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wealth

by Chris Martenson

David Stockman, former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, and veteran financier is an insider's insider. Few people understand the ways in which both Washington DC and Wall Street work and intersect better than he does.

In his upcoming book, Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin…And How to Bring it Back, Stockman lays out how we have devolved from a free market economy into a managed one that operates for the benefit of a privileged few. And when trouble arises, these few are bailed out at the expense of the public good.

Stockman brings us his report of what 30 years of politics, degenerative crony capitalism and “bubble finance” have finally wrought. The upheaval and crossroads represented by Donald Trump’s candidacy spell economic disaster or resurgence, depending on the steps America chooses to take from here.

David Stockman: America Now Lives Under A ‘Perverted Regime’
by Chris Martenson

David Stockman, former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, and veteran financier is an insider's insider. Few people understand the ways in which both Washington DC and Wall Street work and intersect better than he does.

In his upcoming book, Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin…And How to Bring it Back, Stockman lays out how we have devolved from a free market economy into a managed one that operates for the benefit of a privileged few. And when trouble arises, these few are bailed out at the expense of the public good.

Stockman brings us his report of what 30 years of politics, degenerative crony capitalism and “bubble finance” have finally wrought. The upheaval and crossroads represented by Donald Trump’s candidacy spell economic disaster or resurgence, depending on the steps America chooses to take from here.

by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Desperate central banks are dangerous central banks
  • Why wealth disparity will get worse
  • The list of what comes next as central banks lose control
  • What you should do in advance

If you have not yet read When This Ends, Everybody Gets Hurt available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What’s really happened since 2008 is that central banks decided that a little more printing with the possibility of future pain was preferable to immediate pain.  Behavioral economics tells us that this is exactly the decision we should always expect from humans. History says as much, too.

It’s just how people are wired. We’ll almost always take immediate gratification over deferred, and similarly choose to defer consequences into the future, especially if there’s even a ridiculously slight chance they won’t materialize.

So instead of noting back in 2008 that it was unwise to have been borrowing at twice the rate of our income growth for the past several decades — which would have required a lot of very painful belt-tightening — the decision was made to ‘repair the credit markets’ which is code speak for: ‘keep doing the same thing that got us in trouble in the first place.’

Also known as the ‘kick the can down the road’ strategy, the hoped-for saving grace was always a rapid resumption of organic economic growth. That’s how the central bankers rationalized their actions. They said that saving the banks and markets today was imperative, and that eventually growth would return, justifying all of the new debt layered on to paper-over the current problems.

Of course, they never explained what would happen if that growth did not return. And that’s because the whole plan falls apart without really robust growth to pay for it all.

And by ‘fall apart’ I mean utter wreckage of the bond and equity markets, along with massive institutional and sovereign defaults. That was always the risk, and now we’re at the point where…

The Consequences Playbook
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Desperate central banks are dangerous central banks
  • Why wealth disparity will get worse
  • The list of what comes next as central banks lose control
  • What you should do in advance

If you have not yet read When This Ends, Everybody Gets Hurt available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What’s really happened since 2008 is that central banks decided that a little more printing with the possibility of future pain was preferable to immediate pain.  Behavioral economics tells us that this is exactly the decision we should always expect from humans. History says as much, too.

It’s just how people are wired. We’ll almost always take immediate gratification over deferred, and similarly choose to defer consequences into the future, especially if there’s even a ridiculously slight chance they won’t materialize.

So instead of noting back in 2008 that it was unwise to have been borrowing at twice the rate of our income growth for the past several decades — which would have required a lot of very painful belt-tightening — the decision was made to ‘repair the credit markets’ which is code speak for: ‘keep doing the same thing that got us in trouble in the first place.’

Also known as the ‘kick the can down the road’ strategy, the hoped-for saving grace was always a rapid resumption of organic economic growth. That’s how the central bankers rationalized their actions. They said that saving the banks and markets today was imperative, and that eventually growth would return, justifying all of the new debt layered on to paper-over the current problems.

Of course, they never explained what would happen if that growth did not return. And that’s because the whole plan falls apart without really robust growth to pay for it all.

And by ‘fall apart’ I mean utter wreckage of the bond and equity markets, along with massive institutional and sovereign defaults. That was always the risk, and now we’re at the point where…

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