PNK, we saw Justin 'DooDoo" attempt to seize accounts & property in Canada relative to the trucker protest, which engineered a sharp push back presumably by the WEF.
Do you expect similar broad action in the US by the Fifth Column Biden Administration perhaps against not only Donald Trump but his supporters and other 'members' of the vaunted 'insurrection' such as Russian and some Ukrainian Oligarchs, certain Republican politicians, former cabinet members, secretaries of state, defense, energy, interior, HUD, as well as political appointees, former & current 'conservative' judges, DAs, Attorney Generals, Supreme Court Justices, and literally any political operative 'on the other side' whether in the US or some other country as well as private business such as any which has ever made a donation to the Trump campaign.
If you wanted to finish off the US dollar as the world reserve currency this would certainly do it!
It would also be in line with a full blown "Crony Capitalism Communist" takeover.
1. I don't have any great insight into what future corruption the Biden Regime will attempt. Whatever it does attempt is almost sure to be done badly.
2. I'm unconvinced the Biden Regime knows how to even spell "dollar", let alone how to mount a coherent attack on it's presumed hegemony.
3. The dollar as currency hegemon is greatly overstated. It's not even the currency used in most SWIFT transactions (the euro is).
The more realistic view of the dollar is as the archetypical fiat currency. It's dominance is more metaphorical than literal (otherwise Japan's MMT experiment would never have gotten started).
Consequently, destroying the dollar necessarily entails destroying ALL fiat currencies (which includes the ruble and the yuan, which are not now nor are likely to become "sound money" backed by gold -- neither Russia nor China has adequate gold reserves for that to happen, and neither country wants to handcuff their currency that way). You'd have to obliterate literally all current banking and finance to do it.
That may happen. MMT is monetary madness and there's no easy off ramp from it. But such a collapse is likely to be more inevitable than intentional.
4. We're already in a Crony Capitalist system, and have been since at least the rise of the globalist oligarchs and cartels. How we get back to a constitutional republic is a question.
I can see how you can get really wrapped up in analyzing this stuff.
How much longer do you think this MMT insanity can actually continue?
They say something will continue until it can't, where is our "can't" moment?
The CIA said the Soviets couldn't continue for much more than another 75 years, it collapsed (some sort of intentional 'fake' collapse perhaps) less than 4 years later!
"Predictions are hard, especially about the future."
You have the gist of it, I think. MMT will continue...until it can't.
What will be that "can't" moment? An excellent question, with only extremely unsatisfactory ruminations for answers.
There is no discrete identifiable (and therefore predictable) set of circumstances which will describe the "can't" moment. In 2010-2011 I was certain the EU had reached a "can't" moment on the deep-seated psychosis that is the common currency; then the EU looked into the abyss of Grexit, while Greece also looked into the abyss of Grexit, and everyone decided that the euro wasn't so bad after all.
Rather, the "can't" moment will come upon everyone unawares. It will be not a predictable set of circumstances, but a combination of factors that leads fiat currency into a dead end. Notionally, one would think that Japan is approaching such a moment--only they are finding escape routes at least thus far. The Fed believes it is charting an escape route--whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen (with a great many alt-economists predicting the Fed will not).
So long as the Fed can find an escape route, MMT will be sustainable.
The moment the Fed cannot find an escape route, MMT will collapse.
Given that the world's central banks by and large drink the Fed's Kool-Aid, what will trap the Fed will be some combination of actions by other central banks which touch off a chain reaction of currency volatilities. Ironically, an attack on the dollar by another central bank (Russia's, for example, or PBOC) would not produce such a chain reaction, but quite the opposite (note: volatility is not to be conflated with valuation).
What a lot of people are thinking is that the Fed will kow-tow to the markets when the howling gets loud enough. I'm not persuaded this is necessarily the case: The Fed allowed the markets to shed 80%+ of value during the 2008 GFC, and also during the 2001 Tech Bubble. The Fed in fact triggered the GFC by hiking interest rates in 2006 SPECIFICALLY to cool off the subprime mortgage market which was the unstable foundation for the derivatives markets in which so many banks were deeply enmeshed (as were more than a few national governments--Greece gained entry into the EU in 2003 by using derivatives to paint a fine veneer on their finances). So the Fed can and has thrown the markets under the bus.
