The Collectivist Coin

It isn’t a question of if…it is question of when.

Social Security Pending Insolvency…from Rico

Q: What are the ‘odds’ that Congress will completely fail to do anything about this? [After all, they’re too ‘busy’ trying to undo the 2016 election results and/or running as 2020 hopefuls.]
A: About the same as the MSM even talking about it.

Starting THIS YEAR Social Security expenses will be greater than revenues [think: payroll taxes, interest income, and from taxing SocSec ‘benefits’].
– By 2034-35 Social Security will exhaust it’s ‘reserves’ and officially be insolvent [for politicians read: broke].

But at least the US deficit is out of control, so Americans have that going for them.
– Americans used to save, now they just borrow and spend.

….this will not end well.

The Collectivist Coin

TANSTAAFL! Forever true is the statement about free lunch.

Universal basic income doesn’t work. Let’s boost the public realm instead

A study published this week sheds doubt on ambitious claims made for universal basic income (UBI), the scheme that would give everyone regular, unconditional cash payments that are enough to live on. Its advocates claim it would help to reduce poverty, narrow inequalities and tackle the effects of automation on jobs and income. Research conducted for Public Services International, a global trade union federation, reviewed for the first time 16 practical projects that have tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries, as well as copious literature on the topic.

It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The research confirms the importance of generous, non-stigmatising income support, but everything turns on how much money is paid, under what conditions and with what consequences for the welfare system as a whole.

From Kenya and southern India to Alaska and Finland, cash payment schemes have been claimed to show that UBI “works”. In fact, what’s been tested in practice is almost infinitely varied, with cash paid at different levels and intervals, usually well below the poverty line and mainly to individuals selected because they are severely disadvantaged, with funds provided by charities, corporations and development agencies more often than by governments.

Experiments in India and Kenya have been funded, respectively, by Unicef and Give Directly, a US charity supported by Google. They give money to people on very low incomes in selected villages for fixed periods of time. Giving small amounts of cash to people who have next to nothing is bound to make a difference – and indeed, these schemes have helped to improve recipients’ health and livelihoods. But nothing is revealed about their longer-term viability, or how they could be scaled up to serve whole populations. And there is a democratic deficit: people who get their basic income from charities or aid agencies have no control over how payments are made, to whom, at what level or over what period of time.

The Alaska Permanent Fund, built from the state’s oil revenues, pays all adults and children a dividend each year – in 2018, it was $1,600 (£1,230). The scheme is popular and enduring; it has been found to produce some positive impacts on rural indigenous groups, but it makes no claim to sufficiency and has done nothing to reduce child poverty or to prevent widening income inequalities. [snip]

Collectivist Banking

To be forewarned is to be aware and prepared.

What’s YOUR currency ‘backed’ with?…from Rico

What is YOUR national fiat currency ‘backed’ with?
– If it’s the good faith and credit of your government [read: a political ‘promise’] then you are already tattooed, blued, and just waiting to be screwed.

Doubt me?

Consider THIS:  The BOJ (Bank of Japan) is now one of the top-ten owners of 50% of ALL Japanese companies. [read: private holdings owned with public money.]

For…in no particular order…the Sheeple, Keynesians, Socialists, Progressives and Democrats [read: dumb shits] this translates into privatize the profits/rewards, socialize the risk/costs.

Do you seriously ‘think’ it’s ‘different’ anywhere else? [think: Fed, Bank of England, Deutsche Bank, et al].
– The entire ‘Western’ financial/banking system is: (a) nationalized, (b) propped-up with un-backed, printed from thin air, fiat money [read: fake, but backed by political promises].

Russia, China, and India excluded of course…they actually have Gold (neither trusting in, nor believing empty political ‘promises’), and it’s worth remembering that who holds the Gold makes the Rules while bullshit walks…

Collectivist Banking

One peek at the national checkbook should convince you that all isn’t well. The balance is near zero and lenders now may have had enough of buying T-Bills to cause concern.

Foreigner Boycott Of US Treasurys Continues: 7Y Auction Indirects Tumble To 3 Year Low

Following the earlier collapse in Indirect bidders in this week’s 2Y auction, and the spike in the Direct takedown in yesterday’s 5Y auction, today’s sale of $32 billion in 7Y paper saw a continuation of both of these recent trends.

First the good news: the auction stopped at a high yield of 2.538%, stopping through the When Issued 2.547% by a whopping 0.9bps, while the yield was the lowest since December 2017, and well below last month’s 2.625% as one by one rates traders expect the Fed to start cutting rates soon.

