This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Albert Edwards: "We Are Returning To 450 On The S&P"
Albert Edwards, whose opinion, of all macro economists, is among the most respected by Zero Hedge staff, has just thrown down the gauntlet. In his just released piece he mocks the Black Knight, compares the market to a Polish dude with a bullet stucj in his head, makes fun of koolaid drinking permabulls, and sets his estimate for the S&P... at 450.
Investors cannot move for the weight of broker research comparing the current conjuncture in the US with Japan a decade ago. While bond markets at least, move to discount deflation, most sell-side analysts still say the current situation is unlike Japan a decade ago. They are right. Things now in the US are much, much worse than Japan a decade ago.
Equity investors are in for a rude shock. The global economy is sliding back into recession and they are still not even aware that these events will trigger another leg down in valuations, the third major bear market since the equity valuation bubble burst.
This lack of awareness reminds me of reports this week that a 35 year old Polish man hadn?t noticed for five years that he had a bullet lodged in his head. Like the equity market in 2000, the Polish man had been partying too hard to notice that he had been shot. The BBC report the police as saying "He told us he remembered having a sore head, but that he wasn't really one for going to the doctor."
As the equity bloodbath of the last decade enters its final, even bloodier phase, investors continued optimism also reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail - link. Despite being grievously wounded by King Arthur, the Black Knight makes light of his injuries which he dismisses as a flesh wound. The vast bulk of the investment industry fails to appreciate that we are locked in a structural bear market and about to enter Act III.
In case anyone needs a graphic summary of all that was just said, the chart below summarizes it best:
Some more observations:
This year has already seen a dramatic flip-flop in sentiment as the market has begun to acknowledge it is sinking into the deflationary quicksand. For this year outperformance in the US, for example, is over 20 percentage points (see chart below).
Another pet peeve of the SocGen strategist, as demonstrated repeatedly by Zero Hedge when we show that bonds imply stocks should be at about 750-800, is why have stocks not followed bonds down into the deflationary abyss. His conclusion:
So far the equity market has shrugged off much of the weaker data that abounds, and has not joined the bond market in a perceptive move. The equity market will though crumble like the house of cards it is, when the nationwide manufacturing ISM slides below 50 into recession territory in coming months. Indeed the new orders data for August, already reported in regional ISM?s suggests the equity market is going to get some sentiment crushing data in the very near term. But never mind the last standing optimist will tell us ? it is only a flesh wound!
Yet all logic aside, we know readers are just waiting for the punchline. So here it is:
The structural bear market has not reached the end. We have long said that the de-bubbling process would end only when equities became very cheap and revulsion in equities as an asset class hangs in the air like a fog. The problem remains more of excess valuation within the US rather than Europe, but that will not prevent the bear market hurting other cheaper markets as much. We will return to the valuation nadir last seen in 1982 with the S&P bottoming around 450 (see chart below).
»
- 49722 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
support and resistance bitchez!!!
The problem with this analysis is that 450 in 1982 and 450 and 2010 are two completely different numbers in real dollar terms. Albert needs to adjust his math for inflation. My guess is that 600-700 is the bottom.
He is talking P/E vaulations. The S&P was around 125 in 1982.
Nah, we really should stop "adjusting" for inflation every time someone asks. Stop trying to manipulate the numbers around the dollar. It just hides the facts.
That's fine as long as you're not referencing or pricing in terms of dollars. Otherwise, the "value" of the dollar is material.
Just stop, please. To "adjust" for inflation you have to make changes to the rates based on a basket of rates that also changes who contents might come and go and which also change in their rates... It's like an orgy of fiat adjustments.
Why manipulate the original data?
If you really want to see what's happening before tying to make it looks a certain way, try a more scientific approach, using real data.
It's actually getting funny the comments that get junked here now a days. Turning into Troll City.
I think I will lease some foreclosed on land from Wells Fargo and open an amusement park called Troll City just to see who shows up. Of course the bankers will want a free tour before the grand opening. We can test the acid dousing and Gatling guns in the fun house on them........
