That's a very good point. Expectations about the coming tax breaks are already priced into the stock market, as well as the dollar. That was a reason behind the rising dollar in the last few months. The recent drop in the dollar may indicate that the currency markets have lost confidence in the ability of the Trump admin to get anything done. They may as well be right. The freedom caucus guys may be dissatisfied with moderate tax cuts, so they may stay pure their principles (and Koch dollars) and vote "no" for all but the most draconian tax cuts.
You have to lay off zerohedge. I used to read them too, but they just feed into their fan base's FED and inflation fears and gold addiction. Listening to them and investing in gold may be hazardous to your financial health. But, you have rediscovered the mathematically impossibility of exponential growth within an isolated system. The same holds for stock market growth, economic growth, and growth of fossil fuel use. I am sure you are foreseeing the consequences of these mathematical impossibilities as well?
I didn't say one word about "Wall Street criminality". I was talking about the Federal Reserve banking cartel, and, the thread title has to do with "the dollar tumbling". But, since you started this deflection, I'll add one comment to the idea of "Wall Street criminality", per se -- both "Fat Cat" Republicans AND "Limousine Liberal" Democrats have been involved in said criminality, up to their earlobes, for decades! I spoke truthfully and factually about the origin of the Federal Reserve central bank -- it was brought into existence by Woodrow Wilson and a klatch of big-wig, liberal Democrat lawmakers a little over a hundred years ago. Here's some information from a relatively reliable source: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/federal-reserve.asp
Best option for the plebeians is to learn to grow food, and invest in tangible goods. I'm not even sure whether it makes more sense to take on debt, anticipating inflation, or avoid it, anticipating draconian debt-collection measures in the future as they desperately try to force the boat to float.
No. I think the issue here is whether it's true or false that as a society such as ours, cannot continue to run up calls on our assets at a greater rate that we accumulate assets. Can we as a nation run up our debt at a greater rate than we run up our national income, and can we do it for years and years and years? Are you saying the answer is yes? I agree that the answer is No. At some point either this insane path will be abandoned and growth will again exceed debt and claim accumulation, or the system crashes and debts/claims are paid out on pennies on the dollar. What say you?
You can grow food and store tangible goods, but unless you can defend yourself and what you have, it will all be taken away from you if things were to get really awful. I have expressed "investments' before this way: You can take $1,250 (current gold price in USD per oz.) and buy a gold coin. You can take the same money, buy a good used 12-guage pump shotgun, a good used revolver (.38 Special or .357 Magnum), several boxes of ammo, and enough canned goods to feed you for several months (if you don't have epicurean tastes). Personally, I don't believe in the "doomsday" scenarios. I heard people cry "Wolf!" about how the world's economy would collapse any minute all my long life! In all my adult life, the most devastating thing I ever saw was "Stagflation" in the 1970's - up through about mid-1982. This last "Great Recession of 2008" thing was just a little popcorn fart compared to a prolonged period of years of double-digit inflation, skyrocketing prices on everyday goods, and with stagnant wages. In 2017, though, the Federal Reserve has a total choke-hold on the economy, and beginning in August 2007, it began flooding the world with trillions of imaginary dollars instead of letting a free market system correct its own imbalances. Today's grotesquely overvalued stock market is just one big byproduct of this insane monetary policy. Hint: based on true demand, today's prime interest rate should be at least 8% -- which is about where it was during the last "bubble"-- just prior to the "Great Recession". Oh, yeah, we're in a "bubble" again. If nothing else, look at how many people are borrowing money against their homes again. Absolutely irresponsibly INSANE! Think about this as you drive around your town seeing all those homeless beggars with cardboard signs at every large traffic intersection. Another "correction" is coming, but you don't have to let it ruin you!
