Over the decades we have
moved from an agricultural-based society to an industrial-centered
economy where manufacturing and services have become the dominant way of making a living. Now, we are
rapidly moving in the direction of technology becoming the main driver
of the economy and it is creating a huge cultural change. The economy is again undergoing a
metamorphosis. Over time, we tend to forget or minimize
in our minds that throughout history the growing pains flowing from such a change tend to batter society from every direction. These transformations also create a great deal of noise making it difficult to understand what is happening.
Please consider the possibility the important
adjustments the economy must make are lagging far behind our current
"financial culture" or that the economy has evolved in a way that simply
no longer works. Much of this has yet to become apparent to the masses and is masked by
institutions papering over problems. A tradition of optimism has
served mankind well, however, it has become clear something seems to be broken or out of
kilter. It does not help that things like stock buybacks and outright fraud are creating a situation that could at any minute spin out of control. Making matters worse is that the general population is oblivious to this, and conditioned to accept whatever they are told. To many people, this is the new normal.
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| The Titanic Was Herald As "Unsinkable" |
Much of the economic distortions we are experiencing today harken back to President Richard Nixon's decision on August 15, 1971, to close the gold window. It is a factor that changed everything. While US citizens had been forbidden from owning gold or from redeeming their gold certificates for gold coins since the early 1930s, foreign governments still had the privilege of redeeming their dollars for gold. Nixon's decision untethering the dollar from gold and releasing it from the promise dollars could be redeemed in gold, this resulted in opening the floodgates and allowed credit to explode from $1.7 trillion to $65.5 trillion at the end of 2015.
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| Exploding Credit Will Have Massive Ramifications |
More recently due to Covid-19, we have built on breaking the financial system's ties with the past by casting away all budgetary and money supply restraints. A question we must ask is just how relevant today's comparisons are
with prior
economic cycles? The situation today is in many ways "historically
unique" due to the rampant expansion of credit in recent decades. How do you even begin to compare or factor in the amount of stimulus America's "trillion-dollar-plus" deficits have added to the economy? These amounts boggle the mind and are hundreds of times larger than what we were seeing before 2008.
It could be argued that much of what we are witnessing today is rooted in Nixon's
decision to close the gold window. That move unleashed many forces that are greatly responsible for the
rising income inequality that has occurred in recent decades. After
inflation soared in the late 70s America found the cost inflation in
goods could be reduced by buying these things from low-cost producers
located in other countries. This means imports soared.
IT has not helped that America has adopted a de facto policy of placing no restraints on trade
deficits.
Nixon's actions coupled with America's decision decades ago to make China into a formidable ally that would act as a counterbalance against Russia and the Kremlin have shaped the world. Back then, we offered economic incentives to help China's economy, looking back this was a watershed event that changed the way American companies conducted business. It has resulted in American companies outsourcing production and the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs from America to distant lands where labor was both cheap and abundant.
Our free trade policy was sold to
America's middle-class as a "win-win situation" and we were told the
American worker would move up the economic food chain towards
better-paying jobs that would be more fulfilling and require less toil.
This did not happen, the large companies that shape legislation have indeed benefited to a great extent while the average American has not.
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| Many Comparisons With The Past Now Obsolete |
Returning to the main theme of this article, the massive expansion of the financial system has rendered many comparisons with the past obsolete. It has also resulted in the economy embarking on a roller-coaster-like experience where it encountered a series of events such as the dot-com bubble, which burst in 2001. In reaction, the Greenspan Fed stepped on the gas blowing the biggest housing bubble on record. In response to that asset bubble popping, we saw the Fed bail out the banks, the asset holders, and the wealthy.
The sorry fact is that in the end, this chain of events left the average American worse off than before. During all this time debt has grown, and to service that growing pile of debt the Fed had to keep slashing interest rates. This means that instead of allowing consumers to benefit from technological advances that tend to be inherently deflationary, the Fed has sought to increase inflation by declaring inflation in the range of 2% to be in our best interest. This has benefited the banks and those already wealthy while at the same time massively increased inequality.
