As President Trump declared that he would leave the process of reopening the economy up to the states (with input from federal officials, of course), the Washington Post was releasing a ‘leaked’ report outlining a plan drafted by CDC and FDA that’s essentially a guide for local officials about how to go about reopening the economy.

And in contrast to the ‘guidelines’ released by the governors of California and Oregon, which seemed to imply that the process of reopening the economy could take as long as the rest of the year, if not longer, the administration plan offers a somewhat more realistic timetable.

The plan has been seen and discussed by members of the White House coronavirus task force. But remember, this is only a piece of what is supposed to be a more comprehensive framework that each governor can adjust to their liking. A federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity with WaPo said the final plan will have 8 parts; this document represents only 2 of them.

The first part of the phased reopening would focus on schools, daycares and places where “children are cared for.”

The plan lays out three-phases: Preparing the nation to reopen with a national communication campaign and community readiness assessment until May 1. Then, the effort, through May 15, would involve ramping up manufacturing of testing kits and personal protective equipment and increasing emergency funding. Then staged reopenings would begin, depending on local conditions. The plan does not give specific dates for reopenings but specified “not before May 1.”

The first priority, according to the CDC response document, is to “reopen community settings where children are cared for, including K-12 schools, daycares, and locally attended summer camps, to allow the workforce to return to work. Other community settings will follow with careful monitoring for increased transmission that exceeds the public health and health care systems.”

The process of a managed reopening will take much longer than 30 days: in fact, the administration expects there will be “some level” of government involvement until a vaccine is finally developed.

The document also says that during phased reopenings, it is critical to strictly follow recommendations on hand-washing and wearing face coverings in group settings.

The plan also carries this warning: “Models indicate 30-day shelter in place followed by 180 day lifting of all mitigation results in large rebound curve – some level of mitigation will be needed until vaccines or broad community immunity is achieved for recovering communities.”

A tiered approach is outlined in the document: a “moderate exposure” phase-in for former “hotspots” like New York” and a “low exposure” plan that will take things back to normal more quickly in communities where the virus never really spread widely. In the “moderate” track, schools could reopen, but with certain social distancing rules like no sports, and no assemblies.

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Investment advisor and former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts says, “We’ve been printing massive amounts of dollars, and if you look at all the things we did to stop high speed debasement and unprecedented inflation, we’ve kind of run out of tricks…”

“…Inflation is really sneaking up…

My question:

Is basically shutting down the small businesses and the small farm economy at high speed the way they have done, is that protecting us from going up a frightening inflation? Are we at Weimar Republic kind of inflation rates?

I have been telling my subscribers to plant, plant and plant because the price of food is going to go through the roof. Another one of my questions: What’s pressing for war?   Is the debt spiral up and the inflation spiral up, is that more than they can handle?”

Fitts also says the covert war going on now is about the U.S. dollar and countries who want to stop using it for trade.

If the dollar is used less, it will be worth less and maybe much less. Fitts says,

“We have tried to keep all the oil sales in the world going through the dollar. Of course, that’s put everybody back into our jurisdiction. The world doesn’t want to do that anymore. They want to be free to trade.

You are seeing more and more central banks around the world doing swap lines and direct relationships between central bank to central bank to try to do what is called de-dollarization.

So, you have the world wanting to move outside our channel, and you have the Anglo American alliance trying to protect the dollar syndicate. That is part of the economic war that is going on.”

Fitts says, “Whatever happens on the global stage, it means the days of the subsidy that kept the game inside America is over…”

“…So, how do you radically reduce the size of the financial footprint that stops inflation from going wild? 

How do you take the subsidy away from the American middle class without a major civil war?…

What we did was we did the China trade, and now it’s over, and everybody in America said fine, we will go along. Well, this is the price. You have borrowed from the future and now it’s over.”