I automatically junk anyone who uses "bitchez" at this point, it's gotten so lame.
But I didn't use "bitchez"?? I just assumed I got junked by a Wells Fargo employee.
My response to that is: Bring the whole family for a day of fun at Troll City! Free hot dogs!
Don't want a bunch of little future bankers living to see tomorrow either.
I didn't junk you Ripped.
I didn't think you did because neither myself nor the two commentators above who made legitimate remarks that should not have been junked used "bitchez". Like I said, it's TROLL CITY
You used "bitchez" -- I junked you!
Good one Rocky.
Rules are rules. Lets take the SEC for example.....................
Damn your ring-tailed logic.
haha junked me you pussy
Exactly. Inflation is part of the problem.
"The doctor says I'm quite fit ... for someone who has terminal cancer. My weight loss is therefore a good thing. By the time I'm actually dead, I'll be in perfect health for a person recently deceased."
LMAO
awesome metaphor!
Might I add that you could be seen as healthier in comparison if most every one else were also suffering from disease.
And there are whole segments of the cosmetics industry and all of plastic surgery devoted to achieving nothing else. No slam against the terminally ill, but it's illusion.
Propaganda works at many levels.
...amazing what a course of 5FU can do to any weight issues one might have had....
Once you are dead, the rate at which your health is declining will slow to zero, which represents an inflection point, now known euphemistically as a "Green Shoot", and in the funeral industry as "Pushing Daisies".
I am now convinced that Lazarus did not actually rise from the dead and walk, but only that his rate of decline slowed. I then went to the Mormon Church archives, which have the world's best genealogical records, and found that one of the descendants of John (Gospel of John) is Steve Liesman. It all began to make perfect sense.
s&p 450 actually takes us back to august 1994 which is when abby joseph cohen first made her bones and this massive ramp in equities really began. the dow at the same time was about 3600.
were we to return to those numbers (sp450 / dow 3600) it would mean 'reversion to the mean' in spades........
Thats returning to the mean. Reverting to the mean is when the line goes below the average low enough, and stays there long enough to keep the mean the same over time. The area of the curve above the mean has to equal the area of the curve below the mean of the CAPE. Or else the mean has changed, and everything is different this time.
Bet your sock drawer has precisely 7 pairs of perfectly folded anklets.
Won't happen. The CPI in 1993 was 145. Now it's 218. 450 * 218 / 145 = 676 in today's dollars. If you can believe the CPI, that is... I tend to think it's much higher, giving an equivalent S&P of around 900.
The fundamentals in 1982 were soooo much better than they are now, with p/e's of solid stocks at 4-5.
Never forget inflation that time was double digit heavily affecting DCF valuations.
Two years ago I calculated that when we played out the 1929-1932 scenario (a loss of ~79%) we could end up at DOW 2,900 and S&P of ~326.
It happened then, it could happen now.
Except that now, lots less people know how to grow and raise their own food and we hadn't yet then prostituted our manufacturing and industry out to our biggest competitor.
fuck a duck
Fee Fi - Fo Fitty!
Looks like I picked the wrong decade to stop drinking.
Timeless...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeI5ke0BENw
Looks like I picked a bad day to quit smoking.
Got completely out of smoking in 2006,then doubled down on vodka.
Lately, I drink vodka like it's my job.
Don't worry, it's drink like a pirate day (ever day)
- yeah, I've put away several barrels of beer and wine since joining ZH a year ago...wait, WHAT, it's my ZH birthday Bitchez !!!!
Oh Yea!
Vodka! It's always for breakfast now!
And it's always seven in the morning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUSTY!!!
Yes, put away some cash for a rainy decade.
lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v46plhmxXU4
++ LMAO
Looks like I picked the wrong decade to stop sniffing (bullish) glue.
A+++
hahahaha same here!!! and smoking....I guess I'll just pick it up again Cheers!!!
