old man, clearly not in any semblance of control of his rapidly diminishing faculties.  You can practically hear our overseas adversaries licking their chops as they run roughshod over the remaining elements of proper international behavior and decorum, totally confident that the frighteningly senile Biden will not do anything to oppose them.  Would Putin have invaded Ukraine and be threatening the world with nuclear war were President Trump still in office?  Would Communist China be saber-rattling over Taiwan?  Would North Korea have resumed test-firing ballistic missiles?  Would Iran be shamelessly flaunting its nuclear progress?  Of course not.

All of the above has so rattled the investment markets (the Democrats can't fool the markets with their bogus smoke and mirrors) that the major indices have lost trillions (with a "T") of dollars in value.  Retirement accounts are in a shambles.  Two short years ago, things looked great.  Now there's a financial/investment canyon that will likely take ten years to recover from.  People in their mid- to late 50s will have to work much longer than they planned.  New retirees feel as if the rug has been pulled out from beneath them.

I'm just like millions of other Americans: I played by the rules, I worked hard for forty-plus years, I did right by my family, and I was a solid member of my community.  All I wanted was the modest retirement I had planned for.  But the Democrats wrecked it.  On purpose, and I'm mad as can be.

Image via Max Pixel.


IMF points to growing dangers in key area of financial system

A chapter in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Global Financial Stability Report prepared for this week’s semi-annual meeting in Washington has identified the source of a potential crisis for the global financial system.

It concerns the operation of open-ended investment funds (OEFs) which allow investors daily redemptions of their investments while the funds invest in long-term illiquid assets that cannot be turned quickly into cash.

Attendees walk inside an atrium at the 2022 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

The mismatch between the conflicting short-term and long-term nature of investments is a permanent feature of financial markets and has always been a major factor in financial turmoil.

But the growth of OEF funds means they have become much more significant in the past decade and a half.

Summarising their expansion, the report said: “Since the global financial crisis, there has been a remarkable growth in the open-ended investment funds. The total value of their net assets has quadrupled since 2008, reaching $41 trillion in the first quarter of 2022 and accounting for approximately one-fifth of the assets of the nonbank financial sector.”

While such funds play an important role in financial markets, it said, “those that offer daily redemptions while holding illiquid assets can amplify the effects of adverse shocks by raising the likelihood of investor runs and asset fire sales. This contributes to volatility in asset markets and potentially threatens financial stability.”

The rise of these funds exemplifies a now well-established process in which attempts by governments and regulatory authorities to control one area of disruption leads to its re-emergence in another area as finance capital, ever involved in the search for profit, seeks new avenues for speculation.

Major banks were at the centre of the financial crisis of 2008 and measures were put in place to curb some of their more egregious speculative activities. But as the IMF report explained, the growth of OEFs “reflects the increasing shift in financial intermediation from banks to nonbank financial institutions, which can be attributed at least in part to the tighter regulations on banks as well as balance sheet deleveraging following the global financial crisis.”

It noted that OEFs generally invest in equities in the advanced economies but “the share of funds investing in relatively less liquid assets, such as corporate bonds or emerging market bonds and equities, has been rising rapidly.

Financial stability concerns about OEFs arose during the financial market turmoil in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. The “resilience” of the sector “may be tested again if financial conditions tighten abruptly as central banks normalize the stance of monetary policy.”

Already the interest-rate hikes by the Fed and almost all other central banks, characterised by economic historian Adam Tooze as “the most comprehensive tightening of monetary policy the world has seen,” have resulted in large outflows from high-yield corporate bonds and emerging market equity and bond funds.

The IMF analysis noted that despite financial stability risks, “effective implementation of policy measures or regulatory authorities to mitigate the vulnerabilities associated with OEFs holding illiquid assets has been lacking.”

An existential problem facing any would-be reformers, however, is rooted in the very nature of this sector of the financial markets.

It was laid out by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney to a UK parliamentary hearing in June 2019—well before the pandemic and associated financial turmoil had appeared—into the collapse of a British equity fund.

The structure of such funds was a “big deal” and “you can see something that is systemic.”

“These funds are built on a lie, which is that you can have daily liquidity, and that for assets that fundamentally aren’t liquid.”

The lack of any adequate liquidity management by funds, the IMF report said, meant that “central banks have stepped in during episodes of severe markets stress to provide liquidity backstops to the financial sectors, including to OEFs.”

This phenomenon was again seen in the £65 billion bond buying program initiated by the Bank of England when UK pension funds were threatened with insolvency because of the collapse in bond prices, which they had used as collateral to obtain loans to finance operations in derivative markets.

There was the real prospect of a “doom loop” in which the funds had to sell long-dated government bonds, gilts, to meet margin calls from their lenders, threatening to send down bond prices even further and exacerbating the crisis.

The same scenario could play out in the OEF sector, the IMF report noted. Those holding illiquid assets may experience outflows in times of market stress forcing them to sell assets and putting further downward pressure on prices amid tightening financial conditions.

“Moreover, in the presence of herding by funds, trading activity in the same direction could exacerbate selling pressure” leading to depressed asset values, inducing “further redemptions and asset fire sales, amplifying the impact of the shocks.”

The liquidity of OEFs portfolios had “deteriorated dramatically during the March 2020 market turmoil and has been worsening in recent months.”

“The liquidity of funds’ portfolios worsened again in the first half of 2022, especially for high-yield and emerging markets bond funds. In fact, for the latter, liquidity reached levels similar to that observed in March 2020.”

OEFs are by no means the only source of the mounting crisis in the global financial system. Another is private equity funds which are heavy investors in so-called junk bonds, those which have a less than investment-grade rating but bring a higher rate of return.

As Financial Times (FT) columnist Gillian Tett has commented, junk bond prices “have recently tumbled” and it was not possible to track the true values of the assets held by private funds. “Maybe they are marking these down correctly. But I doubt it, particularly given that they are increasingly selling assets to each other. Expect a future reckoning.”

This phenomenon was highlighted in an article published last month in the FT citing comment by a top executive of the largest Danish pension fund in which he compared the private equity market to a pyramid scheme.

According to the report: “Mikkel Svenstrup, chief investment officer at ATP, said he was concerned because last year more than 80 percent of the sales of portfolio companies by the private equity funds that ATP has invested in were either to another buyout group or were ‘continuation fund’ deals, where a private equity group passes it between two different funds that it controls.”

Svenstrup used measured language. But he said this was “potentially” the start of a “pyramid scheme” before going on to describe what is taking place. “Everybody’s selling to each other… Banks are lending against it. These are the concerns I’ve been sharing,” he said.

The FT report noted that similar comments were made back in June by the chief investment officer at Amundi Asset Management, Vincent Mortier. He told a private equity conference in Cannes, that parts of the sector “look like a pyramid scheme in a way.”

That description can increasingly be applied to the financial system as a whole.

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