Why the sudden record gun buying in America? Fitts says,

“They understand that the rule of law is steadily being diminished. They see all sorts of behavior… that is lawless…

They see people in poverty say if anything goes for the big guys, then anything goes for us…

Part of what is happening is we are dealing with a spiritual war, and there are serious demonic and occult forces at work. There is nothing they would love more than to stop the churches and stop people from getting together and praying and inviting in the divine and angelic hope every Sunday. I am with the President. I think stopping the churches from gathering is a very, very terrible idea.”

Fitts also still thinks gold is a good investment that will “outperform most other investments in 2020.”

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, publisher of “The Solari Report.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the completion of an against all odds landmark deal with Russia’s Gazprom as ensuring “energy security and prosperity for Ukrainians.” 

It will keep natural gas flowing to Western Europe via Ukraine for the next five years, which is estimated to net Ukraine $7 billion (€6.25 billion) in gas transit fees by 2024.

After a series of compromise breakthroughs over the past weeks, including Gazprom paying out $2.9 billion legal settlement to Naftogaz and Kiev in turn agreeing to wave a separate legal claim, the two sides finally inked the historic deal on Monday, which signals a broader thawing in tensions and dramatic deescalation after Moscow and Kiev have for years stood on the brink of open war.

Per Gazprom Chairman Alexey Miller, the accord has already gone into effect as of Tuesday: “After five days of uninterrupted negotiations in Vienna, definitive decisions have been made and final deals have been reached,” he said in a statement.

And Zelenskiy further presented it as an ‘everyone wins’ breakthrough: “Europe knows that we will not fail when it comes to energy security,” he said. Indeed European gas markets immediately felt the effects:

European gas and power prices extended declines after a last-gasp accord between Russia and Ukraine on natural gas flows averted a winter supply crisis.

According to Bloomberg’s analysis:

“There’s no more transit risk,” said Thierry Bros, an associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies. “We are in a world with a lot of LNG and piped gas and the Russians want to keep their market share in Europe.”

Benchmark Dutch gas prices dropped 0.7%, taking their record annual plunge to 44%. German power traded at its lowest level since May 2018.

This collective sigh of relief which came down to the wire, given the previous accord was set to expire on December 31, further comes ironically enough after sanctions-happy Washington has claimed all along to be acting in Ukraine and Europe’s best interest as it shouts “Russian interference” in Europe’s energy sector (especially given current US pressures over the Nord Stream 2 direct Russia-Germany pipeline).

Clearly the parties now hailing the new deal don’t see it that way. Instead, all indicators suggest a slow rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine, driven by necessity of supplying energy to Europe, and given Russia naturally wants to keep its significant chunk of the European market online.

It bears repeating that such good faith compromise between the two just isn’t supposed to happen! — that is according to the shrill cries of the neo-Cold War pundits who keep telling us Putin is not only bent on taking over Ukraine, but Europe as well — especially through gas and energy dominance.

Happy Halloween! On what was supposed to be Brexit day we instead need to find other things to be scared of. Fortunately, there are plenty out there. Indeed, Halloween seemed an appropriate time for me to finally watch ‘Joker’ – and if there was ever a film oozing angry ‘Age of Rage’ populism this is it. It literally shouts “Kill the rich!” in places. Ironically, trying to watch Joker while several rows in of seats in front of me were illuminated by mobile phones held aloft like lighters during an 80’s hair-metal power ballad by a generation too young to even know what the 1980’s were almost produced the same violent reaction in me as one scissors-related scene: amazingly, even said scene did not prompt the guy in front of me to look up from his device. “Is it getting crazier out there, or is it just me?”

Meanwhile, a Joker-style uprising in Chile has seen the country forced to cancel hosting the 2020 APEC summit. That’s the kind of barbarians-getting-through-the-gates development that markets really don’t like; and unless a Trump resort is available(?) perhaps there will be no APEC at this year. In which case, where are Trump and Xi going to sit down and sign this ‘phase one’ trade deal? (The one that we think is an empty box rather than anything substantive.)