...me too, and I'll double up on the snuff dipping...that should helpspeed the end of the 'lost decade'...maybe I can get it down to 200 dayz???
...me too, and I'll double up on the snuff dipping...that should helpspeed the end of the 'lost decade'...maybe I can get it down to 200 dayz???
Everytime I start shorting the ponzi masters pump it up, pump it up. Classic squeeze, trap, balls stuck in the golf ball washer.
I will watch and wait as the big PONZI could go on for a while before any sign of collapse.
hey they have to keep it pumped up until election time.
...and knowing that helps guide decisions...
ya know, the funny thing is that I don't think most voters give a shit
That, dear readers, is why we are in this mess in the first place. Until we get a concerted effort to fix things it will fester.
The other funny thing is that I don't think there's a fix.
Are you kiddin'? The FIX is IN! Which means we're in a fix!
No fix will come through voting. Such an outcome is next to impossible when both parties rigged to prevent true reform.
If voting actually changed anything, it would be declared illegal.
When is it NOT election time?
Right! Every single DAY now its election season! And every day theres 'key economic data' coming out tomorrow, or earnings, or options expiration, its ALWAYS something!
It's our president as soon as he walked in everyone has been in Perpetual campaign mode.
Glad you used a lower-case 'P' for president, since it's been this way for at least the last three of them.
Exactly, it's always election time when you have a system serviced by career politicians... and yes, I use the word 'serviced' to evoke every possible iteration.
OT: But we need term limits before any real change can be made to our disaster of a political system.
yo, swamp:
they had the same problem/game plan in 2008....it didn't work very well then....we might be getting ready to watch an unwanted, unscheduled summer re-run of financial follies R US......
You notice that too. I thought the Dow would drop yesterday but instead rally from -100! WTF. Yet they seem to have left the metals to rally on expiry. Looks like they can't do both anymore & would rather keep Dow above 10000. Comments welcome.
Yeah, waiting for the beat down on metals today... Hello? Options expire? Did a silver bullet kill a beast? Some one is getting beat up.
Pump up the volume.....pump up the volume.....dance.....dance....
dammit that song will now be stuck in my head for the next 6 hours.
yup, same here.
there are higher lows and lower highs which make this range as tight as a frog's ass.
I'm a permabear, I love Zerohedge but REALISTICALLY I think theres TOO much money out there to go to 450, Ben will also QE 10 before then. I can't short a situation that looks more like Zimbabwe than the Great depression.
All that 'TOO much money' is vanishing into thin air before your very eyes, pal!
According to Boyle's Law, If you expand your money supply too quickly it will turn into a gas and evaporate. Also, as the gas expands, it will cool the economy.
How's that money expansion thing going now?
That assumes a closed system The FED has an endless supply of gas.
So do I, as per the girlfriend.
to where?
hoarding could be declared illegal activity
the value could be destroyed like Weimar or Zimbabwe
no chance that money just disappeared unless it gets spent
You are forgetting that money and credit are interchangeable. The destruction of debt is the same as the destruction of money. If a pension fund holds a MBS "worth" $1B and the mortgagees walk away from the their mortgages, that $1B disappears.
Most money is credit or psuedo stock market wealth and as Deflation happens that money sinks into the ether. There is only 900 Billion dollars in real Cash and 52 Trillion in Credit outstanding. Unless you can get dollars out of the bank or from under your matress their ain't that much "money" out there. There is a Trillion on the banks balance sheet but it doesn't really belong to them!
I understand what you're saying... but Zimbabwe's debt was insane just like with the US but they make 1,000,000 bills.
Do you think Ben goes that route or lets deflation occur?
I DO believe the market gets worse from here until we get to S&P 800 or so, thats when the Fed FREAKS out, much before 450
Zimbabwe did nothing but destroy their system.
Ben has no choice as to whether the credit system deflates or not, all they can do is slightly effect the rate. If Ben or anyone else had unlimited power, the Roman Empire would still be the capital of the world and still expanding their empire.
