The Coming Economic Collapse - Part 1

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Business economists worry about possible recession in 2020

AP NEWS – June 4, 2018: The article highlights that a group of top business economists believes the major tax cuts President Donald Trump pushed through Congress will give a significant boost to economic growth this year and next year. But they worry that by 2020, the country could be entering a new recession.

The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) says in its latest quarterly outlook that its panel of 45 economists expects the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, to expand 2.8 percent this year. That is down slightly from the panel’s March forecast, which put GDP growth this year at 2.9 percent.

The NABE economists are “slightly less optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2018 than they were three months ago,” says NABE vice president Kevin Swift, chief economist at the American Chemistry Council.

Part of the drop-off in optimism reflects growing worries about what Trump’s get-tough approach on trade might do to U.S. growth prospects. …

(BattleForWorld: When Trump finishes with his presidential career [one term or two term], for sure the United States economy will be in tatters. They will blame Trump, but he’s not the cause of it, because for many decades the United States elites have been manipulating the accounting books to support US hegemony military power where the military budget and high theft…have decimated the country’s balance sheet into unsustainability. There will come a day when several countries [Germany, China, Japan, etc.] come asking for their money and the US at that future time will have nothing to offer them other than delay to pay.)

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United States Debt ceiling set to record high of $22 trillion

WASHINGTON EXAMINER / BATTLE FOR WORLD – November 9, 2018: The article highlights the federal government is set to reinstate its borrowing limit, and a new analysis indicates that it will be a record-high $22 trillion — and then, it won’t provide enough money to fund the government past summer (2019).

The debt number said to be shocking, however, is only slightly higher than the current actual debt of some $21 trillion.

The ceiling has been in suspension and the debt has grown under President Trump, and is set to be reinstated on March 2, 2019. And the Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that the new limit will be $22 trillion, assuming no action is taken by lawmakers before that time.

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US economy about to collapse, taking down dollar & American standard of living – Peter Schiff

RT / BATTLE FOR WORLD – October 24, 2018: The article highlights that Tuesday’s (October 23) US stock plunge following a massive selloff on global markets is seen by some analysts as a sign of more bad things to come.

Schiff, who currently serves as the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, said that the stock market is definitely looking like it’s heading for another bear market. (BattleForWorld: But it is going to be on a scale that is disastrously cataclysmic, because globalism massive-spending by the military industrial complex has destroyed the United States. The world’s economic financial show, the collapsing, will begin after 2020.)

The financial strategist said, “All the signs are already there. Look at what’s happening out there. The stock market is falling, 40 percent of the S&P is already in a bear market. Look at homebuilders, the housing stocks, the financials, the retailers – all these are the same things that were happening in 2007 leading to that crisis,” he told RT America.

The economist sounded the alarm and urged people be prepared for not only an economic crisis, but a political crisis as well with the current administration likely to take the blame. And according to Schiff, the US national currency is set to meet with the worst losses.

“But instead of addressing the problem and allowing the debt to be paid down, the Federal Reserve led us down the primrose path into much deeper debt by keeping interest rates at zero and holding them for so long. The Federal Reserve actually encouraged an overly indebted nation to borrow even more money.” And “So, everybody is loaded up with debt. And guess what? Interest rates are now finally rising, and that means the cost of servicing that debt is going up, and this is going [to] be a problem just like adjustable rate mortgage was a big problem in 2008, when these things were resetting,” he said. “People couldn’t afford to pay. Well, the same thing is going to happen on a national scale. Rates are growing up, and we too broke to pay.”

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‘Biggest bubble in history of mankind’: Ron Paul says US stock market will soon plunge by 50%. Richard Wolff says we are due for a crash

RT / BATTLE FOR WORLD – October 11, 2018: The article highlights that the recent jump in Treasury bond yields indicates that the US is barreling towards a potential recession and market meltdown at an increasingly fast pace, according to former Republican congressman Ron Paul.

“We’re getting awfully close. I’d be surprised if you don’t have everybody agreeing with what I’m saying next year some time,” the retired politician told CNBC.

Paul’s remarks come as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rallied to seven-year highs, intensifying fears over rising inflation.

“It can be pretty well validated by looking at monetary history that when you inflate the currency, distort interest rates, and live beyond your means and spend too much, there has to be an adjustment,” the politician said, adding: “We have the biggest bubble in the history of mankind.”

Related article:
Stock Crash Whispers

(Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “Will Trump’s Trade War Spur a Major Crash?”)

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Trillions in US net worth vulnerable to recession: IMF

FRANCE24 / BATTLE FOR WORLD – October 11, 2018: The article highlight that a severe recession would slash US public wealth by about $5 trillion, causing vastly more damage to Washington’s finances than just an increase in debt and deficits, the IMF warned Tuesday.

Yet governments around the world, many of which face similar dangers, do not clearly publicize their overall net worths, the International Monetary Fund said in a new report.

The fund pointed to rising trade tensions as a cause for worry and also predicted slower growth in the United States next year and beyond.

Economists now say the chances of a recession in the United States are growing due to several factors, including trade tensions and mounting interest rates.

Related article:
In De-dollarization China Trusts

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In De-dollarization China Trusts

SPUTNIK NEWS / BATTLE FOR WORLD – October 11, 2018: The article highlights that the strong US dollar and expensive oil are serious issues for Asia. And that the increasing Federal Reserve System rates and the further strengthening dollar weaken developing economies’ national currencies, while energy resources, which are priced in US dollars, are becoming more expensive for exporting countries. A rise in asset prices makes the issue even tougher.

Regardless of how severely Donald Trump rebuked China over manipulating the yuan rates to level out the negative consequences of the tariffs for exporters, the weakening of the Chinese currency, as well as of other developing countries, is directly linked to the US’ own actions, said the article.

Symmetric Moves?
The American economy is on a steady rise, along with Donald Trump recently introducing a tax reform which helped to free up additional capital. These are the conditions that could threaten with the economy overheating, and regulators naturally raise interest rates to avoid such negative effects. So as to battle the rates’ corrections, other countries have to symmetrically raise their interest rates, which is not always possible.