Anyway, checking after viewing I see that Joker currently has a 69% critics rating on the review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes vs. an 89% audience score. That’s an arbitrage opportunity–buy or sell it, depending on which score you trust–but not as large as for a new D.C.-Universe neighbour, the Batwoman TV show, which has a 71% critics rating but just a 12% audience score. Is it angry US culture wars or are Russians involved somewhere again…

The question is being asked in the real D.C. universe in the presidential impeachment process. With no irony, the latest bomb dropped is that John “Bomb ‘em” Bolton is to testify; a man alleged to be akin to a previous Joker iteration in that he “just wants to see the world burn” is now being looked at as a voice of reason by those same critics. Of course, as every step is taken members of the D.C. team will be checking audience vs. critics scores to see if impeachment really is a good idea or not politically – and that arbitrage is again important for markets.

In the expanded D.C. universe yesterday we also had the outcome of the Fed meeting. Against the backdrop of GDP healthily beating expectations at 1.9% q/q annualized, driven by both household and state spending (a figure helpfully mocked by the editor of The Global Times for being far less than China’s “6% growth”), the Fed decided to cut rates 25bp for a third time this year to 1.75%. More importantly, the Fed made clear that this is it: the mid-cycle adjustment that it had absolutely no idea would be necessary back in January this year is now complete and they are on hold. Chairman (Ker)-Powell also added that it would require a major shift upwards in inflation to get them to raise rates again, or for geopolitics to go wrong for them to be forced to cut: otherwise they are done.

As our own D.C. hero Philip Marey makes clear here, we strongly disagree. Our view is that the economic data released in recent weeks have been outright alarming. They point to a sustained and significant contraction in manufacturing, a slowdown in the services sector and a slowdown in employment growth. There was even an unexpected decline in retail sales. As a result, we expect a recession in the second half of 2020 that will force the Fed to cut rates all the way back to zero. Oh, and we does not think the Repo issue is under control either. More to come there too.

Anyway, back to critics/audience arbitrage. In Joker the eponymous madman launches into an angry tirade at the world: “All of you, the system that knows so much, you decide what’s right or wrong. The same way that you decide what’s funny or not.” Given central-bank and central-government shepherding of asset prices, can we really say the same isn’t true if we substitute the word “funny” for “value”?

Where is the value of a bond or a stock if there were no central-bank backstop? Are we about to find out if the Fed are going to sit on their hands, as we don’t think they will? And isn’t it ironic that supervillains and banks end up together in my mind even when there is no bank-robbing going on in a Joker movie that was far more Taxi Driver than Batmobile?

Is that scary enough for you? No? Well how about Treasury Secretary Mnuchin proposing the removal of some of the post-crisis reporting requirements for RMBS to help the markets along? That should raise as many hairs on the back of the neck as it does champagne glasses near term. And want another Halloween scare? On the Brexit front it appears that the Lib Dems have struck an electoral Remain pact with the Green Party and Welsh nationalists and former Tory Dominic “General Grievous” Grieve….and the latest news on the other side is that the Brexit Party is prepared to stand down in Tory marginal seats and only attack key Leave-voting Labour constituencies. If true, that makes Remain the popular equivalent of the D.C. Universe before Wonder Woman vs. Leave’s Marvel Comics Universe ensemble – even if the latter is ironically led by BoJo(ker). Early days, but it looks like a potential power shift towards a strong Leave victory.

Yet Halloween has candy too. As Joker says, “All I have are negative thoughts.” Fortunately not all we have are negative yields – indeed there are a few trillion less today than a few months ago. And we can try to accentuate the positive further: sometimes real value slips through ‘the system’ anyway. As someone quipped regarding Greece issuing debt at negative yields, at least now we openly see those buying Greek bonds won’t be getting all their money back!