Any economics credit system is based on you not funding your own credit, if you can fund your own credit... there would be no reason for the credit system to exist.
I don't know if S&P500 will hit 450, my charts show sub 100, but I would imagine the whole system will be destroyed before you get there and there will be no stocks trading on an exchange.
Any economics credit system is based on you not funding your own credit
Good point, Mako, and it's when countries have no choice but to try and fund their own credit that the system collapses.
My gut tells me that that the best Ben will do is something symbolic but without great impact...I really think he wants the guvmnt to address spending and until they do I don't think he will get real serious...deflation, at least for the forseeable future.
All Ben has been saying for the last 6 years is "blah, blah, blah... and then salaries increase and everything will be fine."
The Federal Reserve has no power to increase salaries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH1q3D9jymM
Helicopter Ben can get an air force of printing machines on helicopters and dump all across the US. Printing will only delay the deflationary collapse.
as Deflation happens that money sinks into the ether.
Actually goes to sellers and shorts...
my wife cashed out 25k worth of CDs, she is going to buy an apartment and rent it out, to make more on her money than what she get's now. Anyway, the banks couldn't give her the cash; they gave her 5k in hundreds, 5k in 20s, and 15k as a check. there is no cash, it's all made up computer money.
LOL - You ca bet that when the IRS comes calling, it's really there.
Exactly why its a good idea to keep some cash stashed at home. If a rather small percentage of people get nervous at the same time and want to take some cash out of their local banks/atm's, the cash redemption window will close pretty quickly. I believe that we have already been closer to having Bank Holidays over the past 18 mos than most people know. Banks don't have cash, they have 1's and 0's in computers.
There were no electronic payment transfer systems in the Thirties.
Bank Holidays also means you can't pay your bills. The system would collapse.
Society might become completely cash less in the future and cash won't get accepted at all.
Virtual money trumps paper money because the virtual cash gets updated for inflation by a click of a button.
Good luck with the paper.
fyi, I junked you. How exactly does virtual cash get updated for inflation by a click of a button? Pretty sure my depository bank accounts don't have an inflation adjustment setting.
I know one place where cash will be accepted and that's on the black market where I'll be doing all of my shopping if your future comes to pass.
econ-
please don't be so negative. We won't be on the black market, we'll be exchanging services and other efforts. Goes on all the time, why it goes on right under Patterson's nose and he doesn't even see it happening!
e.g. http://www.ithacahours.com/ but there are more.
- Ned
+1
Banks consider cash on hand as a waste since no interest is being earned on cash in the teller draw. So branches rarely keep much cash on hand. Your experience is not surprising.
However, don't let this compel you to think there is no cash. Cash represents around 3% of all "money" out there. If you had called ahead and given the bank 1 or 2 days notice, they would have "ordered" the extra cash to give you from where ever they get their cash. And don't forget all the cash that's sitting in ATM machines. That's cash that at one time was behind the teller line. Now it's in the Automatic Teller Machine.
Still you are correct. It's all electronic digits. Always has been. Just a matter of how much.
this isn't new i had a hard time getting 10k out of banks back in 2000 when things were booming
Banks have always considered cash to be a non-performing asset to be avoided at all costs. It's one of the reasons bank have always been susceptible to runs. The funny thing is that many people still think banks hold large amounts of cash. I suspect some of this misperception comes from all those bank robbery movies.
Haha, good illustration chief.
You mean "Heat" isn't real?
Everything you see on TV and in the movie theater is real.
And as silly as that statement may sound, go have a conversation with how TV shows and movies have affected cops, lawyers, money managers and various other professions that have an endless stream of people walking in their front door who's perception of how things work has be (severely) distorted.
When cashing $1,900 of savings bonds recently, my credit union branch couldn't come up with 18 x $100 bills. They gave me a wad of twenties and told me call in advance next time so they can get the cash on hand.