Oil Turmoil
Meanwhile, China, for instance, remains the biggest importer of energy resources, while their prices are denominated in US dollars, which, because of the weaker yuan, makes the energy resources for China more costly. Another example is India, where a vast part of the population is involved in agriculture. The strengthening of the US dollar leads to a surge in diesel prices, which is something Indian farmers are already complaining about. Even Russia experienced the effect: ruble rates with regard to the US dollar are too low, taking into account the current oil price tags, said the article.

De-dollarization Promises
The trouble is that for developing countries, the devaluation of national currencies carries as much risk as increase in interest rates, as both may halt economic growth. This is the reason why the term “de-dollarization” is increasingly gaining popularity now. Even the EU is indignant over the fact that the world’s most essential resources are nominated in dollars. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker billed it “absurd that Europe pays for 80 per cent of its energy import bill — worth €300 billion a year — in US dollars when only roughly 2 per cent of our energy imports come from the United States.” “It is absurd that European companies buy European aircraft for dollars, not euros,” Juncker stated.

The Financial Strategy Center at the Social Sciences Academy Zhang Ning told Sputnik China: “China’s State management for currency control has found that citizens are permitted to annually buy currencies worth no more than 50,000 US dollars, and this applies to purchases of any foreign currency. So, all currency operations are automatically denominated in dollars, thereby reinforcing its status. Why not, for instance, denominate these currency limitations in yuans? Say, one would be permitted to purchase currencies not for a maximum of 50,000 US dollars, but for 350,000 yuans?”

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No lessons learned: Next financial crisis to be much worse with US dollar collapse – Peter Schiff

RT – September 15, 2018: The article highlights that a decade after the global financial crisis, the world is facing another crash even bigger than the one in 2008, veteran stock broker Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, told RT.

“The too big to fail banks are now both bigger than ever, and more exposed than ever to rising rates and recession. So the systemic risks to the economy are greater now than they were in 2008,” said Schiff.

Such banks should have been allowed to fail a decade ago, he says. “The moral hazard associated with the government having made the mistake of bailing out banks that should have been allowed to fail. Unfortunately, no lessons were learned from the last crisis. We repeated, and expanded all the mistakes that caused the last crisis, ensuring the next one will be much worse,” he said.

According to the investor, all the problems that caused the 2008 financial crisis loom even larger now. “The even worse monetary and fiscal policy since the last crisis guarantees the next one will be much worse. The crisis will be similar in that government will be the cause, everyone will be caught by surprise, and capitalism will be the scapegoat, but it will be much different in that it will be much worse,” Schiff said.

However, the nature of the next crisis would be different, Schiff predicts. While the 2008 crisis was centered around mortgage debt, dollar rise and gold fall, the new one would be about the US Treasury debt crisis. “Treasury debt will be the focal point of the next crisis, and the dollar will collapse and gold prices will soar. The ensuing recession will be much worse as consumer prices will also rise sharply.”

(BattleForWorld: The US Treasury debt crisis pending is attributed to US foreign policy panicking the stock market [i.e. causing it to fall and rise] to panic/force elite investors into buying excessive US Treasury bonds from which the United States use to create more debt to fund budgets, foreign wars, etc.)

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Economic cold war may be coming, JPMorgan warns

RT / BATTLE FOR WORLD – September 21, 2018: The article highlights that tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States, may be the beginning of a prolonged economic conflict, according to analysts, adding that each of the two countries pursues its own development.

Tariffs will hit China’s gross domestic product growth by 0.6 percentage points, in a report cited from JPMorgan by CNBC. The report explains that such a slowdown would add to existing negative pressure on the economy due to Beijing’s efforts to reduce reliance on debt, and transition towards consumption-driven growth.

“It won’t be easy,” said Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice chairman of Asia Pacific at JP Morgan Chase. “The road will be bumpy.” During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum conference in Tianjin, Ulrich said that “Now we need to think about whether this current trade war will turn into an economic cold war.”

(BattleForWorld: The trade feud between China and the United States appears to have been long planned to accelerate the default of the United States economy, to shutdown US military adventurism worldwide. China’s nuclear option awaits and even Baroness De Rothschild has warned Trump that he cannot go up against China.)

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Banks Still ‘Too Big To Fail’ 10 Years After Lehman Bros Imploded

SPUTNIK NEWS – September 15, 2018: The article highlights that ten years ago Saturday (September 15), investment bank Lehman Brothers imploded in what quickly snowballed into the 2008 financial crisis. The resulting bankruptcy wiped out $619 billion in assets and cost US taxpayers $1.4 trillion. But how much have we recovered, and have we learned the lessons necessary to prevent another crash?

Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear spoke about the decade since 2008 with Richard Wolff — a professor of economics emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and founder of the organization Democracy at Work — whose latest book is “Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown.”

“It was a catastrophe on many, many levels,” Wolff told hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker. “People were worried that we would have a financial meltdown, but on top of that, a breakdown in our economic system,” meaning that the entire production and distribution network would cease to function. “Milk wouldn’t get delivered,” he said. “It was on the verge of being the kind of general social-economic collapse that, in a way, was closer to happening in those months than it even was in the Great Depression of the 1930s,” a catastrophe made all the worse by the fact that “nobody had prepared for it.”

The freefall continued, though, and three days later on September 18, the Federal Reserve and US Treasury proposed a colossal $700 billion bailout of key banks. Then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke reportedly told key legislators: “If we don’t do this, we may not have an economy on Monday,” according to the New York Times. Then-US President George W Bush signed the law authorizing the transfer on October 3.

Listen to “The Great Crash 10 Years Later: No Recovery for Millions of Americans” on Spreaker.

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Decade after financial crisis JPMorgan predicts next one’s coming soon

RT – September 13, 2018: The article highlights that with the 10th anniversary approaching of the catalyst for the last major global stock market crash – the Lehman Brothers’ collapse – strategists from JPMorgan are predicting the next financial crisis to strike in 2020.

Wall Street’s largest investment bank analyzed the causes of the crash and measures taken by governments and central banks across the world to stop the crisis in 2008, and found that the economy remains propped up by those extraordinary steps.

According to the bank’s analysis, the next crisis will probably be less painful, however, diminished financial market liquidity since the 2008 implosion is a “wildcard” that’s tough to game out. (BattleForWorld: Don’t believe the “less painful” phrase. They just say that to not cause panic.)

