My morning train WFH reads:

• The White House is killing one of our strongest exports: Higher Education: The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates. (Washington Post)

• China Has an Army of Robots on Its Side in the Tariff War: Enormous investments in factory equipment and artificial intelligence are giving China an edge in car manufacturing and other industries. (New York Times) see also Five-Minute EV Charging Is Here, but Not for U.S.-Made Cars: CATL’s and BYD’s rapid-charging technologies underscore China’s dominance in the EV sector, a technological priority for Xi Jinping (Wall Street Journal)

• The Things That Make You Money: Holding is the hardest part because it combines all the feelings and potential regrets that can arise from both buying and selling. Howard Marks once wrote, “It’s not the things you buy and sell that make you money; it’s the things you hold.” (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Why Florida’s Condo Owners Are So Desperate to Sell: Insurance increases, special assessments and limited financing options have elevated costs beyond what many can bear (Wall Street Journal)

• When Heirs Say ‘No Thanks’ to Art and Collectibles: Cerity Partners’ Natalia Tchetchoulina on the do’s and don’ts of passing those vintage cars, paintings, or jewelry to your heirs. (Barron’s)

• Swiss banks are back in style for rich Americans (Thank Trump): Americans worried about volatile U.S. markets and a weakening dollar are looking to diversify their portfolios abroad. (Quartz)

• For Greenland’s Minerals, the Harsh Reality Behind the Glittering Promise: There is excitement about the potentially lucrative resources scattered around the island, especially the rare earths. But extreme weather, fired-up environmentalists and other factors have tempered hopes of a bonanza. (New York Times)

• Scientists Are Mapping the Bizarre, Chaotic Spacetime Inside Black Holes: By understanding the churning region near singularities, physicists hope they might be able to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. (Wired)

• Democrats Should Seize on the Tariff Flop: The economic chaos is giving the opposition party a prime opportunity to push back against autocracy. (Vanity Fair) see also James Carville: How to Turn Trump’s Economic Chaos Against Him: The problem is that smoke and mirrors only work until you screw up so hard that no act of lunacy can pull the American people’s attention elsewhere. And boy, did the president just screw up royally. (New York Times)

• Jeff Bridges Just Gave His Blessing To A ‘Big Lebowski’ Theory That Donnie Isn’t Real: It’s one thing to read a fan theory on Reddit. It’s another to hear Jeff Bridges unpack it live, like it’s just something he’s been casually chewing on for years, as The Big Lebowski keeps aging like White Russian-soaked folklore, somehow getting deeper, weirder, and more beloved by Little Achievers like myself every year. (BroBible)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Jeff Becker, Chairman and CEO of Jennison Associates (a division of PGIM).
The firm was founded in 1969. Prior to joining Jennison in 2016 as CEO, Becker was CEO of Voya Investment Management.

 

Poll: Americans sour on the economy

Source: Reuters

 

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The post 10 Thursday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Trump Trade War Results In Record $12 Billion Surge In Customs Revenues

Sometimes, especially when stocks are tumbling, bond yields are soaring and the dollar looks like it is about to lose its reserve currency (and be replaced by what: the yuan? the euro? the turkish lira?), it is easy to forget what is the driving motive behind Trump's trade war. And in a nutshell, it is this chart: US debt which at $37 trillion is unsustainable, and which is growing at a pace which everyone - not just the bipartisan CBO, but also the Fed, the IMF, Elon Musk, the shoeshine boy, literally everyone - knows for a fact is catastrophically unsustainable.

But while everyone knows something has to be done to avoid a devastating catastrophe, until Trump came along nobody would dare do a thing to change the current status quo for the obvious abovementioned reasons: any attempt to restructure or even modestly adjust US debt-funded "growth", which transforms roughly $1 trillion of debt every 100 days into less than $200 billion of economic output...

... would lead to tumbling stocks, soaring bond yields and the dollar trading like it's the Turkish lira. Kinda like right now.

But the US had to start somewhere, and Trump did that amid the now familiar howls of terror from market participants (how dare Trump do something that trades long-term viability for short-term pain), the co-opted mainstream media and of course establishment economists, all of whom agree something must be done... just not this and not now.

Still, with nothing to lose, the 2nd term president has started off on a path of doing something, and while nobody knows where and how it all ends, we have some good news: it is starting to bear fruit, in the form of a huge surge in customs revenues.

According to today's Daily Treasury Statement, on April 22, the US collected a record $11.7 billion in "customs and certain excise taxes"...

... the biggest one day haul on record. To be sure, this is not a "one-day collection", but rather is a monthly accrual and is more indicative of the monthly total (which stands at about $15.4 billion).