Lol at QE 10. I agree, Ben Bernanke will personally chop the whole Amazon and print before stocks go that low.
Also, if that deflationary correction does happen the banks would be bankrupt and the government would have to default and stop paying welfare before the S&P gets to 450. The whole system would collapse and the S&P would probably stop existing. Its not going to happen. They will "print" and "print".
There are pulp mills in Alabama that could handle the job.
Hah, if they really were printing like crazy instead of going digital, this would at least be backed by paper and provide real manufacturing.
and Bob Kraft will be happy to put in all of the bells and whistles into the paper.
- Ned
QE 2.0 might have a perceptive effect on asset prices, only because QE 1.0 was supplemented with fiscal stimulus. And the effect of the two restarted the economy... for about 15 whole months.
The nasty reality here is that QE 2.0 is going to do very, very little. Sure, it will help the banks quite a bit, as it was designed. And it will help the Treasury issue more debt-- as if we really need more debt. And, at the margin, refinancings may allow some extra money to enter the system. The recent past, however, clearly shows that a whole lot of "savings" is going toward paying down debt.
The private sector players (sans the banks) get it-- it's time for deleveraging. The dirty triumverate of the TBTF banks, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury perfer to keep their heads in the sand and kick the can down the road for as long as entirely possible. Why? Because they ARE the major Ponzi players for the whole economy. As long as this group remins intact, the longer the pain and suffering will last.
At some point-- even maybe at QE 3.0-- market players will KNOW that QE/money printing activities will not work; this "printing" just isn't entering the economy in a major way; it's just cushioning bank balance sheets. And the market will eventually behave accordingly. I actually think the major players at the Fed KNOW it isn't going to work (or they have a really bad case of denial); but even the suggestion of a massive QE 2.0 will support asset prices in the near term.
Albert Edwards is a very smart man, but there is a major difference between what SHOULD happen, and what WILL happen in the near term. So far the Fed and the government minons have been able to hold off on what SHOULD happen. How long they will be able to do that is central question. Endless printing will end in the very same result, but under a different time frame and under the guise of a currency collapse.
And yes, those who are wielding this power to delay are likely making things just that much worse.
I think our dollars are mostly cotton.
That's where "rag picker" came from, getting the fibers to make paper.
http://www.mheu.org/en/ragpickers/
I agree, 100% tunaman.
I mean, it could get to 450, and i'd be very happy indeed, but I have just seen too many times the power of low interest rates, they can paper over a lot of problems for a long time.
Here in the great white north I have a PLC with a rate of 3% last I looked.
Now, even though I am a bear, I keep covering my shorts on the dips as a lot of people and institutions will buy stocks paying 5% dividends when they can borrow at 3% or less.
I am very tempted to go long...but I know it's a trap. I'm sure a lot of people playing with leveraged OPM are going to keep buying dips.
So...I dunno, buying dips so far has been the right play.
One day I will be wrong, but i think 700 or 800 will be the bottom, not 450. But ask me again at 700.
and though i think it will play out over years, not months, i hope i am smart enough to see the big one coming if it is earlier. Probably dreaming.
Unless they relax the rules on 401K withdrawals....450 is impossible. 550 on the other hand......quite reachable.
I am all for changing the tax implications on the 401K's, as I would love to pull out all of that shit and pay off my house.
For what its worth, I dont think I will ever put money in a 401k ever again, even with a match.
What I learned from a recent divorce experience is that I can't really pull my money from the 401k of my current employer. I was in a really bad situation and desperately needed access to the money. The only option I had was to "borrow" my money. WTF?
When I really got to thinking about it, it dawned on me what a racket this really is. All of this cash is piling up everywhere and the "owners" cant really access it. I am sure bad things will happen to this money before it is all said and done.
Didn't Argentina do this with pension funds (fund the govt when they got shut out of the international debt markets)?
Cooter
Well you'll be happy to know that a bill has been introduced in congress requiring small businesses to establish IRAs for their employees with a default 3 percent "contribution" from the employees' wages.