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Another Financial Cataclysm Looming in ‘Leaderless’ World, Former UK PM Warns

SPUTNIK NEWS – September 13, 2018: The article highlights that Gordon Brown, who struggled to handle the 2008 financial crisis as Britain’s prime minister, has issued a dire warning that the world is on the brink of another financial crisis. He said it was difficult to name what will be the cause next time, but noted that if it was the case, international cooperation would be disrupted by current discord.

The world is in danger of “sleepwalking” towards another financial crisis, warned Gordon Brown, who served as Britain’s Prime Minister in 2007-2010. During his tenure, the global financial crisis of 2008 caused an economic downturn the likes of which the world hadn’t seen since the Great Depression.

“There is going to have to be a severe awakening to the escalation of risks, but we are in a leaderless world,” the 67-year-old said in an interview with The Guardian.

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Ex-European Central Bank Chief Warns of Possible New Global Financial Crisis

SPUTNIK NEWS – September 4, 2018: The article highlights that Europe’s top central banker during the 2008 financial crisis outlined that the current premises could create the same meltdown as ten years ago.

Jean-Claude Trichet, who ran the European Central Bank between 2003 and 2011, told AFP in an interview that the amount of debt accumulated in the current financial market made the world’s financial system as vulnerable as it was 10 years ago.

The growth in debt, especially private debt, in advanced countries has slowed, but this slowdown has been offset by an acceleration of emerging country debt,” said Trichet, noting that this situation could be even more devastating than the financial crisis of 2008.

He also outlined that there is now agreement that the excessive debt level in the advanced economies was a key factor that triggered a global crisis in 2007 and 2008, thus this is the vulnerability of the markets that could potentially trigger a new economic meltdown.

Trichet also said that he and his colleagues at the ECB “were very much aware that we were looking at a completely systemic major global crisis” since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, after which many of the market specialists believed that it was just a market correction, not expecting it to be “the detonator for the worst financial crisis since World War II.”

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Fear Of Global Financial Collapse?

RT AMERICA – September 1, 2018: As tariffs and sanctions are increasing globally many nations are dealing with reeling financial issues and the near collapse of local currency. Investors are concerned Latin Americas third largest economy, Argentina, could collapse after the country unexpectedly asked for the early release of a $50 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. At the same time nations like Canada and Venezuela are dealing with growing inflation. For more on the current global currency crises we turn to RT’s Manila Chan and former UK member of parliament, George Galloway. (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “Fear Of Global Financial Collapse?”.)

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US dollar just few short years away from losing global dominance, investor Jim Rogers tells RT

RT – September 13, 2018: The article highlights that the United States is the largest debtor nation in the world and “it’s getting worse and worse,” according to investment guru Jim Rogers, who talked to RT on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok.

Rogers admits that he still owns a lot of US dollars but not because it’s a sound currency.

“So, you would say why do you own it [US currency – Ed.] then? I own it because more turmoil is coming, people look for a safe haven in turmoil so they will go to the dollar. It’s not safe but they think it is.”

The investor explained that the US currency is going to get higher but many countries like China, Iran, Russia and others are now trying to get rid of it.

In the next few years the American dollar is going to lose its position as the world’s reserve currency and the world’s medium of exchange,” Rogers said, adding that the world has always moved away from dominant currencies in the past as situations changed. (BattleForWorld: This will become obvious after the year 2020, the decline of US power and the US dollar.)

He said that the British pound once used to be the dominant currency in the world, and before that there were other dominant currencies like the Spanish peseta, the French franc, and the Dutch guilder.

“They all had that position at one time or another but then went to excess and are not that sound anymore, they lost their position… People don’t like Washington’s power, so they are moving away and finding ways to get away from the dollar. It has happened throughout history, it happened to the pound sterling, you know the rest of that story,” Rogers said, adding there’s no need to worry because “it’s not a disaster.”

Ditch the dollar: World leaders who challenged reliance on US currencyhttps://t.co/XMcIRc2TPL pic.twitter.com/A89g4740SL

— RT (@RT_com) September 3, 2018

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This bull market run has echoes of the late 1920s

CNBC / BATTLE FOR WORLD – October 3, 2018: The article highlights that the longest bull market in history could be showing worrying echoes of one of the greatest crashes Wall Street has ever seen.

Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University and a Nobel laureate, says the steep run-up in this market rally is similar to the excesses of the 1920s before the October 1929 market crash and Great Depression.

Rapid stock market rises began even earlier. From the beginning of 1928 to Black Thursday on Oct. 24, 1929, the S&P 500 surged nearly 50 percent. Over the next five days, the index plummeted 23 percent. It had reached an all-time high just a month before the crash.

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Argentina’s central bank hikes rates to 60% as the currency collapses

CNBC – September 1, 2018: The article highlights that investors are increasingly concerned Latin America’s third-largest economy could soon default as it struggles to repay heavy government borrowing. And that the peso is down more than 45 percent against the greenback this year, exacerbating pre-existing fears over the country’s weakening economy and inflation running at 25.4 percent this year. “I know that these tumultuous situations generate anxiety among many of you … I understand this, and I want you to know I am making all decisions necessary to protect you,” Macri said.

Argentina is struggling to cope with yet another financial crisis.

Investors are increasingly concerned Latin America’s third-largest economy could soon default as it struggles to repay heavy government borrowing. This comes after Argentina’s government unexpectedly asked for the early release of a $50 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday (August 29).

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Inflation rising

CNBC – August 30, 2018: The article highlights that U.S. consumer spending increased solidly in July, pointing to strong economic growth early in the third quarter, while a measure of underlying inflation hit the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for the third time this year.

When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending gained 0.2 percent in July after rising 0.3 percent in June.

That lifted the year-on-year increase in the so-called core PCE price index to 2.0 percent from 1.9 percent in June. The core PCE index is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure. It hit the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent inflation target in March for the first time since April 2012.

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Trump eliminates pay raises for civilian federal employees

AXIOS – August 30, 2018: The article highlights that in a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday (August 30), President Trump announced that a majority of civilian federal employees will not receive pay increases next year, undoing the original 2.1% pay increase that was set to take effect in 2019.

The president explained the change is an effort “to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases.” No change has been announced for pay increases of military troops, which are still on track to receive a 2.6% bump according to the Military Times, marking their biggest pay raise since 2009.