The internals were not nearly as strong, however, with the Bid to Cover rising to 2.60, up from 2.54% in January and above the 6 month average of 2.51. More importantly, there were continuing signs of a foreign bidder boycott, if not nearly as harsh as the one observed during the 2Y auction earlier this week, as Indirects took down only 55.2%, below the 58.3% in January, and the lowest Indirect print since the 47.1% in December 2015. Directs, meanwhile, surged just like in yesterday’s 5Year auction, rising to 28.4%, the second highest on record, and just below the 32.6% Directs in March 2014. This means that dealers were left with just 16.4%, the lowest since the 11.7% in January 2018.

Overall, another concerning auction, one where the fading in foreign demand continued to be offset by Direct bidders, although the question is what happens if and when Direct buyers join Indirects in boycotting US auctions, leaving only Dealers, who already have near record high holdings of US paper, to fund Uncle Sam. When that happens, look for a quick and painful market crash as the Fed will be desperate for cover to start another round of deficit monetization, also known as QE.

We have been living high on the hog; we may have to butcher that pig and walk home. Others in the past from Thatcher and Churchhill have warned about running out of Other Prople’s Money (OPM) someday. That someday may be in our not to distant future.
How would you like to live in a place like Cuba or Venezuela. The prophylactic for this is called: The GOLD STANDARD.
we’ve been over this before. Gold is still worth what it was in 1970; $35.00/oz. The price of gold has not risen to over $1400/oz. The value of the dollar has been debased to the point of near worthlessness.

Don’t like this reality? Vote the bastards out of office and put in fiscal conservatives.

Collectivist Banking

If you have been awake for the month of December, you most likely saw the manipulation of the markets by the big Poobahs who look to shake the muppets into panic selling. You witnessed a one day climb of the DOW by 1084 points. The following day, it gave back over half of those gains.

In insider parlance, that is a “Sucker Rally”. One MUST remember that the Market is NOT the economy. The stock market is a LEGAL gambling pit. One who wishes to play, had better know the hidden rules.

So what have the metals been doing during this Danse Macabre. Not much. Certainly they react to the swirl of change but they haven’t soared nor plunged with insane gyrations.

Here’s the latest chart from Kitco.

Gold hasn’t moved more than up $8.00± USD or down by a similar amount.

Forget not that with metals, “If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”.

Collectivist Banking

Is this the comeuppance for Congress’ squandering ways. Printing money doesn’t give you more, it binds all to higher costs.

The U.S.’s interest payments are about to skyrocket. Does it matter?

The Fed’s interest rate hikes are doing more than hitting consumers in the credit cards. They’re also making it much more expensive for the U.S. to carry its debt load.

While they’re not currently a subject of President Trump’s Twitter outrage, America’s interest payments have become a point of concern for some on Wall Street. Those payments are projected to triple to more than $600 billion by 2023, reflecting rising interest rates as well as the exploding deficit. That figure approaches the amount the U.S. spends on national defense every year, and dwarfs what it spends on agriculture, Medicaid, income security and veterans’ programs, to name just a few.

“Rarely have deficits risen when the economy is booming. And never in modern U.S. history have deficits been so high outside of a war or recession (or their aftermath),” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote in a recent blog post.

In the first full year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the federal deficit rose to its highest level in six years. Next year, it’s projected to rise even higher. [snip]

“If you issue more and more treasuries, the dollars you use to buy them need to come from somewhere. They could have gone into the stock market, or into other investments,” according to Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank.

But for the U.S., expensive debt is nothing new. In the 1990s, interest rates were much higher, so although the U.S. carried a smaller debt, Americans paid much more to service it. Today’s interest expenses are still below their historical highs, noted Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center on Economic and Policy Priorities.

Even if interest rates increase dramatically, it would only bring interest payments to the relative level they had in the 1990s. [snip]

If you think back to that time period, you’ll remember that Clinton moved the US from long term treasuries (30 year) to short term bonds which carried a lower interest rate. HOWEVER, those short term notes also had and have a more volatile rate swings.

With the increases in rates by the Fed, the US cost to finance those notes move faster than they could in 30 year treasuries.

Progressive economics Anyone?

Collectivist Banking

Putting the government of money is no different from giving gin and car keys to a 14 year old. The level of responsibility is the same.
If you want to see stupid in action, watch Shumer in the Senate well babble on about bupkis.

Uh Oh: Funds Raised From The Border Wall GoFundMe Account May Have To Be Returned

House Resolution 7207 was introduced as a way of addressing the issues surrounding the government receiving donations for the border wall.

If the House can pass the bill before the Democrats take control before the beginning of the year, H.R. 2707 would establish the “Border Wall Trust Fund” and allow the government to receive funds for the earmarked project.

