The second warning sign is that we're seeing Rising Wedge formations appearing in the major equity indices as we see in this chart…

If you have not yet read Part 1: Why The Coming Oil Crunch Will Shock The World available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

As I’ve written extensively in the past, there are four entire years of missing upstream oil and gas investment (2014—2017) that will lead to an equivalent period of missing oil and gas supply sometime in the future. With the usual 5-7-year lag between discovery and production, my time frame for that was somewhere between the end of 2018 and 2022.

When — not if — that supply shock hits, there is no amount of fresh investment money that can rapidly bring new supply on line. Doing so just takes time — measured in quarters or years:

As we enter into the second half of 2018, the supply/demand balance has already tipped into a slight deficit. I am clearly predicting that:

1. this supply imbalance will only get worse, and that
2. oil prices will have to rise to compensate.

The only development that could possibly prevent this from happening would be a rip-roaring recession, as only economic decline has proven to be able to reduce demand by as much as will needed to avoid this supply crunch.

As we can see from the below chart, the world has been…

If you have not yet read Part 1: The End Of Stimulus? (And The Start Of The Crash?), available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Suddenly everywhere we look in the emerging markets, we're seeing things quickly get out of hand. EM currencies are plunging and their bonds are being sold hard. It’s a broad-based sell-off. 

Expect similar disruptions in the EM equity markets soon. The collapse progression is always the same: currency first, bonds second, then equites.

Our view of what’s happening in the EM universe is that the carry trades are unwinding. What this means is that the big piles of money unleashed on the world by the OECD central banks are turning tail and running away from the periphery (EMs)  and back towards the core (US, EU).

The virtuous part of this cycle for the EM countries was that big funds would borrow in a major currency, like the dollar or euro, and then buy a particular EM currency (causing that currency to strengthen) as well as its debt (causing those bond prices to rise).

The opposite and unhappy part of that story is when that whole things gets reversed. A vicious cycle is initiated which causes the bonds of the EM country to be sold, jacking up EM interest rates, and then the currency is sold (weakening it), and then dollars/euros are bought again causing those major currencies to strengthen.

That’s the pattern we're seeing right now and it’s consistent with the falling global liquidity markets are experiencing, which indicates that a big problem is brewing.

For several EM countries, as well as weaker players in Europe and the American lower and middle classses, that problem has already arrived.

We see clear evidence of it in…

If you have not yet read Part 1: The Economy Is Cooked, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

One of my bigger 'learnings' from writing The Crash Course in book form was the deepening of my appreciation for the utter importance of energy to our way of life and to the process of creating (and maintaining) wealth. 

I spent time reacquainting myself with the laws of thermodynamics and came away with a far more focused view of the predicament in which we find ourselves.

I know that 'using the term thermodynamics' may sound awfully bookish or geeky, but it's by far the most important concept if one wants to understand the role of energy in our economy and why our economy will almost certainly fail to operate well in a world of declining net energy.

The laws of thermodynamics have never been violated by humans, not even for a millisecond.  Just like the law of gravity, they just exist as something we can either pay attention to, or not.  Our choice.  But they cannot be violated. At least, they haven't yet; so betting on a future where such laws have been repealed by human ingenuity would not be, shall we say, a sound wager.

A problem with the laws of thermodynamics is that they require a little bit of study to understand and they are loaded with wacky jargon which masks some very simple ideas.  Gravity is easy – all one has to do to appreciate it is get a few feet off the ground – the farther the better – in order for the reptilian portions of the brain to kick in and take over and make you very, very aware of gravity's potential consequences. Unfortunately, the laws of thermodynamics are less obvious, and we don't have a hard-wired evolutionary pathway that will force awareness upon us.  We have to come by an appreciation of the laws intellectually.

The first law simply states that..

If you have not yet read Part 1: If You Die From The Coronavirus, What Will Happen To Your Assets? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

If you’re married, have children, or if your assets exceed your debts, having an estate plan in place is highly advised, as detailed in Part 1. In my opinion, not having one is just plain irresponsible, and unjust to those you’ll leave behind when you die.

Here in Part 2, I’ll walk you through the key elements to consider including in your will and living trust, the bedrock components of most estate plans. This information will be useful whether you already have these legal documents in place or not.

Before I do though, let me make a few things absolutely clear. This is NOT personal legal/financial advice. I’m not an estate lawyer nor a tax accountant. And while much of the material presented below will be applicable to the vast majority, your own unique personal situation may require customizations and complexities that are best determined by a licensed professional. Also, estate law differs from state to state. So treat the direction within this article as instructive education only.

As always, we recommend working with professional advisers when building important legal/tax/financial plans customized to your own needs and objectives. When the stakes are high, the relatively small fees you pay for expert advice is well worth the price.

As an FYI, Peak Prosperity’s endorsed financial advisor is well-versed in the estate planning process. If you’d like to tap their expertise about your personal situation, or enlist their guidance in determining how to select the right estate law and tax professionals to help you, you can schedule a free consultation with them here.

Suffice it to say, we recommend your estate plan, however it ultimately gets created, undergo review by a professional before you finalize it. Am I being excessively repetitive here in order to drive this point home? Good.

With that clarification, here’s what you need to get started… (Enroll now to continue reading)

Since publishing my recent critique Russia Did It!, with all of Europe now backing the new 'dodgy dossier' episode, and Russia's ambassadors and foreign minister unable to to even have a reasonable dialog, I observe that the possibility of war between the West and Russia sadly continues to increase.  

As in 1911, there are a lot of inexplicably dumb reasons for all of this, so let's pick them apart one by one.