"This forecast was published on my old website (Yahoo Geocities) at the beginning of 2005, when optimism was running high, the maestro was still on his throne, black swans still an uncommon topic, and the US was in a fresh bull market in stocks with a growing housing bubble that very few would admit, and many would vehemently deny.
I have edited out extraneous contemporary detail, and most of the charts which are dated, except for one. I edited out some grammatical errors and awkward phrasing. I have also renumbered the footnotes and eliminated several for the sake of simplicity and relevance."
Jesse, 11 January 2010
"Predicting the failure of a complex system is not easy. One can examine it as a
whole, and determine that it will fail, and often calculate what must change in
order to allow the system to function more reliably. But it is often beyond our power to
calculate exactly how it will fail, and consequently when it will fail. This does not
invalidate the observation that the system will ultimately fail. It merely
underscores the unpredictability of timing a failure with the degrees of freedom
inherent in a calculation with a large number of exogenous variables.
There are four major types of tipping points:
o Demand: a break in the level of consumption in the US caused by the
unwillingness or ability of households to incur further debt to support
consumption beyond real wage growth
o Supply: a major disruption in the supply of an essential commodity like
energy, food, or raw materials, or even the realization that a major
commodity is in shorter supply than expected, such as silver or oil.
o Monetary: an inability of foreign central banks to continue to
monetize the US trade deficit and budget deficit through the recycling of
their trade surplus into US debt securities.
o Systemic failure: the failure of a major counter party that threatens the
US financial system, particularly in the hugely leveraged derivatives market.
Jesse, Long Term Forecast: The Humpty Dumpty Economy, 2005
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."
Aaron Bushnell
“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
William Wilberforce
Stocks ended up with another ranging day which seems to be so common now in this 'roller coaster' valuation ride.
This reminds me of this same time of year, but in 1929.
Stocks finished flat to lower.
VIX fell from its lofty close from yesterday.
The Dollar chopped but held on to the 106 handle.
There is a stock market option expiration this Friday.
The geopolitical situation is on a hair trigger.
It's all about managing risk in a market such as this.
There was an intraday post about the Performance of Various Assets including Precious Metals in General Market Declines.
During times of unrest and war the lies start flowing hot and heavy, and often delivered with a great deal of unwarranted hubris and presumed audience ignorance.
Jerome Corsi does a reasonable job in this video of summing up the case for the hidden details in the National Security State assassination of JFK. They are other books that go into more details including motivations but this is a nice summary.
This was the beginning of the fall of the Republic, and the rise of oligarchy and Empire.
Have a pleasant evening.
