The Empire of Illusion and the Doom Index Rises

 

Poor Man Survival

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The Empire of Illusion and the Doom Index Rises

"To preserve independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

-- Thomas Jefferson

An abbreviated excerpt from 2009 by prize winning New York Times journalist Chris Hedges…

“…The country’s moral decay is manifested in its physical day.

 

It is no coincidence that our infrastructure – roads, bridges, sewers, airports, trains, mass transit – is overburdened [our electrical grid is as well], outdated and in dismal repair.  Cities are plagued by broken pipes and sinkholes.  The EPA estimates that collapsing sewer systems release more than 40,000 discharges of raw sewage into our drinking water and homes each year.

 

The Education Dept. found that one-third of our schools are in such a state of disrepair [even worse in Detroit] that it interferes with the delivery of instruction.  Half of all the bankruptcies in America occur because people are unable to pay their medical bills – [despite having insurance].  And staggering unemployment, declining wages, declining real estate values, and shuttered retail stores and factories span the nation.  This past week more than 3,000 retailers announced coming closures.

 

The U.S. supports 761 military bases around the globe to support our mission to be the global policeman and to impose our values, by force on the world.  This expensive belief has corrupted both Republicans and Democrats.  We can no longer afford this.  Home foreclosures, job losses, poverty ripping apart the working classes, our crumbling infrastructure…hollowing us out from the inside at home.

 

The daily bleeding of middle class jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis.  The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled Greece and other parts of Europe will descend on us at some point and that point is coming soon and will plunge us into a long period of social instability…at no period of our history has there been such peril, such an income gap or the possibility of totalitarianism as real is it is now.  Our children will never have the standard of living we have. 

 

This is reality.  It cannot be undone with trillions of bailout money.  How we will cope or our children?

 

>>Personally, I feel the divisions are deep in this nation and our republic is at risk of permanently fracturing.  The Democrats openly talk of shutting down free speech and engage in acts of political obstructionism and we could easily be headed for more mass social unrest and turmoil-perhaps even complete chaos and a world depression.

 

It’s no secret to those who are paying attention that President Trump has inherited a financial mess from President Obama.

 

1.      Stock markets are at record highs yet corporate profits are dropping and the retail sector is hurting.

2.      Home prices are rising yet household incomes are falling and many cannot qualify for a mortgage.  The housing market is worth more than $26 trillion-the largest asset class in the world.  The Economist Magazine says it poses great danger for the U.S. and the world due to its massive concentration of debt.  Some are predicting that housing prices will start to fall again, sliding as much as 50% over several years... the so-called "recovery" over the last few years will diminish faster than an ice cube on a hot summer day, as mortgage rates rise and the wrong group of investors -- the speculators -- lose their taste for the market.

3.      College tuition is rising to astronomical levels [$1.3 trillion] while decent paying jobs are vanishing and college loan payments will likely swamp an entire generation. 

4.      Unemployment will surge again as the work pool continues to shrink and companies lean towards employing people with experience (something students entering the workforce obviously lack).

5.      With continued demographic decline, economic hardship, and their budgets in crisis, many state and municipal governments will be forced into default, especially at the city and county level. Detroit was only the first...

  

Auto inventories are starting to balloon due to declining sales and with six and seven year auto loans we’re seeing buyers who are literally upside down on their auto loans!  The industry has been pushing leases with ridiculously low mileage terms of measly 10,000 mile leases before additional fee-per-mile rates kick in!

 

 

 

Congress Will Have 4 Days To Avoid A Government Shutdown On April 29

The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now forecasting model is now projecting that U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter of 2017 will be just 0.6 percent on an annualized basis.

That is absolutely pathetic, and as I have said before, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we actually end up with a negative number for the first quarter.

If we do indeed get a negative number for the first quarter and that is followed by another negative number for the second quarter, that will mean that a new recession has already started right now but we just haven’t gotten official confirmation yet.

And lots of other things are already happening which have not happened since the last recession.  For instance, this is the first time since the last financial crisis when there has been no growth for commercial and industrial lending for at least six months.

In addition, commercial bankruptcies spiked during the last recession, and now it is happening again…

Commercial bankruptcy filings, from corporations to sole proprietorships, spiked 28% in March from February, the largest month-to-month move in the data series of the American Bankruptcy Institute going back to 2012.

Of course consumer bankruptcies are rising at an alarming rate as well.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

In December, bankruptcy filings rose 4.5% from a year earlier. In January they rose 5.4%. It was the first time consumer bankruptcies rose back-to-back since 2010. I called it “a red flag that’ll be highlighted only afterwards as a turning point.”

In March, consumer bankruptcy filings rose 4% year-over-year, to 77,900, the highest since March 2015, when 79,000 filings occurred, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute data.  The turning point has now been confirmed.

U.S. credit card debt has just surpassed the one trillion dollar mark, a major crisis has arrived for the U.S. auto industry, thousands of retail stores are closing all over America, our pension funds are underfunded by trillions of dollars, and the U.S. national debt is now sitting at a grand total that is just shy of 20 trillion dollars.