O'l Coot:
That qwm Teresa Ghilarducci has been proponent of this, since she and her gang know how to run your life better than you do. Link as e.g.:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/dems-target-private-retirement...
- Ned
this is the crux of the issue. but i thought it was telling when marc faber started talking about prechter's view with seriousness as a possibility. no one knows for sure....
At QE10 the market will be worth less than 1 oz of gold, maybe a lot less.
Yeah. Everyone knows we're screwed but they're partying like it's 1999. We had horrible news yesterday and the market did what? I lost 2 weeks pay with SPXU thinking the manipulation has to stop at some time during the day... and it went into hyperdrive. Fuck the Market. If I could go Galt I would.
Find the nearest "unofficial" market and find a place in it. You can do this most anywhere. The local farmers market is a good place to start looking.
Disintermediation, bitches!!!!!!!!!!!
Working on that... except I'm starting to believe that farming (small scale organic fruit/veg growing to be specific) is an example of the Greater Fool Theory.
Wanna buy a tomato?
Hate to admit it but I was torched for the nth time shorting Aud. Thought the same damn thing. I keep telling myself when it finally goes its gonna be big and I keep getting torched.
I've been wanting to do those shorts but my money has been tied up in miners while prices were down. Guess I didn't miss much. My brother has been cleaning up with the FAZ, it goes way up and way down quite often. I cashed out some shares to buy TBT after it makes a solid 52 week bottom. Funny how so many think the Treasuries are a lousy buy, but people keep buying. When gold and silver are right over there.
I took up poker instead. There's nine of us sitting there watching each other and the dealer the whole time. If the dealer trys to slip an extra card, or a few more chips to one of the other players, I feel like one of us has a much higher chance of catching it, and putting a stop to it, than in the capital markets of the United States. And so far I'm not worried about the chip-federal reserve note ratio going against me before I turn in my chips at the end of the night. Of course Ben may be able to change that, eventually.
there are many out there who see a future with a decently performing stock market and inflating asset prices and a dropping dollar. however the smart ones like rogers and faber are also hedging their bets. i know j. rogers is shorting tech and emerging markets i think. i got angry yesterday as well. it seems to me highly unnatural what happened but then again what do i know. im feeling a massive downward trend though now. then again we will see what tomorrow brings.
Why can't you go Galt? Anyone can go Galt if they have the balls to give up their present life. I know for a fact..... I'm hardly rich but I did it. It was easy. I feel like a freedom fighter in John Galt's army.
"Anyone can go Galt if they have the balls to give up their present life."
Balls got cut off a while ago. Haven't grown them back. Also, marginal cost as a slave has not equaled marginal benefit as a farm owner... but it's getting there.
An image flashes in the brain of a beautiful little Goldfish desperately gulping oxygen depleted water in a futile and ultimately terminal battle not just to breath but to survive from one moment to the next. Good luck with that.
hmmm
if u do one of those crime lab aging composites and start way back from the days of the primordial soup, this goldfish does seem to have resemblances to those in Ben B's family tree.
1040 needs to be taken out... if 1010 is taken out then 75% chance of 840 range
The Dow is the driver of this. 10K is the first test, 9770 is the next. After that, it's 6550. I think that's probably the floor.
1047.22 -- getting there.
Just wait until US stocks and bonds start falling in unison. Game Over. I generally agree with SnP 450 target, although I can easily seeing us going lower with each passing QE that further diminshes the NPV of every investment in the U.S.
Debt saturation, bitchez.
We will go lower. When we break the previous low there will be panic. There will be a moment in time when stocks can't catch a bid before uncle steps in and starts buying. That moment is when fortunes will be made.
Catching that 3 nanosecond flash-crash blip will be very hard for them to maneuver.
Not to say that all the hardware isn't linked up by now...
Wrong, unless your a TBTF bankster or an HFT robot, your trades will be canceled.
You just gotta love AA for being consistant and for being thorough.