If the Feds throw the markets under the bus then there may yet be an escape from MMT. If Powell finds his inner Volcker and holds the line on interest rates, there will be a period of substantial financial turmoil, but the dollar would likely emerge stronger and perhaps even healthier than before. A lot of companies who's financials are nothing but air (Facebook/Meta, for example) might go belly up., but the dollar could emerge stronger, and would certainly enjoy a period of exchange rate strength no matter what.
Later this week I hope to have consolidated my thoughts on MMT and Fed monetary policy overall.
Yes, the catastrophe is never as close as everyone thinks or claims it is, until, like a thief in the night, it arrives!
Do you see any evidence, and perhaps I'm asking you to go where you do not, that a real catastrophe is pending, something they have not told us about, not the next glaciation, which is certain in something between 5 hundred years or less and 5 thousand years or more.
Something like Apophis (April 2029), but not that, but like a solar micro-Nova or a Galactic Superwave or magnetic reversal other potentially near extinction level event?
You know, something that would essentially be the "antidote" to MMT cause it won't make 2 shits in the wind after.
You see, all the "balloon payments" in the world won't really matter after the majority of the surface of the earth is destroyed.
See, if you "knew" with certainty that on July 16th, 2039, the planet would be devastated by a "whatever," it doesn't matter, why wouldn't you procure financing options that don't come due till December 31st, 2040?
And do so from whichever financial institutions were on the side of the planet due to be most damaged by "the event."
Yes, crazy I know.
But it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?
Just like another 'crazy' idea I have. That of the 45 Communist goals, the vast majority which have already been achieved against the West and America, how bout #2?
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
When did this happen? Did it happen?
Once again, it would explain a lot.
Hopefully, people like me don't irritate you too much, but you have a impressive understanding of this financial stuff and quite a capable way of putting it into the proper written words that is "interesting."
There are several developments that are by themselves worrisome.
The Evergrande implosion and the collapse of China's real estate market is one. China seems to be holding back the beast for now with loose money policy, but whether or not that comes in time to stop the train wreck is problematic. The Zero COVID lockdowns have not helped any, that much is certain.
Japan's yen is having a meltdown, forcing the BoJ to defend its yield-curve-control regime at all costs, to the extent that it is potentially hoovering up all yen-denominated debt.
The US descent into a stagflationary recession is very worrisome. Most Americans do not remember this country's last flirtation with stagflation--it wasn't any fun. Families of decidedly middle-class means often faced challenges in the weekly food budget. That we are facing another such episode intrinsically presumes risk.
Supply chain dislocations both from China's Zero COVID and the Russo-Ukrainian War are another event with outsized risk potentials.
All of these events are happening in close proximity to each other, timewise. Can they plus other events form that confluence of factors that triggers the meltdown? Of course its possible, but it has not happened as of yet. Will it take the addition of other events not yet known? There's no way to tell.
Will the MMT meltdown happen and take all of modern finance with it? Eventually, it has to, unless it is peaceably retired before then. Those are the options for MMT: meltdown or retirement.
The meltdown scenario is a cascade event in which bank after bank, central bank after central bank, chokes on a mountain of bad debt and collapses, putting strain on other central banks (or regular banks), pushing them also into collapse. That scenario ends when every central bank collapses, and takes every commercial bank with it.
A retirement scenario leaves us with a system of economics, finance, and governance that is not intolerably corrupt, not intolerably inefficient, not intolerably unproductive, and which overall is sustainable over the medium to long-term.
Which one will we get? That answer hasn't been determined yet, and I'm not certain I would recognize the answer if it had.
Surely our printing another 10 to 75 trillion dollars can inject a little more time into the system?
Since it is essentially a giant PONZI scheme, let's just "double down" by a whole order of magnitude, which will surely 'kick the can' until we "can't" by which time I am well into my government public service guaranteed 'golden parachute.' Nobody wants another Robert Mueller or Merrick Garland in a public hearing, so the odds of being held accountable are next to zilch.
It looks to me that the problem with MMT "retirement" is the "peaceable" part, you know, the part we the commoners have to pay for. I guess they can't "retire" debt until they "retire" us and then the Social Security "Lock Box" fixes everything? And think of the savings for Medicaid with the decrease in pregnancies secondary to the "Clot Shot." Then 'food stamps' the second largest 'currency' in the world! After that, another 'Peace Dividend.'
On second thought, Madge, print TWO Orders of Magnitude, and give my retirement as well as Gruesom's a boost!
That is it, "depopulation" as well as a healthy dose of "gun control" and problem solved.