But hHowever one looks at it, the amount is certainly impressive and is double the previously monthly total, and about six times greater than the pre-Trump 1.0 monthly total in the $2BN ballpark. And this is just the start: once more layered tariffs start being collected, the monthly customs revenue will double again, rising to $25bn, $30bn, and so on... numbers which start to matter in the grand scheme of things.

In other words, while one can rage against Trump's policies and mean tweets, he is the only one who is doing something to prevent an outcome which everyone agrees will be catastrophic... but because it is "some time in the future" as opposed to pain right now, everyone would much rather have the next generation of Americans foot the bill and deal with the catastrophic fallout. Or, one can do something about it, and while it will take much, much more than even the above stunning doubling in customs collections, the chart above represents what America has long needed: a painful start in the right - and sustainable - direction.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/24/2025 - 00:04

Stop All Federal Funding Of Universities

Authored by Connor O'Keeffe via The Mises Institute,

The Trump administration has found itself in a dispute with Harvard University. It began when the President’s team sent several Ivy League universities a list of changes they expected the schools to make.

The move is part of a new right-wing strategy which recognizes that we currently live under a vague, necessarily politicized system of civil rights law and aims to begin interpreting civil rights laws in ways more in line with the values and social aims of the right.

By threatening to withhold federal funds, the administration was able to get schools like Columbia University to agree to enact changes like banning masks, granting campus police more powers, and appointing an administrator to oversee the Middle East Studies Department with the authority to crack down on rhetoric about Israel that the administration considers antisemitic.

Harvard, however, refused to abide by the administration’s demands. As a result, Trump froze a little over $2 billion in federal funds going to the school last week and announced plans to freeze an additional $1 billion earlier this week—all while threatening to withhold all $9 billion the Ivy League school receives from the federal government each year if they refuse to agree to the President’s demands.

The showdown is largely being framed as either a battle to protect academic freedom from an authoritarian president or an overdue effort to rescue one of the nation’s oldest universities from the radical far-left administrators leading it off course.

But as politicians, pundits, and university officials battle over which characterization is accurate and, therefore, what ought to happen next, few are paying any attention to one of the more outrageous details that this dispute has brought attention to: that taxpayers are being forced to send $9 billion a year to one of the wealthiest colleges in the world.

The $9 billion figure comes from several federal programs—including education initiatives, student aid, research grants, student loan guarantees, and funding for the university’s affiliated hospitals. 

Much of this funding is composed of multi-year grants and contracts, but the annual figure does, indeed, tend to land around $9 billion.

And that’s just Harvard. Zoom out, and you’ll find that those same federal programs are forcing the over-taxed, heavily-indebted, inflation-rattled American public to send well over $100 billion to colleges and universities every single year.

Conservatives and free-market advocates are right to point out whenever the topic of student debt forgiveness is brought up that such a program is, in effect, a wealth transfer from poorer, working-class Americans without college degrees to their better-off, frequently white-collar, college-educated counterparts. But the same is true for all programs that transfer tax dollars to colleges and universities.

Beyond being blatantly unjust, the federal money pouring into higher education is the main factor behind the exploding cost of college in recent decades. In the name of making college more affordable, the federal government effectively took over the student loan market in the US and—primarily by extending government loan guarantees—expanded the level of lending far beyond what private lenders were willing to provide.

That created significantly more demand for college, which jacked up the price. Then, the artificially high prices forced even more students to turn to loans to afford school, which required more government loan guarantees, which made prices even higher, meaning more loans were needed, and on and on. All the while, the government has started and expanded direct federal spending programs on education that have only fueled the affordability death spiral.

This has been terrible for every non-wealthy student or family straining to pay for a college degree, and all the people who could not afford to go to college at all who are still forced to fund all the government subsidies causing this mess. But, it’s important to understand, this setup has been great for the universities who have gotten to enjoy filling their campuses with cartoonishly lavish buildings and resort-level accommodations, while bloating their administrations with diversity officers, sustainability directors, and other ideological positions.

It has also been great for the politicians and government bureaucrats who have gained leverage over the schools educating the next generation and the scholars and intellectuals currently researching topics relevant to those running our federal government.

In other words, federal higher education policy is best understood as one big government-run scam that’s enriching and empowering a small group of ideological administrators and bureaucrats at our expense. It is, in that way, no different from the healthcare system—through which schools like Harvard are also receiving money through their hospitals.