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Trump: No Need for Expensive War Games with South Korea

SPUTNIK NEWS – August 30, 2018: The article highlights that a statement released by the White House on Tuesday affirmed that US President Donald Trump doesn’t believe joint war games with South Korea are necessary at present time and that China is placing a “tremendous” amount of pressure on North Korea as Washington and Pyongyang continue delicate negotiations.

Nonetheless, the president believes that his relationship with [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un is a very good and warm one, and there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint US-South Korea war games. Besides, the president can instantly start the joint exercises again with South Korea, and Japan,” the statement says.

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Special operations boom years may be coming to a close; US preparing for inter-state strategic competition

YAHOO – September 13, 2018: The article highlights that Congress and the Pentagon want to rein in and reorient America’s vaunted special operations forces, perhaps relegating them to the supporting roles they played before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

For the past 17 years, special operations forces have been at the forefront of America’s military campaigns in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. They took the lead in toppling the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, reversing the gains of al-Qaida in Iraq, and capturing or killing thousands of militants, from Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. During that period, their strength has grown from about 45,000 personnel in 2001 to roughly 70,000, and they are now leading the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. (BattleForWorld: You think?)

Congress and the Pentagon are trying to bring more oversight to special operations forces while reorienting them away from combating militants and toward fighting more traditional nation-states.

Congress made its view clear in this year’s defense authorization bill, which President Trump signed into law on Aug. 13. The Pentagon’s 14-page unclassified summary of this year’s National Defense Strategy does not mention special operations, and says that “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.” (BattleForWorld: It appears as if the United States is preparing for “civil unrest” inside states. So they are aware that it’s coming, and only the people are naive.)

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Fed’s Bullard warns of recession risk in raising rates

REUTERS – August 28, 2018: The article highlights that St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard on Friday (August 24) raised new alarm bells over the U.S. central bank’s plan to keep raising interest rates, warning that even one more rate hike could set the stage for recession.

Bullard, who spoke to Reuters on the sidelines of a conference here for global central bankers and economists, said the yield curve on U.S. Treasuries suggests investors see slower growth after this year and no danger of inflation ahead.

Earlier in the day, Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a talk signaling more interest-rate hikes are ahead, and the yield curve reached its flattest since before the financial crisis.

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A Surprising Bulwark for the U.S. Economy: The Personal Saving Rate

WSJ – August 20, 2018: The article highlights that an upward revision in data is spurring optimism about consumers’ ability to weather the next economic downturn.

On the eve of the last two recessions, American households were unprepared. Years of appreciating stock portfolios, rising home values and improving job prospects had convinced consumers that they didn’t need to save much of their income.

So when unemployment rose and asset prices fell in the downturns that started in 2001 and in 2007, consumers drastically reined in spending and the economy contracted.

Until a few weeks ago, some economists feared history was in the process of repeating itself. Official numbers suggested saving was again out of style as the current expansion enters its 10th year.

Recent data has altered the picture. Households have been saving significantly more of their after-tax income for several years, according to revised data released last month by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

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Americans Still Aren’t Saving, Despite the Booming Economy

BLOOMBERG – August 20, 2018: The article highlights that despite recent job gains, rising wages and falling unemployment, almost a quarter of Americans said they still have no emergency savings, according to an annual Bankrate.com report released Wednesday.

The number of Americans who said they have no money readily available in either a checking, savings or money market account fell to a seven-year low of 23 percent, down from 24 percent last year, the study found. The poll was conducted in June by research firm SSRS, using a national sample of 1,006 people.

“People are not making headway in savings, largely in part because they don’t prioritize saving,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

The percentage of Americans with some savings, but not enough to cover three months’ worth of expenses, rose to 22 percent from 20 percent last year, the report said. And the percentage with enough to cover expenses for three to five months ticked up to 18 percent, from 17 percent last year. Still, only 29 percent of Americans have enough emergency savings to cover at least six months’ of expenses—a financial planning norm. This is down from 31 percent in 2017.

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Further anti-Russian sanctions may ruin America’s own financial system, expert warns

TASS – August 10, 2018: The article highlights that the United States’ new tougher sanctions against Russia may entail a collapse of the US financial system and ultimately ‘bury’ economic growth both in the United States and globally, a Russian expert told TASS on Friday (August 10).

“The US dollar became a world currency thanks to an international agreement. If the United States acts in respect of Russia as it has been acting in respect of Iran, and Russia is not Iran, the pyramid of the American financial system may simply collapse, burying both economic growth in America and in the rest of the world. So, such actions may be fraught with a most severe economic crisis,” said Alexander Kalinin, head of the Opora Rossii association of small and medium-sized businesses.

(BattleForWorld: This has been my position all along for months about the sanction wars, that in the end, the United States will have kicked itself in the foot: What’s Behind The Anti-Russian Sanctions And “Association Sanctions” Against Russia?)

Kalinin said he hopes the United States would not venture on tougher anti-Russian sanctions having analyzed their possible impacts.

The new sanctions have been announced by some notorious US congressmen. …That is why the prime minister noted – ‘if they do impose.’ I hope these crazy ideas of some congressmen won’t be put into practice,” the expert said.

Russia’s financial system is strong enough to withstand the United States’ new anti-Russian sanctions, if they are ultimately imposed, and Russian businesses will find other partners, primarily in Latin American and Asia Pacific countries, according to Vice President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Trade Maxim Fateyev.

From sanctions to economic warfare

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said earlier on Friday that possible tightening of the anti-Russian sanctions could be viewed as the declaration of an economic war, to which it will be necessary to respond by economic, political or other methods.

COMMENTS:

Reader, Profetenews: “Trump is a businessman and knows how the world market operates. If he was a career politician or a rocket scientist I would say he has no clue what he is doing. After all, behind every president there is a shadow government that dictates actions. The question is who is behind Donald Trump? Don’t tell me McDonald’s!”

BATTLE FOR WORLD: Trump was put in the White House by the Rockefellers. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Bring the financial and military system down, but don’t tell Alex Jones that. To be honest, I do not think Trump understands 100% the fine details of the game he has been scripted to play. That is why the Globalists are so upset, and the Zionists want to get what they can out of Trump by having him bomb Iran.