This morning also saw an enormous and unexpected surge in Aussie building approvals (up 7.6% m/m vs. flat consensus) as the market once again moves from outright gloom back to bubble territory, at least in Sydney and Melbourne. It’s a choppy series but this underlines: 1) RBA cuts are less likely near term; and 2) Australia has become like the Chinese economy on which it relies. There are fewer and fewer productive business opportunities to invest in, so one either goes all-in on property (when the RBA, APRA, and government give the thumbs up) or one goes all out (when the RBA, APRA, and government give the thumbs down). There is no moderate house-price inflation scenario: it’s dangerous bubble or dangerous bust. Which one do you think the Jokers at the RBA will want to lean towards, via Aussie QE if needed?

We also had China’s manufacturing PMI far weaker than expected at 49.3 and non-manufacturing PMI at 52.8, meaning a composite of 52.0, down from 53.1. So on top of all the other screams today, we can add a slowing Chinese economy.

And just like that, we are unch…

Thanks to a perfectly timed tweet from Global Times Editor Hi Xijin, algos ignited momentum at the cash open, sending stocks back to unchanged on the day…

Based on what I know, China-US trade talks made breakthrough last week and the two sides have the strong will to reach a final deal. Initial statement of the Chinese side is moderate. This is China’s habit. It doesn’t mean China’s real attitude is not positive.

And ramp…

And with bonds closed, there’s no one left to rationalize market moves.

It’s hard to imagine a more euphoric end to the week for bulls.

Two weeks ago I issued a report titled Realistically, What’s Left To Power Asset Prices Higher? which claimed the bulls only hope was for a near-term resumption of QE (quantitative easing, aka “money printing”) or a China trade deal.

Well, this week they got both.

Jerome Powell announced Wednesday that the U.S. Federal Reserve will resume expanding its balance sheet to the tune of $60 billion per month. And just a few hours ago, the Trump administration announced it had reached a partial trade agreement with its Chinese counterparts.

And to put a cherry on top of things, word from across the Pond is that somehow a Brexit deal just might happen by the end of the month.

When I began typing this article earlier today, the markets were fiercely building towards an orgiastic climax. They ended with a slight post-coital breather, closing modestly off the day’s highs.

In short, the bulls are suddenly having the time of their lives.

So, does this mean happy days have returned? Have we been rescued from the rising tide of data warning of an economic slowdown and lower asset prices? Does the Fed — and now China, too — have our back again?

Is it time for investors to become optimistic once more?

“Markets” No More

Before we answer that, though, let’s address the elephant in the room. We no longer have functioning financial markets.

The central banking cartel has killed price discovery. The $15+ TRILLION in liquidity injected by the Fed, EBC, BoJ, BoE and PBoC over the past decade has ‘risen all boats’ when it comes to asset prices.

Whether great, mediocre, or horrible, the price of nearly every company/property/investment has been on a one-way 45-degree ramp upwards since global co-ordinated quantitative easing began in 2009.

And Wednesday’s announcement by the Fed simply shows that this game will continue, despite years of broken promises that it would instead ‘normalize’ (i.e., undo much of its past QE).

As a result, we live in a world where traditional price signals have become meaningless. Management turmoil? Missed earnings expectations? Regulators cracking down on your industry? None of it matters in a world of perpetual QE. As long as stimulus keeps flowing, everything heads in the same direction: UP.

All that matters is guessing what the small coterie of central bankers plan to do next. Will they tighten from here? Or ease? By how much? And for how long?

As a result, ‘investing’ is a dead science. Instead, we’ve all been forced to become speculators.

Meanwhile, extremely manipulable high frequency trading (HFT) algorithms dominate the daily price action. Stock prices now hyper-react instantly to every tweet and leak, which the media and the Trump administration now exploit to maximum advantage.

Seriously — and this is topic for a future lengthy exploration — those in favor of removing President Trump may have a better case to make for market manipulation as his impeachable offense.  He’s been shoving market prices around on a daily basis for years now. And how are his tweets this week — one of which instantly sent the Dow skyrocketing 300 points on Thursday — not considered in flagrante delicto examples of painting the tape? (a prohibited form of manipulation in which the criminal ‘creates activity or rumors to drive up the price of a stock’):

Time To Pile Back Into The Market?