That is the big unspoken truth at the core of this debate about what the Trump administration is doing with Harvard. A president like Trump can exert control over the internal policies of these universities because of how unnecessarily reliant they are on government money. And widespread pushing of highly unpopular progressive dogmas in classrooms and professional scholarship can only happen at this large a scale because of how—and how much—higher ed and academia are subsidized in modern America.

There is only one genuine and permanent solution to these problems. Halt all federal funding—direct and indirect—for these “private” colleges and universities.

As long as these schools rely on politicians to fund their operations, they will always be politicized. There is no escaping that. And, on the other side, even if Trump is totally victorious and gets Harvard to capitulate on everything, there is functionally nothing stopping the next Democrat to win the presidency from reversing everything Trump did.

Education and genuine scholarship are too important to entrust to the whims of politicians and government bureaucrats. Research and scholarship that is actually valuable does not require forcing people to fund it against their will. 

And the American people cannot afford to keep sending a significant portion of their money to the well-off and well-connected. These problems are extensive, but the solution is straightforward: stop forcing us to fund these universities.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/23/2025 - 22:35

Boeing CEO Confirms China Halted Orders; Goldman Notes "Improved Earnings Results" For Planemaker 

Boeing reported first-quarter results that Goldman analysts described as "improved," but the real headline this morning isn't the earnings—it's CEO Kelly Ortberg's CNBC interview, in which he revealed that China has halted aircraft deliveries.

In a televised interview with CNBC's Squawk on the Street, CEO Ortberg stated that Chinese airlines had "in fact stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the tariff environment." He noted that the aviation giant would begin marketing the commercial jets to other carriers if deliveries were prolonged. 

"We're working with our customers right now, we're not going to wait too long," Ortberg said in the interview, adding, "We'll give the customers an opportunity if they want to take the airplanes. That's what we'd prefer to do. But if not, we're going to remarket those airplanes to people who want them."

Aircraft rejected by Chinese airlines (read: here) could be headed to Air India Ltd. Bloomberg noted that through the end of March, the airline had accepted 41 737 Max jets built initially for Chinese airlines. 

Boeing CFO Brian West told investors that Chinese customers represent about 10% of the commercial backlog. He noted that if tariff impacts expand beyond China, then additional problems could arise for the planemaker.  

The possible tariff fallout comes as the struggling planemaker prepares to lift the 737 Max and 787 models in the coming months. The CEO was adamant about not letting trade war woes "derail the recovery" of Boeing. 

In an earlier earnings release, Boeing confirmed that plane production would soon rise as first-quarter results showed earnings and cash consumption improvements. 

Goldman analysts, including Noah Poponak, gave clients a first look at the earnings report, commenting that the results showed improvement. 

Bottom line: BA 1Q25 results show improvement in the business. Commercial aircraft production rate plan commentary was held, defense margins are positive, services margins beat, and free cash is ahead of consensus and guidance. Yesterday the company announced the sale of portions of Digital Aviation Solutions, at a multiple higher than its own, which will help accelerate balance sheet deleveraging.

Details: Revenue of $19.50bn is in line with FactSet at $19.46bn, and up 18% yoy. Core EPS of $(0.49) compares to consensus at $(1.18) and our $(0.83), driven primarily by revenue and margin at BDS. The BCA segment operating income of $(537)mn compared to our estimated $(406)mn. BDS margin of 2.5% is above our (4.0)% estimate. The BGS margin of 18.6% is 80bps above our estimate and up 40bps yoy. 1Q25 free cash flow is $(2.3)bn, ahead of us and consensus at $(3.7)bn. The company still expects to reach a rate of 38/month on 737 and 7/month on 787 this year.

1Q25 Results:

Poponak remained "Buy" rated on Beoing shares with a 12-month $213 price target:

Our 12-month price target of $213 is derived from targeting a 4.25% free cash flow yield on 2026E free cash, discounted back one year at 12%. Key risks: (1) the pace of air traffic growth, (2) supply chain ability to ramp-up production, and (3) contract operating performance within the defense segment.

Since the Max jet crashes and Covid, Boeing shares have been trading in a tight range. 

CEO Ortberg outlined Boeing's turnaround efforts in a press release: "Our company is moving in the right direction as we start to see improved operational performance across our businesses from our ongoing focus on safety and quality." 

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/23/2025 - 22:10

Behind Yesterday's Gold Selloff: Near-Record ETF Liquidation

Amid yesterday's equity meltup, ETFs accounted for 34% of the overall tape (vs an YTD avg 28%) as the desk skewed better to buy driven by a mix of domestic, international and sector exposures.

However, the action was not uniform, because unlike recent weeks which have seen aggressive equity ETF selling/shorting offset by a surge in ETF buying, yesterday the flows were flipped. 