After Trump won the election, he called the Rockefellers asking for money… He realized there was nothing to get and so with his business background, he started to take from here and put other there, etc. We are in the first phase, involving the White House, implementing economic collapse. The United States is going into foreclosure – don’t tell Alex Jones that.
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Reader, Watchman: “They believed in what he said and decided to give voting one last chance. …It is precisely why the deepstate and media lapdogs and liberals are whining so loudly. …Anyone who believes DJT owes anything to the Rockefellers or any other clique other than real Americans of all stripes is clearly delusional.

BATTLE FOR WORLD: I agree. And Trump, the percentage is high that he might win a second term.

Michael Moore says Trump will be the least American president. I disagree. However, I agree that Trump may very well be the last “male” president, but not president.

If another male appears as president, it will not be a White House presidency, but a military COUP!!! But we are not there yet. The United States will fracture into four or five regions. And some of those regions will hold onto Zionist Christianism.

Yes. The end is coming.

The Rockefellers have done their bad and wicked deeds, but they are coming around. I hope the Rockefellers are successful is getting Trump to ally with Putin. If that happens, the Zionists are not going to stop hammering away at Trump, and it will be worse if they do not get their bombing of Iran.

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Ex-State Dept Official: US Domestic Economy Suffers From Sanctions ‘Addiction’

SPUTNIK NEWS – August 13, 2018: The article highlights ex-State Dept Official: The United States will keep levying sanctions on Russia and other countries because of the political relief they provide even though they damage US and allied economies, former State Department Special Assistant on Soviet Policy, Nikolai Petro, told Sputnik.

The best way to think about the role of sanctions in US foreign policy is to regard it as an addiction,” Petro said on Monday (August 13). “They offer the perfect escape from the real, but tedious world of diplomatic negotiation.”

One should consider, Petro added, the profits US companies and all Americans have lost by not investing in Russia during the decade when it was more profitable than China and its stock market was the hottest in the world. America’s own stupendous $21 trillion deficit could not have been achieved without the help of sanctions, he said.

The US inability to change the behavior of even the most “rinky-dink” nations, Petro observed, has left those in power enormously frustrated.

It [frustration] leads… to the search for compensatory mechanisms that can assuage this sense of failure, and reassure the US electorate of America’s perpetual global dominance,” he said. “Sanctions fit the bill perfectly.”

“In reality, of course, all these services continue since there is a high demand for them in Ukraine, only now at a much higher cost to Ukrainians,” Petro explained. “Therefore, to paraphrase a famous saying, when you go the route of sanctions, you should dig two graves: One for your rival’s economy, and one for your own.”

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Debt about to roar back to life as pressing issue?

CNN – August 8, 2018: The article highlights: As a result of an unprecedented debt binge by Congress over the past year, the national debt is about to roar back to life as a pressing issue after years of hibernation.

In 2010, it was among the nation’s top concerns, said the article, that President Obama created a bipartisan national fiscal commission to come up with a plan to address it, but the agreement ultimately failed.

The debt didn’t go away and thus continue to increase, growing by the second ever since, and the dominoes are about to start falling.

The recent GOP tax cuts and bipartisan spending, together are increasing the problem and will add $2.3 trillion to the national debt in the next 10 years. If both are made permanent, that amount goes up to $5.1 trillion. And President Trump is already considering another $100 billion of capital-gains tax cuts.

These sums are accelerating the coming fiscal freefall and will push the nation over a psychological barrier as soon as next year (2019): trillion-dollar annual deficits. And the last time we had trillion-dollar deficits was during the Great Recession, and it was the understandable outcome of a huge economic downturn.

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More Americans defaulting on credit cards

NEW YORK POST – August 12, 2018: The article highlights that despite a booming economy, many Americans are having trouble paying credit card bills, industry observers warn.

An increasing number of auto borrowers are also asking for more time to pay.

These trends disturb card industry experts.

“It is a problem we should watch,” says Bill Hardekopf, founder of LowCards.com.

“I would say that credit card defaults is definitely a cause for concern,” says Joe Resendiz, an analyst with ValuePenguin, which tracks the credit industry.

Resendiz noted the recent second quarter net credit card default numbers rose for Bank of America and JPMorgan. In an otherwise rosy report, the amount of in-default charge card bills rose by 10 percent and 9 percent respectively, compared with the same period in 2017.

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Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans

NEW YORK TIMES – August 6, 2018: The article highlights that among the rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by the dismal reality of bankruptcy.

The signs of potential trouble, said the article includes vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research data sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study has found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.

Driving the surge, compounding the problem, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever-greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social safety net shrinks.

And the transfer has come in the form of, among other things, longer waits for full Social Security benefits, the replacement of employer-provided pensions with 401(k) savings plans and more out-of-pocket spending on health care. Declining incomes continue to impact the situation, whether in retirement or leading up to it, compounding the challenge among older Americans.

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US Debt Sales To Surge: Treasury Raises 2018 Borrowing Need To $1.33 Trillion

ZERO HEDGE – August 2, 2018: The article highlights that America’s funding needs are starting to grow at a dangerous pace.

Even before the NYT reported of Trump’s startling suggestion of a further $100 billion tax cut in the form of an inflation-adjusted capital gains tax cost basis which mostly benefits the wealthy, earlier today the U.S. Treasury said it expects to borrow $56 billion more during the third quarter than previously estimated, while market participants expect shorter-dated Treasuries to absorb the brunt of the new supply as the Trump administration grapples with a mushrooming budget deficit.

In the Treasury’s latest quarterly Sources and Uses table, it revealed that it expects to issue $329 billion in net marketable debt from July through September, and $56 billion more than the $273 billion estimated three months ago, in April. assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $350 billion, matching its previous estimate. It also forecast $440 billion of borrowing in the final three months of the year, with a $390 billion cash balance on December 31.

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India Accumulates Gold, Sells US Treasury Securities to Insulate Country

SPUTNIK NEWS – September 4, 2018: The article highlights that in the last year, the Reserve Bank of India bought 8.6 metric tons of goal, its first big purchase since 2009.

The RBI brought down its exposure to US treasury securities from $157 billion in March to $148.9 billion by May. In the same period, the RBI sold $8.25 billion in the domestic spot market. With this move, India is now ranked 13th with regard to US sovereign holdings, down from 11th a month earlier.