But making the (safe) assumption no one in power cares about our broken markets as long as they benefit from the status quo, where are prices more likely to go from here?

Two weeks ago, I argued that the only things that would save the bulls in the near term was new QE and a China deal. Now that the past 48 hours delivered on both counts, the outlook for the rest of 2019 is now substantially more complex to forecast.

Nearly all of the negative indicators we’ve been warning about still remain. The macro outlook still screams recession risk, corporate earnings are still forecast to disappoint, geopolitical strains remain unresolved, and the world’s oil supply chain looks even more vulnerable given today’s news that an Iranian oil tanker was struck by missiles in the Red Sea.

That said, Powell’s new $60 billion per month QE program (which he swears isn’t really QE) will surely have a stimulative impact on the system. Even if those funds don’t make it out into the economy directly, they will keep both good and bad banks solvent and thus keep credit flowing. That will help in keeping today’s zombie companies/jobs/buyback programs alive for the foreseeable future.

As for the China trade deal, honestly, who knows at the moment? Technically, what was announced today isn’t officially an agreement. And what was “agreed” to by the parties were the less-sensitive issues on the table.

Bloomberg controlled most of the information flow about today’s trade news, and this is how its own staff economists summarize today’s “progress”. Not exactly breathless optimism:

Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

Yesterday I was watching a video of Yale History professor Timothy Snyder in which he states “It’s patently clear that some of the people who’re involved in current politics…are borrowing some of the tactics of the 1920s and 1930s.” That came hours after discussing another article comparing the political talk in the UK to the rhetoric of Joseph Goebbels. And look at today’s headlines: “Turkey begins offensive against US Ally in Syria”; “Fed worried about rising economic risks from trade war”; “EU offers ultimatum to Johnson on Brexit plan”; “India and China face off over Himalayan flashpoint”; and “Two Killed in Germany Shooting After Failed Attack on Synagogue.”

I published an in-depth report early in the year all about political populism. The key message was we are seeing echoes of the 1920s and 1930s in today’s politics because we echo the economics of the 1920s and 1930s. We had a debt-driven Gilded Age boom prior to 2008 analogous to the Roaring 20s – and then a colossal bust, analogous to 1929. Since then we have failed to work out how to deal with the debt overhang, or to co-ordinate a global recovery between countries (so all boats rise) and within countries (so all boats rise, not just yachts). We haven’t worked out how to ensure capital circulates sustainably internationally or domestically.

As a response, the “will of the people”, “us vs. them”, ‘walls over bridges’ are back: and, most worrying, now as then, for sound underlying reasons. People didn’t just slip into madness in the 1930s: as Arendt makes clear, if “normality” offers you are a raw deal, you will opt for an alternative. What is being sold via today’s populism may not be a solution: yet neither is the status quo ante. Indeed, we repeat our errors. For example, take the Fed, its history and its present.

Authored by Graham Noble via LibertyNation.com,

For three years now, Americans have been hearing the cry “no one is above the law.” Those who have been repeating that mantra – aimed at President Donald Trump – seem to feel, however, that they themselves truly are above the law. As the Democrats’ Ukraine scandal unfolds, this becomes harder to ignore.

Barack Obama

A common Democratic Party narrative has already been established. It is evident in relation to the case of Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, the supposedly hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) server, the 2016 Clinton campaign’s colluding with foreign powers to obtain compromising material on Trump, and now Joe Biden’s corrupt Ukraine racketeering. The narrative goes something like this: To investigate any of these matters  – or to even suggest that any Democrat may have acted illegally – is not just un-American but a crime.

This brazenly despotic tactic – demonizing and criminalizing anyone who dares question one’s motives or the legality or morality of one’s actions – was established by the Obama administration. To this day, Obama and his faithful, cultlike followers claim that his time in the White House was scandal-free. Any objective study of his administration’s conduct shows that the opposite was true. In eight years, Obama may have racked up more scandals that any US president in history.