As Goldman ETF specialist Chris Luccas writes, over the past few weeks, Goldman has seen demand for spot-exposure (GLD), across a wide range of clients, triggered by the broader outperformance and a conduit to manage uncertainty. However, yesterday’s price action appeared to be release valve after the S&P cemented its 3rd best session in the past 2 years.

Cutting to the chase, it was an outsized session for GLD as the fund concluded the session as the 3rd most-traded ETF (which is unusual GLD) and witnessed its 3rd largest notional trading session since its inception in 2004. Volumes were notable on the desk as Goldman skewed (much) better to sell (mostly long sales) across spot (GLD) and the miners complex (GDX, GDXJ), with supply accelerating into the latter half of the session. As shown in the chart below, within primary market flows, GLD registered a -$1.3bn outflow (its largest daily outflow since the record 2011 slam when tremendous SNB intervention set a ceiling for gold that lasted nearly a decade) and GDX faced a -$200mm redemption (its worst daily outflow in the past 12 months).

With regard to price action, spot performance versus S&P was at one of its widest measures in the past 5 years..

The ETF slam goes to show just how much easier it is to push the gold price around using paper instead of physical, but it also suggests that such bursts of selling may be limited. As Goldman notes, while gold ETF AUM is at highs, the amount of gold held by ETFs as an aggregate is below levels witnessed in 2020. Record AUM in GLD has been entirely a function of price appreciation versus subscriptions (even though inflows have been robust on the year).

Meanwhile, as regular readers are well aware, while occasional gold ETF liquidations are inevitable, the ETF sectors has a lot of catching up to do with the actual price, as shown in the next chart mapping aggregate ETF holdings vs spot price. As such, while liquidation days like yesterday (and today) are to be expected, it is inevitable that the ETF bid will eventually appear.

Finally, there was good news for gold bulls: while the overbought selloff - driven by ETF liquidations - in the last 2 days was remarkable and at 4% was one of the worst 2-day drops on record, physical demand out of China appeared like clockwork the moment China came online, and helped push gold about $40 higher in the span of minutes, and about $100 higher compared to this morning's lows.

Expect much more of the same as China's population increasingly allocates its net worth into the yellow metal as we discussed yesterday.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/23/2025 - 21:56

Waste Of The Day: NY Staircase Costs Almost $1 Million Per Step

Authored by Jerremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Every journey starts with a single step, but the cost of each step isn't usually $935,000.

That’s how much New York State will spend to repair each of the 77 stairs leading up the grand entrance to the Capitol building in Albany after ignoring the maintenance for over a decade. The cost gradually rose from $17 million in 2014 to $72 million today.

Key facts: Inspectors closed off public access to the granite Eastern Approach staircase in 2014 after finding rusted steel supports and load-bearing bricks so loose they could be removed by hand, according to the New York Times. A study commissioned by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo estimated the repair bill at $17 million.

Cuomo never appropriated the money, except for $120,000 for urgent repairs in 2016. When Gov. Kathy Hochul finally set aside funding in 2022, the cost had risen to $41 million.

This February, New York State announced it had hired Louis C. Allegrone, Inc to repair the steps at a cost of $72 million. Only one other company submitted a bid, according to the New York Post, which also found internal documents showing the administration was at one point prepared to spend over $80 million on the stairs.

The Post was unable to learn why the cost more than quadrupled from the 2014 estimate. A spokesperson told the Post that “By law, we cannot comment further while the procurement process is ongoing.” Opinion writer Andrea Peyser noted, “I’m not aware of any statute that forbids overtaxed citizens from learning how public officials rob them blind.”

Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy later told the Albany Times Union that inflation, rising construction costs and worsening deterioration were all factors in the cost increase.

In reality, the deferred maintenance on the Eastern Approach stretches back even further than 2014. The New York Sun ran an article in 1924 claiming the staircase was nearing “complete ruin” and estimated repairs would cost $1 million, according to the New York Times.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: Oddly enough, this isn’t the only luxury staircase New Yorkers have funded recently. New York City shelled out $30 million for a 28-step staircase at Times Square 42nd Street subway station in 2022.

Summary: Given New York’s penchant for spending, it’s fitting that lawmakers will be unable to walk into the Capitol building without stepping on taxpayers’ wallets.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/23/2025 - 20:55

Iraqis Outraged By Visit Of Syrian Leader Jolani Over al-Qaeda Past

Via Middle East Eye

Safaa Rashid was barely an adult in 2005 when an explosion ripped through the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing his 21-year-old cousin, a university student who was working part-time at an electrical goods shop in the city's center. "A suicide bomber stormed the market and detonated his explosive belt, killing my cousin and dozens of innocent people in an instant," said Rashid, now 38 and still living in Baghdad. "He was just at the beginning of his life."