PNK, we saw Justin 'DooDoo" attempt to seize accounts & property in Canada relative to the trucker protest, which engineered a sharp push back presumably by the WEF.
Do you expect similar broad action in the US by the Fifth Column Biden Administration perhaps against not only Donald Trump but his supporters and other 'members' of the vaunted 'insurrection' such as Russian and some Ukrainian Oligarchs, certain Republican politicians, former cabinet members, secretaries of state, defense, energy, interior, HUD, as well as political appointees, former & current 'conservative' judges, DAs, Attorney Generals, Supreme Court Justices, and literally any political operative 'on the other side' whether in the US or some other country as well as private business such as any which has ever made a donation to the Trump campaign.
If you wanted to finish off the US dollar as the world reserve currency this would certainly do it!
It would also be in line with a full blown "Crony Capitalism Communist" takeover.
There's a lot to unpack here:
1. I don't have any great insight into what future corruption the Biden Regime will attempt. Whatever it does attempt is almost sure to be done badly.
2. I'm unconvinced the Biden Regime knows how to even spell "dollar", let alone how to mount a coherent attack on it's presumed hegemony.
3. The dollar as currency hegemon is greatly overstated. It's not even the currency used in most SWIFT transactions (the euro is).
The more realistic view of the dollar is as the archetypical fiat currency. It's dominance is more metaphorical than literal (otherwise Japan's MMT experiment would never have gotten started).
Consequently, destroying the dollar necessarily entails destroying ALL fiat currencies (which includes the ruble and the yuan, which are not now nor are likely to become "sound money" backed by gold -- neither Russia nor China has adequate gold reserves for that to happen, and neither country wants to handcuff their currency that way). You'd have to obliterate literally all current banking and finance to do it.
That may happen. MMT is monetary madness and there's no easy off ramp from it. But such a collapse is likely to be more inevitable than intentional.
4. We're already in a Crony Capitalist system, and have been since at least the rise of the globalist oligarchs and cartels. How we get back to a constitutional republic is a question.
This is fascinating!
Thanks, Peter!
I can see how you can get really wrapped up in analyzing this stuff.
How much longer do you think this MMT insanity can actually continue?
They say something will continue until it can't, where is our "can't" moment?
The CIA said the Soviets couldn't continue for much more than another 75 years, it collapsed (some sort of intentional 'fake' collapse perhaps) less than 4 years later!
"Predictions are hard, especially about the future."
You have the gist of it, I think. MMT will continue...until it can't.
What will be that "can't" moment? An excellent question, with only extremely unsatisfactory ruminations for answers.
There is no discrete identifiable (and therefore predictable) set of circumstances which will describe the "can't" moment. In 2010-2011 I was certain the EU had reached a "can't" moment on the deep-seated psychosis that is the common currency; then the EU looked into the abyss of Grexit, while Greece also looked into the abyss of Grexit, and everyone decided that the euro wasn't so bad after all.
Rather, the "can't" moment will come upon everyone unawares. It will be not a predictable set of circumstances, but a combination of factors that leads fiat currency into a dead end. Notionally, one would think that Japan is approaching such a moment--only they are finding escape routes at least thus far. The Fed believes it is charting an escape route--whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen (with a great many alt-economists predicting the Fed will not).
So long as the Fed can find an escape route, MMT will be sustainable.
The moment the Fed cannot find an escape route, MMT will collapse.
Given that the world's central banks by and large drink the Fed's Kool-Aid, what will trap the Fed will be some combination of actions by other central banks which touch off a chain reaction of currency volatilities. Ironically, an attack on the dollar by another central bank (Russia's, for example, or PBOC) would not produce such a chain reaction, but quite the opposite (note: volatility is not to be conflated with valuation).
What a lot of people are thinking is that the Fed will kow-tow to the markets when the howling gets loud enough. I'm not persuaded this is necessarily the case: The Fed allowed the markets to shed 80%+ of value during the 2008 GFC, and also during the 2001 Tech Bubble. The Fed in fact triggered the GFC by hiking interest rates in 2006 SPECIFICALLY to cool off the subprime mortgage market which was the unstable foundation for the derivatives markets in which so many banks were deeply enmeshed (as were more than a few national governments--Greece gained entry into the EU in 2003 by using derivatives to paint a fine veneer on their finances). So the Fed can and has thrown the markets under the bus.