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| Today Is "Historically Unique" |
While investors are often urged to be cautious the excesses of today are in many ways not as "sector" oriented as those experienced during certain periods we have seen in the past and this makes staying anchored more difficult. It seems everything is encouraging and causing both savers and investors to take far more risk than they should in the quest for higher returns and yields. The "fear of missing" out is again running rampant and with the strategy of buying the dip having proven successful over almost a decade investors have become complacent to the risk they face.
Republishing this article is permitted with reference to Bruce Wilds/AdvancingTime Blog
I agree with what is written here but then again it all boils down to the money system the US Government agreed to and accepted on Jekyll Island a century ago. The Banksters promised politicians they would be offered a credit card with unlimited funds. As such the debt would exponentially grow over time to the point of what we are facing today. The debt is NOW so large it will never be repaid.
ReplyDeleteWe are at the point where a trillion dollars sounds normal. In the 60's and 70's if you were a millionaire you were in an exclusive club. Now that's been replaced by a billionaire and a common billionaire is quietly being replaced by a multi-billionaire.
Just look at the obscene amounts of digital dollars the US Government throws around each year. Since the pandemic they have dumped trillions into the system just to keep it from collapsing. Now trillions are being spent every month. It keeps accelerating until it finally stops. This isn't doom and gloom but just simple math.
Eventually the world figures out that all the fiat currencies are backed by nothing but faith and a promise which is unsustainable and that 1+1 doesn't equal 12.
Excellent interview with Michael Pento: "Fed Kills The Economy"
ReplyDeletehttps://usawatchdog.com/fed-kills-the-economy-michael-pento/
Something important is missing from this picture. After Nixon decoupled the Dollar from gold, because the wars in South East Asia proved too costly, the Dollar was in bad shape. He and Kissinger came up with a terrific plan, to replace gold by ‘black gold’, or oil, through striking a deal with OPEC. Those oil producing countries would sell every barrel of oil against Dollars, and nothing but Dollars. In exchange the US would guarantee those countries ‘safety’. In those days Iran was still very much oriented towards the US, after a successful anti-democratic coup, set-up by the US and Britain, which ousted the elected social democrat Mohammad Mossadeq.
ReplyDeleteThe US made a killing. It had fresh buyers for its weapons, and the remaining Dollars earned were ‘invested’ in stocks traded on Wallstreet, with plenty of ‘advisors’ to lend them a hand. Any country in need of oil, outside the Soviet block, had to find a way to earn Dollars, to pay for the oil. So they had to sell to Americans, who payed with freshly printed money, while skimming the earnings of non-American companies through ‘financial services’, and ‘buying’ lucrative ‘patents’ and ‘rights’ at will.
The first set-back was Iran dropping out after a revolt against the tyrannical, and megalomaniac Shah, throwing extravagant parties, despite the Israeli secret service watching his back. Then something else happened. To hand the Soviets their own ‘Vietnam’, the US sided with the Saudi’s to build Al Qaida, which proved to be a huge success. Apart from the fact that we were now arming and managing a bunch of Muslim extremists, and we had no use for Afghanistan, yet.
Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and the ‘Harvard-Boys’ were send over to secure Russia as a ‘fuel station’, while remaining production of user goods was already exported to China, when Japan and Europe became too expensive. The US increasingly saw itself as the ‘policeman of the world’, as well as the ultimate force shaping the demand for ‘user goods’. Specs and design of ‘tech-stuff’ were (initially) American, but production was already outsourced. Now even that is gone. What is left, is military might, and a lust to export ‘lifestyles’ which are getting weirder by the day, with no takers outside Europe, and then only reluctantly.
What is listed as ‘tech’ these days, isn’t technological, but it revolves around ‘scientific’ concepts of finding smart ways to make people dig their own personal hole, and hide in it, labeled ‘social’ media. Or it is a logistical ‘station’ distributing Chinese made stuff, such as Amazon and all the courier services. This militarily fortified ‘service station’ is running on empty, since printing more Dollars is a finite option. Especially as the ‘PetroDollar’ is on its last legs. Hopefully it will not end in tears when ‘someone’ decides it is time to use the military in earnest.