Safaa lost two other cousins that same year in blasts that were attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the armed group that would evolve into ISI, the Islamic State in Iraq (later just Islamic State), and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq and abroad.

Syria's self-declared interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (Jolani), via AFP.

One of those who joined AQI's campaign at the time was a young Syrian named Ahmed al-Sharaa, who later would reappear in his homeland under the name Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and last year successfully overthrew President Bashar al-Assad to become Syria's new ruler.

Although Sharaa has since disavowed his time in al-Qaeda [in terms of public rhetoric at least], his possible presence at an Arab League summit in Baghdad next month has provoked outrage from victims of AQI and its successors, as well as dozens of MPs who are trying to prevent his attendance. "Jolani is the face of terrorism," said Rashid.

"He must be held accountable - I lost three cousins to his group’s violence...how can someone like this be welcomed as if he were an honoured guest?"

'Premature' meeting?

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said last week that he had formally invited Sharaa to attend the upcoming summit, which is scheduled to be held in Baghdad on May 17. The two also met in Qatar last week for the first time since the overthrow of Assad.

Although the Iraqi government had been one of the few in the region to continuously maintain relations with Sharaa's predecessor, Iraq like many other Arab states appears to be trying to integrate post-Assad Syria diplomatically, possibly hoping to end the instability unleashed by the country's 13-year war.

But the extension of the invitation has outraged many. Iraqi media reported that at least 50 MPs from Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah - two Iran-backed armed political factions that provided military support to Assad against Sharaa and other Syrian opposition groups - have filed criminal complaints in Iraqi courts against the Syrian president.

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council has yet to take any official action and previously issued a statement saying that several complaint documents circulating on social media were fake and invalid.

Nevertheless, it has led Asaib Ahl al-Haq's leader, Qais al-Khazali, to brand Sharaa's invite "premature", warning there could be a diplomatic incident between the "brotherly nations" should he be arrested. "In light of this, and in accordance with the principle of separation of powers, the decisions of the Iraqi judiciary must be adhered to and respected by all," he wrote on X.

Abu Ali al-Askari, a senior Kataib Hezbollah figure, meanwhile described Sharaa as a "convict".

Change of attitude

Sharaa travelled from Damascus to Baghdad in 2003 to join al-Qaeda shortly before the US-led invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein. Though he has denied being close to the group's leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, other outlets have claimed he quickly rose through the ranks to a senior position.

During the insurgency against US-led forces in Iraq, AQI was responsible for numerous sectarian atrocities across the country, triggered by the group bombing al-Askari Shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006.

Zarqawi had earlier declared all-out war on Iraqi Shias, "wherever they are in Iraq". Sharaa has argued his time in AQI was more about gaining fighting experience and defending Iraqis than building a caliphate or imposing al-Qaeda's harsh variant of Islamic law.

"There was a massive Arab and Islamic response to the American intervention," he told The Rest Is Politics podcast. He added that during his time in a range of US-run facilities, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, his attitude towards the conflict changed and he began to fall out with other al-Qaeda members over their support for overt sectarianism.

Iraqi Telegram accounts linked to pro-Iran groups have posted documents they say further implicate Sharaa in AQI's actions, though they also suggested Sharaa was released from an Iraqi prison for lack of evidence.

Former ISIS terrorist Jolani who is now president of Syria was released from prison just days before the first colour revolution protests in Syria (March 3, 2011.)

He was arrested on May 14, 2005, by U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and held at Camp Bucca.

The first “protests”… pic.twitter.com/7TBIVQuEVv

— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) April 18, 2025

The Islamic Dawa Party, which held the prime ministership during the bulk of the AQI and ISI insurgency, also warned against inviting Sharaa to Iraq. Though they did not mention the prime minister by name, they said that anyone invited to the Arab League conference should have a "spotless" legal record both at home and abroad.

In a statement on Sunday, they also drew comparisons with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the outstanding arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court over the war in Gaza.

"The same should be done in Iraq towards those who have committed heinous crimes against its people, whatever the excuses, out of respect for Iraqi blood and in loyalty to the martyrs who gave their lives for the nation’s dignity and honour," said the party.

'A significant step'

Although many of Syria's neighbours have tried to rebuild links with the country following Assad's defeat, much of the international community has continued to be wary, not least after the recent outbreak of sectarian violence on the country's west coast.