Free-Markets, are you serious? The Federal Reserve monetizes the debt. That gives far more call on our national resources by government spenders that the collective net of our free will choices would, and pays saver below market rates for the debt notes they hold. But the Fed most certainly did do something about it. They kept the institutions that walked off the cliff, intact, unreformed and now they are bigger than ever, and dumber, because they not only collapsed the global economy, they collected bonuses in the same year they did it. In a free market, when WE (the market) refused to do business with them they would have been unable to continue business and their assets would have been divided up to cover claims against them. And our economic foundations would now be on a rebuilt system that watched what happened when the generation before them got way over-extended and in far over their heads. And the stockmarket bubble is thanks to the Fed, Deficit Spending and QE. Debt/Fed have fed the speculative stock-market, and rather than being the gauge of the Main Street economy, all they have done is tinker with the gauges and claimed "well, Main Street is doing well, because the 'gauge' that tells us how Main street is doing, looks just fine!" If his policies focus on Wall Street rather than Main Street, you are right. I don't they will though, Trump isn't a creature of Wall Street and they have no ownership in him, at all. As long as we have the strongest military in the world, a stable trustworthy system of laws and abundant resources, I would expect that we would remain the queen of the pigpen. If the dollar is strengthening, then I would expect some negative strength is hitting oil. But, it looks like you are invested in the bubble. Good luck. The bigger the bubble, the more able it is to find something to pop it. In the aftermath, one wonders how they missed the plainly inevitable. I'm sure you have have some plan in the event that we do have a very sharp drawback. You have to be seeing the same P/E numbers I am, and if the price isn't correlated to earnings, what is it correlated to? I read a interesting article the other day, likely based on something like this chart, where the author wonder if the Reagan Bull Market still lives. My problem is that when I look at this shape, and you can reproduce it with a number of different metrics, I keep looking at those dips marked at the dip between the 40.2 and the 13.3 dip, laying a ruler on those points and drawing the 3rd point at the end of the graph, at that line brings you down to the space between the first and second quintiles. I am still in the market, but I also have a generous pile of cash to invest if we do take that 3rd step down. And I do honestly wish you the best of luck.
when it gets to the point of defending everything you own with your shotgun, all bets are off anyway. Total societal breakdown is a loss for everyone. There really is no good plan for that.
I don't see this going full Mad Max or anything - just a massive economic downturn. There weren't a whole lot of homestead shootouts that I'm aware of in the Great Depression. Correct me if I'm wrong.
At the heart of this, I'm beginning to wonder, is the distinction between those that truly believe in freedom and self-governance and those that in their heart of hearts are oligarchs. For them an intrusive federal government resumes the role formerly filled by the Monarchy. Our nation is founded on the complete overthrow of the Monarchy, yet, we still seem to be in battle against the competing forces that merely want to reform the Monarchy.
I think we lost the republic somewhere around the 1950s. The threat of nuclear war has pretty effectively ended any opposition to government policy.
they know one thing, the american people will accept an solution that promises the ability to avoid pain in the short term.
Supposed to is an interesting proposition, at least they hope it strengthens the dollar, yet Trumpet doesn't want a strong dollar... Dollar retreats on Trump’s concern over currency’s strength President-elect voices worry over greenback’s effect on US competitiveness https://www.ft.com/content/b921b994-dca3-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce The dollar retreated from the high it struck at the start of the year after Donald Trump signalled his preference for a weaker currency by warning that the greenback was “too strong” for US companies to compete with their Chinese counterparts.
Well, that will have to be tested to determine if that is true. Generation after generations of Americans have demonstrated their ability and willingness to work and sacrifice in order to achieve longer term goals. I don't think this generation is any different in that regard.
Like I said, I don't buy into "end-of-the-world" crashes, either. I've heard that trumpet being blown all my long life (usually by those who are trying to sell a book on the subject). It won't crash now, but it could be a very disruptive shakeout -- just exactly the kind of thing that continues our "progressive" movement toward becoming a society like that described in Orwell's masterpiece, "1984".... We are not (NOT) the same people we were in the 1930's. Today we have a population where about 50% of the people are on one variety of welfare-suck or another. Some deserve to qualify for assistance, but the huge spike in the numbers of those getting "disability", "subsidies", and an entire smorgasbord of many different welfare handouts shows clearly that we are becoming, more and more, a nation of lazy, miserable parasites who just want to have the government give them everything they want and need -- in return for VOTES, of course. We didn't have "welfare-suck" programs in the 1930's.... Today's criminal, trashy bastards would think nothing of smashing down your front door in a "home invasion". If all you can do is clutch a gold coin while you're begging these creatures not to kill you and rape your wife then that is a pitiable, sick situation, indeed.
Have you seen a hint of this since 2008 ? Financial repression for the people and vast rewards for the very same group of financiers that destroyed world capital markets has been been the norm, and championed as saving the world. The majority of people agree, because it saved their foolishly invested 401Ks and home prices. Talk about pain avoidance. Talk about easy solutions to painful problems. Hook, line and sinker, .....gulp.