India has joined the league of other BRICS countries such as China and Russia that are actively accumulating physical gold as part of their international reserve assets.

“Diversification of India’s Foreign Currency Assets continued during the year [2017-18] with attention being ascribed to risk management, including cybersecurity risk. The gold portfolio has also been activated,” the report added.

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Mystery as Russia liquidates US Treasury holdings

DAILY MAIL – July 29, 2018: The article highlights – what do they know? Mystery as Russia LIQUIDATES almost ALL of its holdings in US Treasury securities during the run up to the Helsinki summit, in move labeled ‘unprecedented’ by experts, who speculates that US sanctions prompted Russia to dump more Treasuries.

A US Treasury report released on July 18 shows that Russia’s holdings of Treasury securities declined by 84 per cent between March and May, down to just $14.9 billion from March holdings of $96.1 billion.

The report was issued quietly amid the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s July 16 meeting with Russian President Valdimir Putin in Helsinki, dropping Russia from the list of major Treasuries holders without comment.

Investors are mystified by the move from Russia which reduced their Treasury holdings to levels lower than those of Kazakhstan, Peru or Colombia at the end of May, according to government data.

(BattleForWorld: At a future time, the coming US Treasury bond selloff – the much dreaded nuclear option. Russia has been insulating itself from the eventual economic collapse, while the United States appears to be not interested in safeguarding against this eventuality. If the ruling elites force President Trump to do stupid things towards Asia, it’s over.)

And China remains by far the largest holder of US Treasury securities, holding $1.18 trillion at the end of May. Japan is second, with $1.06 trillion.

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American States Drowning In ‘Irretrievable’ Debt and Pension Problems

FOX BUSINESS – July 27, 2018: The article highlights that Connecticut may be the richest state in the country, on a per capita basis, but it has racked up a sizable debt worth more than $53 billion – and it could be taxpayers who are forced to bail out the Constitution State, according to the former governor of Indiana.

And according to economic data Connecticut isn’t the only state struggling with a debt crisis: California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are unable to make pension payments to retired government workers.

“They’re just one of a number of states, including some of the biggest states, that are in deep water,” said Mitch Daniels, a Republican, during an interview with FOX Business. “I think it is irretrievable. Pensions is the core of it. It’s not the only fiscal recklessness that they have practiced, but in some of those cases, the bill are genuinely unpayable.”

“There may be a way in some states to have a reset of the pension obligations, although in some places, they’ve actually been constitutionally protected,” said Daniels.

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On Contact: Decline of the American empire with Alfred McCoy

RT AMERICA – July 1o, 2018: Alfred McCoy, Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains the decline of the United States as a global power and the rise of the Chinese empire. (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “On Contact: Decline of the American empire with Alfred McCoy”.)

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The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System with Richard Wolff

RT – July 8, 2018: Economist Richard Wolff discusses the coming economic collapse of the United States of America with journalist Chris Hedges. (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System with Richard Wolff”.)

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Consumer debt is at an all-time high. Should banks be worried?

AMERICAN BANKER – August 2, 2018: The article highlights that September 2008 was one of those rare interludes when the world shifts beneath your feet. Markets froze. Fabled banks stood on the precipice. The U.S. government, after initially standing by idly, brought out its bazooka. After a generation of deregulation, it genuinely seemed possible that the U.S. banking system would be nationalized.

The crisis had immense economic and political consequences over the following decade. It helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party, and later, both Trumpism and the anti-corporate left. It led to new regulations that transformed banking into a safer, far more boring industry. And it wreaked havoc in tens of millions of American lives. Foreclosures became an epidemic. College graduates were forced to move into their parents’ basements. Aging workers had their retirement plans upended.

U.S. household debt, which declined between 2008 and 2013, has rebounded sharply. By the first quarter of 2018, it was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion. The composition of our debt has changed, and we’ve been better able to manage our obligations, thanks in substantial part to an extended period of low interest rates. But sadly, the crisis did not teach us a lesson about the perils of borrowing too much.

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US Economy May Go Bust if Dollar Loses Its Reserve Currency Status – Economist

SPUTNIK NEWS – July 7, 2018: The article highlights that the US national and federal debts are unlikely to spell doom to the country’s economy while the US dollar maintains its status as a dominant reserve currency, American economist, author and former civil servant Dr. Paul Craig Roberts told Sputnik, shedding light on more pressing issues for the US economy.

The present US economic problems are difficult to correct, because their roots are in the offshoring of US middle class jobs, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a prominent American economist, author and former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Ronald Reagan, told Sputnik.

What is worse, Trump’s plan to bring jobs back “is against the short-term profit interest of the global corporations, as their profits would fall from the higher cost of US wages compared to wages in Asia,” he added.

“Essentially, what is happening in the US is that by offshoring middle class jobs, the global corporations have destroyed the purchasing power of the US consumer,” the economist stressed. “Essentially, jobs offshoring destroys the domestic consumer market. It can be kept going for a period by an expansion in consumer debt, but the process stops when the consumers cannot carry any more debt. Once they can’t make the minimum credit card payment, the process stops.”

According to him, the whole construction may fall apart at the seams “when the combination of dollar creation with a move away from the dollar as reserve currency results in a drop in the demand for US dollars.”

“As international payments are settled in US dollars, there is always a demand for US dollars,” the economist underscored. “Other central banks keep their reserves in US dollars. The demand for the reserve currency allows the reserve currency country to pay its bills by printing its currency. Its trade deficit is financed by other countries using the dollars they earn to purchase US government debt.”

“As state and local governments cannot print money with which to pay their bills, their ability to meet pensions and other obligations is declining,” he explained. “Cutbacks in pensions, for example, further reduce consumer purchasing power.”

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Economic Doomsday? Why Soros is Betting Against Trump’s Recovery Plan

SPUTNIK NEWS – July 6, 2018: The US economy is by no means facing a “doomsday,” Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik, commenting on the reports about the steadily increasing US national debt and trade deficit. According to the analyst, the system could be fixed and President Donald Trump knows how to do it.

The soaring US national debt is triggering concerns among US businessmen and officials, who call it nothing short of the “biggest domestic threat.”

“I think we’re headed over the edge,” Andy Biggs, a conservative Republican congressman told Fox News in mid-June. “Think of it as a waterfall, we’re in the boat, and now we’re almost at the point where we can’t get out of the flow. We’re heading over unless we do something immediately.”