The violence in Latakia, which erupted after attacks by Assad loyalists on pro-government forces, has seen widespread killings of hundreds of members of the Alawi religious minority by armed groups. Sharaa condemned the killings and has sought to calm tensions through dialogue, but the attacks have again raised the spectre of sectarian violence and drawn parallels with the Sunni-Shia bloodshed that devastated Iraq in the mid-2000s.

Not everyone has opposed diplomatic meetings with Sharaa. A number of MPs have emphasised the need for dialogue between the two countries after decades of violence.

Khamis al-Khanjar, an MP and head of the Azem Alliance, welcomed the meeting in Qatar between Sudani and Sharaa. "This meeting represents a significant step toward enhancing Arab cooperation and promoting the principles of dialogue and joint action to address current challenges, rebuild bridges of trust and integration among our peoples, and serve the security and stability of our region," he wrote on social media.

But with the pain of decades of bloodshed still fresh in the mind of many in Iraq, and with AQI's descendents still wreaking havoc in parts of the country, the visit is likely to trigger further outcry.

"Inviting Sharaa to visit Baghdad just returned painful memories for victims’ families," said Rashid. "Many of whom are still waiting for justice nearly two decades after the worst years and al-Qaeda attacks post-2003."

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/23/2025 - 20:05

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about coronavirus and the impact that it is having on the markets. Earlier this month, Peter said he thought the virus was just an excuse for stock market woes. At the time he believed the market was poised to fall anyway. But as it turns out, coronavirus has actually helped the US stock market because it has led central banks to pump even more liquidity into the world financial system. All this means more liquidity — central banks easing. In fact, that is exactly what has already happened, except the new easing is taking place, for now, outside the United States, particularly in China.” Although the new money is primarily being created in China, it is flowing into dollars — the dollar index is up — and into US stocks. Last week, US stock markets once again made all-time record highs. In fact, I think but for the coronavirus, the US stock market would still be selling off. But because of the central bank stimulus that has been the result of fears over the coronavirus, that actually benefitted not only the US dollar, but the US stock market.” In the midst of all this, Peter raises a really good question. The primary economic concern is that coronavirus will slow down output and ultimately stunt economic growth. Practically speaking, the world would produce less stuff. If the virus continues to spread, there would be fewer goods and services produced in a market that is hunkered down. Why would the Federal Reserve respond, or why would any central bank respond to that by printing money? How does printing more money solve that problem? It doesn’t. In fact, it actually exacerbates it. But you know, everybody looks at central bankers as if they’ve got the solution to every problem. They don’t. They don’t have the magic wand. They just have a printing press. And all that creates is inflation.” Sometimes the illusion inflation creates can look like a magic wand. Printing money can paper over problems. But none of this is going to fundamentally fix the economy. In fact, if central bankers were really going to do the right thing, the appropriate response would be to drain liquidity from the markets, not supply even more.” Peter explained how the Fed was originally intended to create an “elastic” money supply that would expand or contract along with economic output. Today, the money supply only goes in one direction — that’s up. The economy is strong, print money. The economy is weak, print even more money.” Of course, the asset that’s doing the best right now is gold. The yellow metal pushed above $1,600 yesterday. Gold is up 5.5% on the year in dollar terms and has set record highs in other currencies. Because gold is rising even in an environment where the dollar is strengthening against other fiat currencies, that shows you that there is an underlying weakness in the dollar that is right now not being reflected in the Forex markets, but is being reflected in the gold markets. Because after all, why are people buying gold more aggressively than they’re buying dollars or more aggressively than they’re buying US Treasuries? Because they know that things are not as good for the dollar or the US economy as everybody likes to believe. So, more people are seeking out refuge in a better safe-haven and that is gold.” Peter also talked about the debate between Trump and Obama over who gets credit for the booming economy – which of course, is not booming.