If the Feds throw the markets under the bus then there may yet be an escape from MMT. If Powell finds his inner Volcker and holds the line on interest rates, there will be a period of substantial financial turmoil, but the dollar would likely emerge stronger and perhaps even healthier than before. A lot of companies who's financials are nothing but air (Facebook/Meta, for example) might go belly up., but the dollar could emerge stronger, and would certainly enjoy a period of exchange rate strength no matter what.
Later this week I hope to have consolidated my thoughts on MMT and Fed monetary policy overall.
Yes, the catastrophe is never as close as everyone thinks or claims it is, until, like a thief in the night, it arrives!
Do you see any evidence, and perhaps I'm asking you to go where you do not, that a real catastrophe is pending, something they have not told us about, not the next glaciation, which is certain in something between 5 hundred years or less and 5 thousand years or more.
Something like Apophis (April 2029), but not that, but like a solar micro-Nova or a Galactic Superwave or magnetic reversal other potentially near extinction level event?
You know, something that would essentially be the "antidote" to MMT cause it won't make 2 shits in the wind after.
You see, all the "balloon payments" in the world won't really matter after the majority of the surface of the earth is destroyed.
See, if you "knew" with certainty that on July 16th, 2039, the planet would be devastated by a "whatever," it doesn't matter, why wouldn't you procure financing options that don't come due till December 31st, 2040?
And do so from whichever financial institutions were on the side of the planet due to be most damaged by "the event."
Yes, crazy I know.
But it would explain a lot, wouldn't it?
Just like another 'crazy' idea I have. That of the 45 Communist goals, the vast majority which have already been achieved against the West and America, how bout #2?
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
When did this happen? Did it happen?
Once again, it would explain a lot.
Hopefully, people like me don't irritate you too much, but you have a impressive understanding of this financial stuff and quite a capable way of putting it into the proper written words that is "interesting."
Can't wait for the next "installment."
There are several developments that are by themselves worrisome.
The Evergrande implosion and the collapse of China's real estate market is one. China seems to be holding back the beast for now with loose money policy, but whether or not that comes in time to stop the train wreck is problematic. The Zero COVID lockdowns have not helped any, that much is certain.
Japan's yen is having a meltdown, forcing the BoJ to defend its yield-curve-control regime at all costs, to the extent that it is potentially hoovering up all yen-denominated debt.
The US descent into a stagflationary recession is very worrisome. Most Americans do not remember this country's last flirtation with stagflation--it wasn't any fun. Families of decidedly middle-class means often faced challenges in the weekly food budget. That we are facing another such episode intrinsically presumes risk.
Supply chain dislocations both from China's Zero COVID and the Russo-Ukrainian War are another event with outsized risk potentials.
All of these events are happening in close proximity to each other, timewise. Can they plus other events form that confluence of factors that triggers the meltdown? Of course its possible, but it has not happened as of yet. Will it take the addition of other events not yet known? There's no way to tell.
Will the MMT meltdown happen and take all of modern finance with it? Eventually, it has to, unless it is peaceably retired before then. Those are the options for MMT: meltdown or retirement.
The meltdown scenario is a cascade event in which bank after bank, central bank after central bank, chokes on a mountain of bad debt and collapses, putting strain on other central banks (or regular banks), pushing them also into collapse. That scenario ends when every central bank collapses, and takes every commercial bank with it.
A retirement scenario leaves us with a system of economics, finance, and governance that is not intolerably corrupt, not intolerably inefficient, not intolerably unproductive, and which overall is sustainable over the medium to long-term.
Which one will we get? That answer hasn't been determined yet, and I'm not certain I would recognize the answer if it had.
Surely our printing another 10 to 75 trillion dollars can inject a little more time into the system?
Since it is essentially a giant PONZI scheme, let's just "double down" by a whole order of magnitude, which will surely 'kick the can' until we "can't" by which time I am well into my government public service guaranteed 'golden parachute.' Nobody wants another Robert Mueller or Merrick Garland in a public hearing, so the odds of being held accountable are next to zilch.
It looks to me that the problem with MMT "retirement" is the "peaceable" part, you know, the part we the commoners have to pay for. I guess they can't "retire" debt until they "retire" us and then the Social Security "Lock Box" fixes everything? And think of the savings for Medicaid with the decrease in pregnancies secondary to the "Clot Shot." Then 'food stamps' the second largest 'currency' in the world! After that, another 'Peace Dividend.'
On second thought, Madge, print TWO Orders of Magnitude, and give my retirement as well as Gruesom's a boost!
That is it, "depopulation" as well as a healthy dose of "gun control" and problem solved.