If passed, the Secretary of the Treasury would have 60 days to establish the account. A website would have to be established so people could donate directly to the cause online.

ORIGINAL POST

Over the last few days, the GoFundMe campaign to build the border wall along the southern border has raised more than $15.5 million out of the $1 billion goal. But now, Brian Kolfage, the Purple Heart triple amputee veteran who started the campaign may have to return the funds raised throughout the campaign.

According to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he’s unsure about how the donation would work.

“I think it’s admirable, and I think that the country should respond,” Goodlatte told The New York Post. “Obviously, we can’t let citizens raise money and say, ‘The government will spend my money on this purpose.’”

Part of the problem is how donations made to the federal government are handled. “Gifts to the United States” are set aside for “general use” by the federal government or “budget needs.”

Translation: there’s no guarantee that everyone’s money will actually fund the border wall if it goes into the general fund.

And, to complicate matters even further, some agencies have to have money allocated by Congress. It remains unknown if the Department of Homeland Security is one the agencies that can accept earmarked donations.

One of GoFundMe’s terms of services is simple: the funds must go towards intended purpose. If Kolfage turns the money over to the feds and they don’t use it to build the wall then he may have to reimburse every donor.

Brian Kolfage did not immediately respond to Townhall’s request for comment.

Tell any politician that we need dedicated tax lines. Make sure that you are standing upwind and at a considerable distance. When any politician hears that his bowel will explosively let go creating a Super Fund site.

Collectivist Banking

One has to wonder how long the American wage earner/taxpayer is going to put up with a group of PRIVATE individuals deciding our national economy.

Whatever you might save isn’t rewarded with more than notional interest. Yet the mechanization of the constantly changing ‘Market basket’ items that show NO inflation. Meanwhile the real cost of living is near a 19% inflationary rate. Now do you understand why you can’t seem to gain ground toward retirement.

End the Fed…from Rico

Try getting a breakfast in NYC for 10-cents, go ahead, I dare you!

– The last time I had breakfast at the Tavern on the green there it was a LOT more than 10-cents, I assure you.

Why is that?

– It’s called INFLATION, and it’s what the Fed really’does’…

Don’t forget to ‘thank’ them for doing such a swell job!

All the EU economies are taking it on the nose. Any(which is most) country that went off the gold standard, on to a fiat currency is now suffering the same as the US.

The Governments spend more than they take in each month. To compensate, the US Treasury issues more bonds, T-bills and of course prints more money. What the value of that dollar is, the moment they print another dollar, the value drops by 50%. Keep doing this and soon one looks like California or Venezuela. At some point, Wiemar Germany becomes an eternal Oktoberfest.

The Eastern Europeans know to have a cache of negotiable metal. Paper currency is something you either don’t have enough or you have too much; there’s no right amount.

Collectivist Banking

CRYPTO’S, ask not…from Rico

Crypto’s took a beating yesterday. Again.

– But ask not why they went down so much, but rather why the went up so much in the first place?

Unlike other investments/assets, Crypto’s have NO valuation metrics save for price. What does that mean?

– It means BTC at $20K is the same as BTC at $4.5K. Not much.

– It means Crypto’s are a self-growing Liability, not an Asset. [Think: A-L=E…Assets minus Liabilities equals Equity aka Net Worth.]

All that glitters

is not gold.

Collectivist Banking

Playing with fiat money produces inflation since one can spend with impunity. Playing with funny money guarantees at some point that you will lose your capital.

“People Have Panicked” – Crypto Collapse Accelerates, Bitcoin Plunges Towards $4,000

Having broken below 6k last week, and 5k yesterday, Bitcoin’s collapse is accelerating towards $4,000 as crypto-guru John McAfee wrote on Twitter, summarizing his thoughts: “People have panicked…” [snip]

Bitcoin traded to $4221 this morning before a brief bounce

As CoinTelegraph notes, the events mark a continuation of the unsettled conditions sparked Nov. 15 when altcoin Bitcoin Cash (BCH) experienced a contentious hard fork, which has since resulted in the emergence of two separate competing chains.

While BCH initially held onto much of its value, the 24 hours to press time saw a U-turn for investors, BCH/USD shedding almost 40 percent to test support at $200.

While BCH firmly took the lead as the worst performer of the top twenty cryptoassets, others also suffered heavy losses.

Ethereum (ETH) significantly widened its gap in market cap with Ripple (XRP), cementing its position as now the third-largest cryptocurrency. ETH/USD daily losses were circling 15 percent at press time, compared with XRP/USD’s 6.2 percent. [snip]

Bit coins have nothing to back up their value. This probably will prove to be louder than the dot.com bubble crash.