Suggest that anything the Obama administration did was corrupt or inappropriate, though, and one is met with howls of outrage and ridicule. People who dared to mention Solyndra, Benghazi, pallets of cash flown into Tehran in the dead of night, or the government’s dreadful Obamacare website designed by a company owned by an old college friend of Michelle Obama’s were labeled conspiracy theorists or worse.

Ukraine Cover-Up

The very same thing is now happening with regard to Joe Biden, the Clinton 2016 campaign, and Ukraine. The leftist news outlets are hard at work dismissing the entire affair as a right-wing conspiracy theory: Fabricated and debunked.

Joe Biden

Democrats and their media underlings are now furiously attempting to bury the entire Biden-DNC-Clinton-Ukraine web of corruption and complicity. Biden himself has even called upon the media to deny Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the opportunity to speak about Ukraine. That fact in itself can only cause one to wonder what the Democratic Party’s 2020 frontrunner is afraid of.

Unfortunately for Trump’s detractors, hundreds of documents have come to light which corroborate everything the president and his political allies believed about Biden’s corruption and the Democrats’ attempts to conspire with foreign sources to influence the 2016 election.

The Incriminating Paper Trail

As a result of the investigative efforts of The Hill’s John Solomon – along with a Politico investigation and other media probes – the Democrats’ Ukraine narrative is rapidly falling apart. Neither Politico nor The Hill are known, exactly, for dabbling in right-wing conspiracy theories.

All roads lead to Ukraine, it seems. Not only Biden’s blatant abuse of his vice presidency but the Democrats’ soliciting from Ukraine opposition research on Trump and his political associates. The very birth of the Trump-Russia hoax itself originated from Ukrainian officials who in 2016 disseminated the rumors that Trump was in league with Ukraine’s enemy, Russia.

At this point, it is worth noting that Russia and Ukraine are still foes and remain at war. Russia’s aim remains nothing less than the annexation of its neighbor. It is somewhat amusing, then, to think that Democrats for three years claimed that Trump was possibly an agent of Russia and now they are accusing him of “colluding” with Russia’s regional adversary.

Documents out of Ukraine reveal a number of things highly damaging to Democrats and, in all likelihood, fatal for Biden’s presidential aspirations. They show that, in 2016, the Democratic National Committee dispatched a contractor, Alexandra Chalupa, to Ukraine in search of compromising material on Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. This has been confirmed by Ukraine’s Washington Embassy. The aim, apparently, was to spark a congressional investigation right in the middle of the presidential campaign – a development that would have undoubtedly sabotaged Trump’s presidential chances.

In 2016, certain Ukrainian government officials worked to boost Clinton’s presidential campaign by, among other things, openly casting doubt upon Trump’s suitability for the White House and suggesting that he was, in effect, a puppet of the Russian government.

Other documents and statements by Ukrainian officials show that Victor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired after a threat from Biden to withhold over a billion dollars in loan guarantees to Ukraine, was indeed dismissed because he would not stand down his investigation into Burisma.

Burisma is the Ukrainian energy company that awarded a directorship to Biden’s son, Hunter, just weeks after then-President Barack Obama appointed his VP to be US point-man on Ukraine. Hunter Biden has no experience or qualifications for such a position, raising serious questions about why the company paid him some $50,000 a month.

Shokin stated in a deposition, under penalty of perjury, that he was told he was being fired because of his investigation into Burisma. Ukrainian officials and memos from Burisma’s American legal team indicate that everyone knew Shokin was fired over the Burisma investigation, contrary to what Biden Sr. has insisted.

There also exists documented evidence that congressional Democrats threatened Ukraine’s government, first to hand over information on Trump to then-special counsel Robert Mueller and, later, to not open a new investigation into the Bidens’ Ukrainian connections.