We are living in crazy times. I have a hard time believing that most of the general public is not awake, but in reality, they are. We've never seen anything like this; I mean not even under Obama during the worst part of the Great Recession." Now the Fed is desperately trying to keep interest rates from rising. The problem is that it's a much bigger debt bubble this time around , and the Fed is going to have to blow a lot more air into it to keep it inflated. The difference is this time it's not going to work." It looks like the Fed did another $104.15 billion of Not Q.E. in a single day. The Fed claims it's only temporary. But that is precisely what Bernanke claimed when the Fed started QE1. Milton Freedman once said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The same applies to Q.E., or whatever the Fed wants to pretend it's doing. Except this is not QE4, according to Powell. Right. Pumping so much money out, and they are accusing China of currency manipulation ? Wow! Seriously! Amazing! Dump the U.S. dollar while you still have a chance. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. And it is even worse than that, In addition to the $104.15 billion of "Not Q.E." this past Thursday; the FED added another $56.65 billion in liquidity to financial markets the next day on Friday. That's $160.8 billion in two days!!!! in just 48 hours. That is more than 2 TIMES the highest amount the FED has ever injected on a monthly basis under a Q.E. program (which was $80 billion per month) Since this isn't QE....it will be really scary on what they are going to call Q.E. Will it twice, three times, four times, five times what this injection per month ! It is going to be explosive since it takes about 60 to 90 days for prices to react to this, January should see significant inflation as prices soak up the excess liquidity. The question is, where will the inflation occur first . The spike in the repo rate might have a technical explanation: a misjudgment was made in the Fed's money market operations. Even so, two conclusions can be drawn: managing the money markets is becoming harder, and from now on, banks will be studying each other's creditworthiness to a greater degree than before. Those people, who struggle with the minutiae of money markets, and that includes most professionals, should focus on the causes and not the symptoms. Financial markets have recovered from each downturn since 1980 because interest rates have been cut to new lows. Post-2008, they were cut to near zero or below zero in all major economies. In response to a new financial crisis, they cannot go any lower. Central banks will look for new ways to replicate or broaden Q.E. (At some point, governments will simply see repression as an easier option). Then there is the problem of 'risk-free' assets becoming risky assets. Financial markets assume that the probability of major governments such as the U.S. or U.K. defaulting is zero. These governments are entering the next downturn with debt roughly twice the levels proportionate to GDP that was seen in 2008. The belief that the policy worked was completely predicated on the fact that it was temporary and that it was reversible, that the Fed was going to be able to normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet back down to pre-crisis levels. Well, when the balance sheet is five-trillion, six-trillion, seven-trillion when we're back at zero, when we're back in a recession, nobody is going to believe it is temporary. Nobody is going to believe that the Fed has this under control, that they can reverse this policy. And the dollar is going to crash. And when the dollar crashes, it's going to take the bond market with it, and we're going to have stagflation. We're going to have a deep recession with rising interest rates, and this whole thing is going to come imploding down. everything is temporary with the fed including remaining off the gold standard temporary in the Fed's eyes could mean at least 50 years This liquidity problem is a signal that trading desks are loaded up on inventory and can't get rid of it. Repo is done out of a need for cash. If you own all of your securities (i.e., a long-only, no leverage mutual fund) you have no need to "repo" your securities - you're earning interest every night so why would you want to 'repo' your securities where you are paying interest for that overnight loan (securities lending is another animal). So, it is those that 'lever-up' and need the cash for settlement purposes on securities they've bought with borrowed money that needs to utilize the repo desk. With this in mind, as we continue to see this need to obtain cash (again, needed to settle other securities purchases), it shows these firms don't have the capital to add more inventory to, what appears to be, a bloated inventory. Now comes the fun part: the Treasury is about to auction 3's, 10's, and 30-year bonds. If I am correct (again, I could be wrong), the Fed realizes securities firms don't have the shelf space to take down a good portion of these auctions. If there isn't enough retail/institutional demand, it will lead to not only a crappy sale but major concerns to the street that there is now no backstop, at all, to any sell-off. At which point, everyone will want to be the first one through the door and sell immediately, but to whom? If there isn't enough liquidity in the repo market to finance their positions, the firms would be unable to increase their inventory. We all saw repo shut down on the 2008 crisis. Wall St runs on money. . OVERNIGHT money. They lever up to inventory securities for trading. If they can't get overnight money, they can't purchase securities. And if they can't unload what they have, it means the buy-side isn't taking on more either. Accounts settle overnight. This includes things like payrolls and bill pay settlements. If a bank doesn't have enough cash to payout what its customers need to pay out, it borrows. At least one and probably more than one banks are insolvent. That's what's going on. First, it can't be one or two banks that are short. They'd simply call around until they found someone to lend. But they did that, and even at markedly elevated rates, still, NO ONE would lend them the money. That tells me that it's not a problem of a couple of borrowers, it's a problem of no lenders. And that means that there's no bank in the world left with any real liquidity. They are ALL maxed out. But as bad as that is, and that alone could be catastrophic, what it really signals is even worse. The lending rates are just the