The cost of living continues to escalate – examples include skyrocketing rates for health care premiums, home-owners insurance premiums, college tuition and costs.  Most Americans will be blindsided by another major recession as they never learned a thing from the last one in 2008-2009.  According to CBS News, an astounding three-fourths of all Americans have to “scramble to cover their living costs” each month.

 

SIDEBAR

 

Doom index says beware

"This is an economy that depends on bank lending. If it slows, so does the economy. And credit growth is falling at a rate not seen since 2008..."

http://thecrux.com/doom-index-says-beware/

 

Economists: All the bubbles are ready to bust »
President Donald Trump's election and a subsequent boost in market activity have many former economic doomsters feeling rosy about the nation's financial future. But serious observers remain concerned that the temporary turnaround will only make the impending economic doomsday more painful. More »

 

Prepare For The Coming War: “It’s Going To Obliterate The Global Financial System… Our Economy Will Not Survive”

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/prepare-for-the-coming-war-its-going-to-obliterate-the-global-financial-system-our-economy-will-not-survive_042017

 

Trump is the perfect Chaos President

 

Whether he likes it or not, President Trump could find himself either managing the bankruptcy of the United States [after all, he’s plenty of experience doing this in his business life] or the Federal Reserve continues to create massive amounts of money to pay our debt, thereby hyper-inflating [and devaluing] the U.S. dollar.

 

Neither option is attractive and will create pain for the American people for decades. 

·         It will do us no good to live in ignorance or denial of these developments and their implications, as most Americans are now doing. The … approaching global financial meltdown; the potential for war as discussed above; the potential for martial law and/or an emerging dictatorship in America orchestrated by the political left and the globalist Establishment are all sobering subjects that should not be ignored.

·         If things do go really badly in the not-too-distant future (and this writer hopes and prays that they will not) – are you and your family prepared for very hard or dangerous times? The great majority of Americans are not, and will panic and beg the government to bail them out and stop the pain – the same government that caused the problems in the first place. Are you prepared for hard times in the following ways?

·         Are you prepared for a financial collapse and depression? Is most of your money, life savings, retirement funds, or net worth still in the system – in banks, in the stock market, in your 401k or pension fund? If so, you are not prepared! Do you have 25-50% of your liquid net worth in physical gold and silver? If not, you are not prepared! Have you positioned some of your net worth outside of the US just in case Big Brother becomes"grabby" for your assets? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have enough cash set aside outside of the banks for you and your family to survive for at least 3-6 months? If not, then you are not prepared!

·         Are you prepared for martial law or a dictatorship – by and for the political left and the globalist Establishment that now controls almost every aspect of America? Do you have a rural, small town, remote living option in the event that the major cities become very dangerous or unlivable, or in the event of total martial law? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have likeminded friends who do understand the times (and are not living in denial) whom you can cooperate with and who can be of mutual assistance and support in very difficult times? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have up-to-date passports for every member of your family in the event that you need to suddenly exit the country in the coming crisis? If not, then you are not prepared!

·         Are you prepared for a long period of turbulence, social unrest, acute shortages of everything (including food)? Do you have at least six months (or more) of food reserves, or the ability to be self-sustaining by growing your own food (which will be very difficult if you live in a major city)? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have enough firearms (pistols, rifles, shotguns) and ammunition to protect your family in a long-term period of violence or unrest? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have alternate means of communications in the event that the Internet and phone system are not functioning in an extended crisis? If not, then you are not prepared!

·         Do you have an understanding of alternate/natural/herbal medicine in the event that the medical system becomes paralyzed in a crisis? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have some kind of shelter you could go into in the event of a nuclear attack – similar to the Swiss, who have such a shelter in every home? If not, then you are not prepared!

·         Are you prepared for long periods of isolation, stress, and very fearful conditions?

The fate of the so-called "Trump Trade" – the big rally in the U.S. dollar, stocks, and interest rates driven by expectations on higher growth and inflation – will likely depend on what happens over the next few months.

If Trump and the Republican Congress can deliver on his "big three" policy proposals – tax reform, regulatory reform, and infrastructure spending – we could see a new era of growth (and potentially a lot of inflation).

If they fail, we could slide back into a serious recession (or worse).

 We believe tax reform could be the most critical of the three… This coming debate could determine the future of the U.S. economy for the next few decades.  It always seems we’re on a roller coaster!

Finally, what is ironic to me are the writers and groups supported by In These Times and  Jim Hightower and his newsletter, Lowdown who preach anti-Trump anger and strategies to disrupt his administration [I subscribe to many left-wing periodicals in order to gain insight into to their idiocy].  Their ilk preaches hate and resistance but little or nothing about constructive alternatives.  They’re two-bit protestors and as witnessed during Trumps’ swearing in ceremony, they’re nothing more than common thugs and vandals.

Hats off to the McAlvany Memo of Phoenix, AZ for portions of this report!

Yours for a productive 2017,

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 

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