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the US Office of Government Accountability (GAO) has warned the US Congress that the country’s federal deficit is likely to reach $1 trillion by 2020, adding that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio may skyrocket to 106 percent within 14 to 22 years.

Admitting that the aforementioned fears are not groundless, Wall Street analyst, investor and investigative journalist Charles Ortel asserted to Sputnik that “doomsday” is nowhere near.

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Merkel warns of worldwide financial crisis

BAKERSFIELD – July 4, 2018: The article highlights that German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the specter of a new global financial crisis as she warned of the potential fallout from a trade war with the U.S., saying tariffs on European cars would be “much more serious” than levies on steel and aluminum.

Addressing Germany’s lower house of parliament Wednesday (July 4), Merkel cited President Donald Trump’s threat of targeting U.S. imports of cars from Europe, which risk hitting Germany the hardest.

And Merkel said that “The international financial crisis, which ensured that we now act in the framework of the (Group of 20), would never have been resolved so quickly, despite the pain, if we hadn’t cooperated in a multilateral fashion in the spirit of comradeship. …This has to happen.”

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The dollar’s status as the world’s funding currency is in question

YAHOO – June 28, 2018: U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and America First protectionist policies could be helping to accelerate the end of the dollar’s (DX=F) reign as the world’s reserve currency, analysts warn.

Having already instituted worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum and threatening more taxes on foreign products from China, the European Union and a host of other U.S. allies and rivals, the president is pushing foreign governments to reconsider holding dollars and U.S. Treasury reserves.

“Although the dollar will continue to be used in most trades, there is a possibility that participants in the global economy start to look at alternatives like pricing in euro or pricing in [Chinese] renminbi,” said Karl Schamotta, director of FX strategy and structured products at Cambridge Global Payments in Toronto.

And using the dollar has long posed a risk to certain countries.

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Growing deficits to push debt to almost 100% of GDP by early 2030

ROLLCALL – June 27, 2018: Debt as a share of the United States economy is on track to blow through the previous World War II-era record within two decades and keep rising from there, the Congressional Budget Office said in its annual long-term budget report.

After 2026, revenues are projected to keep rising in relation to the size of economy — though not to keep pace with spending growth — mostly because of increases in individual income tax receipts,” Hall said.

Generally assuming no change in current laws, growing budget deficits would push debt held by the public from the current level of 78 percent of the economy to almost 100 percent of gross domestic product by 2028, and to 152 percent of GDP by 2048, according to the agency.

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Bank Stocks On Historic Losing Streak

BLOOMBERG – June 27, 2018: The article highlights that Bank stocks just hit a record – a record of losses. And that the S&P 500 Financials Index fell for the 12th straight day Tuesday (June 26), the longest losing streak on record. Coming into the year, many cited the tax overhaul and a rising rate environment as reasons for banks to rally. Instead, they’ve endured pressure from a flattening yield curve. The losses also come ahead of the final phase of the Federal Reserve’s annual stress tests and waning consumer confidence.

“They’re facing a rising rate environment, which historically has been fairly positive for banks,” Mona Mahajan, U.S. investment strategist at Allianz Global Investors, said on Bloomberg Television. “What we’re seeing here is the shrinking yield curve is actually not a good sign for the banks. Obviously, they like to borrow short, lend long, and if that yield curve is shrinking, that margin goes down as well.”

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U.S. Budget Deficit Widens; Weak Revenue

WSJ – June 12, 2018: The article highlights that the Federal budget deficit was $146.80 billion in May, 66% wider than same month a year earlier – 2017.

The U.S. government’s budget deficit widened in the first eight months of the fiscal year, reflecting lower revenue from corporate taxes combined with ramped-up government spending.

The deficit, or the difference between the amount of money the federal government spent and what it took in, totaled $532.24 billion in October through May, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. That was 23% more than the deficit of $432.85 billion during the same period a year earlier.

Tuesday’s report showed the federal budget deficit was $146.80 billion in May, 66% wider than the same month a year earlier. Government revenue fell 10% last month compared with a year earlier, while spending grew 11%.

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Paul Tudor Jones warns the next recession will be ‘really frightening’

YAHOO – June 18, 2018: Legendary global macro trader Paul Tudor Jones is warning that asset prices are too high. And furthermore, he’s concerned about what the next recession might look like. He shared his thoughts on Monday during a conversation with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as part of the firm’s “Talks at GS” series.

“The next recession is really frightening because we don’t have any stabilizers,” Jones said. “We’ll have monetary policy, which will exhaust really quickly, but we don’t have any fiscal stabilizers.”

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U.S. Government Needs Buyers Of Its Debt

CNBC – June 18, 2018: The article highlights that the country of Russia has cut Treasury holdings in half and that foreigners are losing appetite for US debt. And that foreign governments have pared back their holdings of U.S. debt, reducing the total by nearly $10 billion in March and April (2018). Russia was notable among the group stepping back with a nearly 50 percent cut. The U.S. government needs buyers of its debt as the Fed continues to reduce its holdings and the budget deficit is projected to surge in coming years.

“We need all the help we can get in the search for buyers of US Treasuries due to the enormous supply coming our way in the next few years,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said in a note. “Our stance on trade with our trading partners could very well play into this in coming months and quarters, especially with China, the largest owner of US Treasuries.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has been in a tit-for-tat battle of tariff threats with multiple U.S. trading partners, particularly China.

Reader Profete comments, June 19, 2018: “There is no country in the world today than can afford to buy the US GOV debt. The ceiling was raised too high. May be an Extraterrestrial civilization can. And that’s what it will take to convert the world economy from a war economy to a peace economy. Without wars the current economic system will collapse and it does not require a rocket scientist to understand this. The Petrodollar or Fire-dollar is overdue and needs a real quench to cool down the fire markets that are built on the principles of hell taught in the most prestigious schools of our planet. We have been under a One World Government since 1945 with its economic capital New York City and the political capital Washington DC.”

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Inflation at Six-Year High, Eating Away at Wage Increases

BLOOMBERG – June 12, 2018: The article highlights that inflation is a six-year high, eating away at wage increases. And that U.S. inflation accelerated in May (2018) to the fastest pace in more than six years, reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s outlook for gradual interest-rate hikes while eroding wage gains that remain relatively tepid despite an 18-year low in unemployment.

