Economy

I am on my way home from Denver, where the ASPO conference was held, and I had the opportunity to speak to a truly distinguished group of individuals.  My short talk was on “what comes next,” and it can be viewed at ASPO.tv (if you are registered and logged in).

What I talked about was the notion that if we are going to have any chance of a secure future together, we are going to need to have a coordinated, massive social movement – perhaps larger than any seen before.  The vision we have here at Martenson central is that we are seeking to create “true prosperity.”

That’s it.  True prosperity.  That’s what we seek to create.

More coming up on that soon.

In the meantime, I want to welcome all the new enrolled members and let you know that the Martenson Insider is the place where I put my more frequent (and less polished) ideas and observations as each week unfolds.  Sometimes the concepts placed here make it into the weekly Martenson Report, but not always.

There was a short report put out by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that really caught my eye.  It seems that their results confirm my own:  Central banks have been buying more than their fair share of US government debt.

It is safe to say that if it weren’t for the massive interventions of central banks, the US fiscal situation would be entirely different.

How much different?  Well, according to the CFR calculations, central banks (called “official buyers”) bought more than 100% of all US government debt offered in 2009, while “economic buyers” (defined as those who actually care about whether they make or lose money) were net sellers.

This is a piece that I wrote in response to a request for a guest authorship over at ZeroHedge.  It builds on a point, made in yesterday’s piece, that Switters thought had not yet been fully addressed elsewhere in the great Inflation/Deflation debate.  

I am interested in your thoughts on this line of thinking.  I will send it over to ZeroHedge later on.

My central thesis to this crisis, developed a few years before it even hit, is that the economic troubles are the symptoms, while the money system itself is the cause.

The prior Martenson report on housing covered inventory (supply) and prices.  Lots of news has recently come out that I want to add to the story.  The breaking news in this area is coming a furious pace these days.

This first is an estimate of shadow inventory, and it’s something of a shocker.  Where I had suspected that inventory was being understated “by a few million,” I did not think that it was as high as 7 million.

One of the harder things to do these days is to try and make sense of all the contradictory statements and data.

Earlier this week, we found out that mass layoff actions were up sharply in August.  But today we found out that unemployment claims have been trending down for months.  Which is right?  Can they both be right?

First, the mass layoff data:

The Federal Reserve policy statement yesterday was a masterful blend of contradictory words and ideas.