Keep beating the drum of righteousness.
i wonder why albert is so optimistic.
I think the only way the S&P will hit 450 is with a currency-crisis index adjustment to what the price would have been in old dollars.
100% RIGHT. S&P will not hit 450 in nominal terms UNLESS the Fed does not print more. We know they will long before 450.
Prove us wrong please? Why are we NOT Zimbabwe? Why ARE we Japan?
This is the heart of the uncertainty we face and which is argued here daily. There is a massive fork in the road, and which path we are headed down is in the sole hands of the chuckleheads at the Federal Reserve. The lives of every single American, if not every human in the world, will be impacted by what a handful of arrogant corporatist Keynesian assholes decide over the next several months. It is the absolute example of why central banking is undeniably tyrannical, as much or moreso than the arbitrary decree of any and every ruthless dictator that has ever lived.
And given the vastly different economic realities that would result from one path versus the other, it makes it extremely difficult to make rational preparations to protect ones wealth or even plan for a sustainable life.
All that being true, is still just within the realm of economics.
Outside economics, 90% of "life" continues. Or should, anyway. The real fear is that the 10% of human activity that we call the economy has become hopelessly entangled in "life" to the extent that we now have about 4 billion humans on earth who would not be here without fossil fuels and the growth that came from that. 4 billion people who would not survive in a solar-based subsistence economy like we had 200 years ago.
There was a time when losing your economy meant something to the rich, and that was all. Now most of humanity seems to have been sucked into this game. The stakes could not be higher than they are right now.
And, the leadership is blowing it. I don't see anyone out there taking any of this seriously. Just another round of grab-ass played by the wealthy for the wealthy. So sad.
+1. Probably the best comment on this thread. See ya in the slave labor camps.
Honestly. I think it's just waiting to fail so that it can become the real power struggle. Which I think will mostly involve
Lets....
NO
Ok how about....
NO
Laws will get passed, money will get issued but it just won't be "happening". Bills will be sent but not paid. Court orders will be issued but ignored. Taxes will be levied but ignored. It'll just be like a total boundery reset. Then things will just form on their own.
which path we are headed down is in the sole hands of the chuckleheads at the Federal Reserve.
The invisible hand of the free market already spoke when QE I pushing on a string did not work to stem accelerating debt deflation beyind a 13 month stock market countertrend rally.
Stay tuned for more.
Four plus Hindendurgs in a row may not be just whistling Dixie in the dark no matter how many people junk or pooh pooh the truth...
I don't think the chuckleheads have control anymore. Print and the dollar heads south. Don't print and Treasury will have failed auctions and then default. The value of the assets on the Fed balance plummet, and the dollar heads south. IMO, of course.
I don't know which is worse; a small group of retards running the show or a population of retards.
I'd just prefer we go back to following our constitution that limits these powers so that no one or group has much control.
...take it.
Somebody had to say it. My apologies to Yogi.
If you find a spoon let me know. I never run out of forks before I have to do the dishes.
Because we possess the largest military in the world that backs the 'House of Saud' (Oil=Dollars)... & we are the only country that can print dollars.
History will hate us. We will be remembered as the obese idiots who burned it all up, then in a savage fit nuked the ashes, then blubbering like infants vanished leaving nothing behind.
And people around here still think this was to be the pinnacle of Western achievement. Laughable.
We will be remembered however the pharaohs decide to write the history books. No different from any other period.
Oh you think so? And history was kind to the Vandals, would you say? Do you know anything about the Vandals other than that as a people they are today reviled, their entire race become synonymous with mindless destruction?
It is very possible to screw up very badly and regret it for a very long time.
who said anything about history having to be kind? not sure what your disagreement is about but it's not with what I said.
If the last 80 years is any indication, a few sovereign defaults here, a few wrongful repudiation of charterparties over there, toss in oil at $155.00 & bingo you have trouble.
He's saying history is written by the victors. Whoever it is, in the future, will decide how we're remembered.