To deflect from all of this, Democrats engineered a phony story about Trump coercing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into providing damaging information on Biden, the president’s potential 2020 opponent. The story has been created with the help of an anonymous intelligence community source inventively described as a “whistleblower.”

Fatal Impeachment Blowback

While Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry based upon the Trump-Ukraine allegation, they have put themselves in a precarious position. Impeachment is not something that can be rammed through Congress behind closed doors in the dark of night. At some point, the president’s political opponents will have to make impeachment proceedings official, giving Republicans – and the president’s legal counsel – the power to seek out exculpatory evidence and mount a defense.

At that point, the Democrats’ 2016 attempts to solicit the aid of a foreign power to influence the election – now corroborated by the Ukrainians – will become an unavoidable story. Biden’s influence-peddling will also be examined because a major part of Trump’s defense will be that his impeachment is, at least in part, a ploy to cover up the potentially illegal activities of the DNC and corruption within the Obama administration.

William Barr

As if the Ukraine situation were not bad enough for Democrats, they may also be concerned about what Attorney General William Barr and his point prosecutor, John Durham, are uncovering in their investigation into the genesis of the Trump-Russia investigation.

The identity of the so-called whistleblower and of the White House sources he or she claims to have will become known, also, if articles of impeachment are introduced. It is simply inconceivable that a president could be impeached based upon second-hand information provided by an anonymous source.

The Ukrainian quagmire could well prove to be the Democrats’ undoing in 2020. Almost certainly, it means the end of Joe Biden’s nomination chances. Of all Trump’s achievements in the three years he has been in office – for better or worse, depending on one’s political point of view – his most significant may be that he has managed to drive the Democrats and the left-wing media so insane with hatred that they continue to shoot themselves in the foot, over and over again.

Authored by Lior Gantz via ActivistPost.com,

No One Comes Back From This Uninjured. In one word, the devaluation is set to ESCALATE.

In fact, I term it Competitive Devaluation. There are several countries that will be the pioneers of it, but it will eventually reach the United States of America. In Europe and in Japan, we are closer to seeing it happening; in the next 2-5 years, you’ll hear about governments’ first official plans to do this,

They will NOT alert the media to notify the public to own gold and silver. They haven’t thus far (and they won’t going forward, either), and meanwhile, they’ve been accumulating them at the fastest pace in more than half a century.

The central banks want to buy gold, uninterrupted. Since they do not buy silver, the mania that will ensue in that niche market will be huge.

Not just gold and silver stand to gain from devaluation; companies that are able to increase prices and not lose consumers will be great winners as well. These are the world-dominators with pricing power, and I will profile my top-5 holdings for the Endgame Decade (2020-2029) in a Special Report due to be published by September 30th.

Real estate prices in metropolitan areas will also continue to rise; these are hard assets that are difficult to increase in supply, but my analysis is that of the three – world-class companies, precious metals, and real estate, silver will be the BEST PERFORMER.

Courtesy: U.S. Global Investors

Central banks are not able to inflate the real debt levels away. The most extreme case of this is Japan, whose central bank has done ALMOST everything under the sun to relieve the country of its deflationary spiral and has failed miserably.

We are a few years from that because many countries have still not reached the negative-yield world. Trump’s entire argument is that the FED doesn’t need to have ammunition come next recession, because interest rates are never going higher again, so just slam the bid, shove the thing to ZERO, or lower and help monetize bonds.

That’s Trump’s attitude, and as bizarre as it sounds, it is becoming our way of life. Under this fiat monetary system, we are never going back to normalized rates; the path is Competitive Devaluation.

Debts will be written off, savings will become extinct and it’s all because our political systems, demographics projection, and growth curves do not align at all.

In the short-term, September will be a month of relief. The Treasury will be funded, the debt ceiling will be raised and dollar liquidity will be increased by the FED; they will lower rates with 100% uncertainty. Any other announcement and the markets will dive by 15%-20%, like in December.