A week ago, I wrote that 2017 would be the “year of money printing,” mere hours before the ECB “unexpectedly” extended its epically suicidal QE program through the end of next year. Which, I might add, will cause the ECB’s balance sheet to surpass the Fed’s $4.5 trillion monstrosity by this summer, if the Fed doesn’t launch QE4 first. To that end, for any silly geese that actually believe the ECB is “tapering” because the monthly monetization rate will be reduced in April from €80 billion to the €60 billion the program started out with, I assure you, the only reason this step is being taken is because the ECB is running out of bonds to buy. Hence, its decision earlier this year to expand its universe of QE-qualified assets to corporate bonds, in some cases bordering on junk status.
This is why they last week amended the rules to allow the monetization of bonds at rates below the negative 0.4% deposit rate. Which in my view, has little chance of ever occurring irrespective, now that the “bond vigilantes” have re-awoken, signaling the end of the 30-year, Central bank-aided “bull market” in bonds that has created “history’s largest bubble – in equities; and anti-bubble – in precious metals”). And for an additional reality check, what part of increasing one of history’s largest QE programs by €540 billion, versus the expected €480 billion, can be considered “tapering” in any sane, non-compromised person’s mind?
As for said “historic bubble,” NEVER in my 27-year career have I seen so many signs that a financial market calamity is forthcoming, relentless PPT and Central bank manipulation notwithstanding. I mean, we are witnessing all-time high equity valuations, amidst an environment of generationally weak economic activity; historic industrial oversupply; surging interest rates; unprecedented, parabolically rising debt; plunging fiat currencies; perilously insolvent banks; hopelessly unfunded pensions; burgeoning trade wars; unprecedentedly deleterious demographics; and exploding political turmoil is beyond comprehension – depicting just how far from “Economic Mother Nature’s”’ immutable laws today’s relentlessly manipulated markets have become…including Precious Metals, where the evidence thereof is once and for all, public record.
Scanning the headlines, I see as much evidence that the post-Trumpian world has morphed from mere delusion to unadulterated psychosis, under the utterly ridiculous assumption that Trump’s election – which until it occurred, was as feared as much as it is now being embraced – will foster in a new age of prosperity, on a par with 1999’s expectations regarding internet stocks, and 2008’s regarding real estate, such as…
- Gallup sees dramatic shift in America’s confidence post Trump, surging to nine-year highs
- Dow hits record overbought level
- Bank of America survey sees near record euphoria, plunge in “cash on sidelines”
- Gartman flip-flops, says buy oil after predicting oil not going above $55 for years
- Trader sees reckless amount of confidence
- Hugh Hendry – We are running a Trumpian portfolio
- Despite post-election spike in optimism, small business owners have never been more uncertain (featuring these must see charts); and my favorite bit of Custer-like wisdom, from our friends at “let’s smash silver together” Deutsche Bank…
- Deutsche Bank explains how stocks will react to the Fed’s rate hike…
Even if Trump accomplished everything he wanted – as opposed to my prediction that essentially NONE of his campaign promises will be achieved – the only way they could occur would be with an accompanying explosion of monetary inflation; hence, my prediction that 2017 will be the “year of money printing.” Conversely, if his suicidal – and inevitably, futile – deficit spending plans (just ask Japan) cannot get launched (which given the upcoming debt ceiling battle in March, appear for all intents and purposes impossible), the economy will freefall into oblivion, historically overvalued stock market and all. Which in turn, would cause me to double down my expectations of desperate – and for lack of a better word, draconian – money printing.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the terrifying explosion of draconian government actions – going back to November 9th’s “big bang” in India, when the lunatic Narendra Modi actually usurped North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan for the title of 2017’s most Hitler-esque leader when he cut off cash to a nation of 1.3 billion people. Which just happened to coincide with America’s election, when an unprecedentedly criminal campaign nearly overcame the public’s will, and installed the globalist, socialist puppet Hillary Clinton into office. That said, the Clinton campaign’s sociopathy pales in comparison to the post-election “liberal” response, which has dramatically stepped up its unfounded accusation that the Russians were responsible for rigging the election for Donald Trump. To the point that they are actually attempting to “soft coup” Monday’s electoral college vote, by publishing propaganda so egregious – such as this, which can only be compared to the fictional “voice of London” in V for Vendetta, and the decidedly non-fictional Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany.
Congress last week “quietly” passed the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” – i.e., a “whole-government approach without bureaucratic restrictions” to “counter foreign disinformation and manipulation threatening the world’s security and stability.” Meanwhile, the increasingly Atlas Shrugged-like New York Times proposed that major social network websites subsidize the mainstream media; whilst Google’s YouTube has started to block podcasts (like those of the truth-telling SGT Report) from being “monetizable” with advertising content. Putting the “icing on the cake,” the House also passed a bill requiring the micro-chipping of citizens with “mental disabilities”; whilst proposing to re-introduce sanctions on Iran – under the guise it “violated” last year’s historic nuclear ban agreement; if you weren’t terrified enough of what’s to come, economically, socially, and geopolitically.
The scariest part of all is that such draconian actions – which as I espoused in my MUST READ 2012 article, “priceless precious metals versus worthless dollars,” only occur when desperate governments realize they are losing control of irreversibly negative trends – is that they are occurring everywhere. Case in point, the explosion of “cashless society” proclamations started by Larry Summers’ and Ken Rogoffs’ equally Atlas Shrugged-like “trail balloons” in February proposing the elimination of the US$100 bill; the ECB’s actual ban of the €500 bill in May; India’s all-out cash ban last month, Venezuela’s last week; and recent comments from Spanish Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro regarding upcoming “anticipated measures to reduce the use of cash.” Throw in my experience this weekend, of parking at Disney on Ice being significantly cheaper when using a credit card than cash; the Uruguayan cash ban at selected retail outlets; and what the Australian government will likely announce with Monday’s mid-year budget update – i.e, a “crackdown on the cash economy” which may well include a ban on the A$100 note – and it couldn’t be clearer that the WAR on any and all “out of the system” assets is exploding right on front of our faces. This, as premiums for physical gold and silver are literally exploding in China, India, and countless other nations where desperate citizens are doing anything they can to counter such increasingly draconian governmental actions; at a time when, as discussed in yesterday’s “most important, and bullish, gold chart you’ll ever see,” supplies are expected to dramatically tighten, for years to come.
Which is why I not only believe 2017 will be the “year of money printing,” but of “draconian government actions” as well. Hence, my urgent warning to see through the historic market manipulation and propaganda masking such actions; to, for those who still have the ability to do so, PROTECT YOURSELF, and DO IT NOW!