flip side of the coin of the value of the assets lent against. If the rates go up, the value goes down. And with rates spiking to 10%, how far does the value fall? Enormously! And if banks had to actually mark down the value of the assets to reflect 10% interest rates, then my god, every bank in the world is insolvent overnight. Everyone's capital ratios are in the toilet, and they'd have to liquidate. We're talking about the simultaneous insolvency of every bank on the planet. Bank runs. No money in ATMs, Branches closed. Safe deposit boxes confiscated. The whole nine yards, It's actually here. The scenario has tended to guide toward for years and years is actually happening RIGHT NOW! And people are still trying to say it's under control. Every bank in the world is currently insolvent. The only thing keeping it going is printing billions of dollars every day. Financial Armageddon isn't some far off future risk. It's here. Prepare accordingly. This fiat system has reached the end of the line, and it's not correct that fiat currencies fail by design. The problem is corruption and manipulation. It is corruption and cheating that erodes trust and faith until the entire system becomes a gigantic fraud. Banks and governments everywhere ARE the problem and simply have to be removed. They have lost all trust and respect, and all they have left is war and mayhem. As long as we continue to have a majority of braindead asleep imbeciles following orders from these psychopaths, nothing will change. Fiat currency is not just thievery. Fiat currency is SLAVERY. Ultimately the most harmful effect of using debt of undefined value as money (i.e., fiat currencies) is the de facto legalization of a caste system based on voluntary slavery. The bankers have a charter, or the legal *right*, to create money out of nothing. You, you don't. Therefore you and the bankers do not have the same standing before the law. The law of the land says that you will go to jail if you do the same thing (creating money out of thin air) that the banker does in full legality. You and the banker are not equal before the law. ALL the countries of the world; Islamic or secular, Jewish or Arab, democracy or dictatorship; all of them place the bankers ABOVE you. And all of you accept that only whining about fiat money going down in exchange value over time (price inflation which is not the same as monetary inflation). Actually, price inflation itself is mainly due to the greed and stupidity of the bankers who could keep fiat money's exchange value reasonably stable, only if they wanted to. Witness the crash of silver and gold prices which the bankers of the world; Russian, American, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Arab, all of them collaborated to engineer through the suppression and stagnation of precious metals' prices to levels around the metals' production costs, or what it costs to dig gold and silver out of the ground. The bankers of the world could also collaborate to keep nominal prices steady (as they do in the case of the suppression of precious metals prices). After all, the ability to create fiat money and force its usage is a far more excellent source of power and wealth than that which is afforded simply by stealing it through inflation. The bankers' greed and stupidity blind them to this fact. They want it all, and they want it now. In conclusion, The bankers can create money out of nothing and buy your goods and services with this worthless fiat money, effectively for free. You, you can't. You, you have to lead miserable existences for the most of you and WORK in order to obtain that effectively nonexistent, worthless credit money (whose purchasing/exchange value is not even DEFINED thus rendering all contracts based on the null and void!) that the banker effortlessly creates out of thin air with a few strokes of the computer keyboard, and which he doesn't even bother to print on paper anymore, electing to keep it in its pure quantum uncertain form instead, as electrons whizzing about inside computer chips which will become mute and turn silent refusing to tell you how many fiat dollars or euros there are in which account, in the absence of electricity. No electricity, no fiat, nor crypto money. It would appear that trust is deteriorating as it did when Lehman blew up . Something really big happened that set off this chain reaction in the repo markets. Whatever that something is, we aren't be informed. They're trying to cover it up, paper it over with conjured cash injections, play it cool in front of the cameras while sweating profusely under the 5 thousands dollar suits. I'm guessing that the final high-speed plunge into global economic collapse has begun. All we see here is the ripples and whitewater churning the surface, but beneath the surface, there is an enormous beast thrashing desperately in its death throws. Now is probably the time to start tying up loose ends with the long-running prep projects, just saying. In other words, prepare accordingly, and Get your money out of the banks. I don't care if you don't believe me about Bitcoin. Get your money out of the banks. Don't keep any more money in a bank than you need to pay your bills and can afford to lose.











The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more













The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more

The FBI released a summary of its file from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday, showing details of Clinton's explanation of her use of a private email server to handle classified communications. The release comes nearly two months after FBI Director James Comey announced that although Clinton's handling of classified information was "extremely careless," it did not rise to the level of a prosecutable offense. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the next day that she would not pursue charges in the matter. "We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests," the FBI noted in a statement sent to reporters with links to the documents. The documents include notes from Clinton's July 2 interview with agents, as well as a "factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter," according to the FBI release. Throughout her interview with agents, Clinton repeatedly said she relied on the career professionals she worked with to handle classified information correctly. The agents asked about a series of specific emails, and in each case Clinton said she wasn't worried about the particular material being discussed on a nonclassified channel.