The pay figures are “a reminder that you don’t need to necessarily get more aggressive in your approach because wages haven’t accelerated as much as they have in the past,” he said.

At the same time, several Fed officials have indicated that a modest overshoot of the inflation goal wouldn’t necessarily warrant faster interest-rate hikes, after years of below-target price gains.

A separate Labor Department report on Tuesday illustrated how higher prices are pinching wallets

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Medicare to Go Broke After 2026 for Senior Citizens – Reports

SPUTNIK NEWS – June 5, 2018: The article highlights that Medicare, the US universal health insurance program for senior citizens aged 65 and older, will run out of money to cover hospital expenses in 2026, three years earlier than expected, according to an annual report by trustees for both Medicare and the Social Security retirement program.

The trustees project that the HI [hospital insurance] Trust Fund will be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than projected in last year’s report,” the report stated on Tuesday. “At that time dedicated revenues will be sufficient to pay 91 percent of HI costs.”

Meanwhile, Social Security, which provides income for retirees, will cost more in 2018 than the program collects in taxes and interest for the first time since 1982. …

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Social Security to Dip Into Reserves THIS YEAR (2018)

WSJ – June 6, 2018: The article highlights that Social Security expected to dip into its reserves this year 2018, because the
aging population is boosting the costs of Social Security and Medicare as growth projections ease.

The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits.

This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, according to the latest annual report the trustees of Social Security and Medicare released Tuesday. The program’s income comes from tax revenue and interest from its trust fund.

The trust fund will be depleted in 2034 and Social Security will no longer be able to pay its full scheduled benefits unless Congress takes action to shore up the program’s finances. Without any changes, recipients then would receive only about three-quarters of their scheduled benefits from incoming tax revenues.

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Social Security to tap into trust fund for first time in 36 years since 1982!

MARKET WATCH – June 6, 2018: The articles states that Medicare’s finances were downgraded in a new report from the program’s trustees Tuesday, while the projection for Social Security’s stayed the same as last year.

Medicare’s hospital insurance fund will be depleted in 2026, said the trustees who oversee the benefit program in an annual report. That is three years earlier than projected last year.

This year, like last year, Social Security’s trustees said the program’s two trust funds would be depleted in 2034.

For the first time since 1982, Social Security has to dip into the trust fund to pay for the program this year.

It should be stressed that the reports don’t indicate that benefits disappear in those years. After 2034, Social Security’s trustees said tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of retirees’ benefits.

But that Congress could at any time choose to pay for the benefits through the general fund.

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The Future of Global Capitalism with David Harvey

RT – June 9, 2018: David Harvey, Author of “Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reason,” discusses the future of global capitalism. (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “The Future of Global Capitalism with David Harvey”.)

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The End Of The Petrodollar? And Another Recession Soon

BATTLEFORWORLD – September 12, 2017: Financial hurricanes are everywhere and there’s no storm bigger than a category seven hitting the U.S. Dollar. Rest in peace Petrodollar. Russia will sell oil for Yuan, and also swap Yuan for gold. Where’s the U.S. Dollar is all of this. Nowhere. And China is launching a Yuan-based priced crude oil contract. Which you can buy in Yuan and convert immediately to gold. A few countries have tried this before: Remember Saddam Hussein had tried trading oil in Euros and he was assassinated, and Muammar Gaddafi tried to trade oil in Euros and he was assassinated, etc. And so countries have been trying to get out of the U.S. Dollar for quite sometime. The dollar world reserve currency was crafted so that when you buy oil, you have to buy dollars first, and that is what keeps the dollar up. But now China has taken a bold step in the 21st Century to replace the U.S. Dollar. (BATTLEFORWORLD: And the U.S. is going to launch all sorts of overt and covert attacks against China to try and upset China’s Yuan emergence.) And we are going to have another recession in the United States and it’s going to happen soon.

And maybe the United States is falling short on funds to continue buying its interest and support in foreign policy adventurism?

RT – In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy ask, “RIP, Petrodollar?” China readies a yuan-priced oil benchmark backed by gold. Is this the final nail in the dollar’s coffin? In the second half, Max interviews Michael Pento of PentoPort.com to discuss the oil-gold-yuan futures contract, North Korea, hurricanes and coming market meltdowns. (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “Keiser Report: RIP, Petrodollar? (E1121)”.)

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End of US Aid to Palestinians Threatens Regional Peace – Moscow

SPUTNIK NEWS – August 31, 2018: The article highlights that the US administration’s move to cut all funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency will complicate peace process in the Middle East, a spokesman for the Russian mission to the UN said Friday (August 31).

The recent decision by the US will not contribute to the process of settlement in the Middle East [since] a fair solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees is an integral part of that process,” Fedor Strzhizhovskiy said.

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President Trump to detach and draw the United States back into itself

BRENDON O’CONNELL – August 31, 2018: According to Brendon O’Connell, paraphrasing: it is all scripted for President Trump to detach and draw the United States back into itself – as the country continues on the path of decline. (BatteForWorld: In the pathway of the coming economic collapse.) (Note: Youtube is censoring videos and channels. The title of the video is “John Wilson Follow Up | Common Sense v Patrick Little”.)

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RT – June 23, 2018: President Donald Trump is cutting US military spending to be less exposed to the skyrocketing interest rates that would become unavoidable when China opts to dump US Treasury bonds, Max Keiser has told RT.

“To understand US trade policies – and in particular Trump’s policies on China – from Trump’s point of view you have to think like Trump,” the host of RT’s Keiser Report explained. “When Trump took office, he inherited the biggest debt load that any country had ever accumulated. He also inherited a military budget that eats up 50 percent of America’s annual tax revenues of $1.5 trillion.”

And according to Keiser, after taking the helm as president, Donald Trump realized it was vital to reduce defense spending to pare the huge US debt.

“He looked at the geo-political chess board and saw that – the low hanging fruit, in terms of saving money – is America’s huge military spending in South Korea,” said Keiser, stressing that after the historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jing-un the US would start pulling military presence out of the region.

The US president is currently arranging deals with Saudi Arabia and Israel, in preparation for the US pulling out of the Middle East as well, Keiser added, highlighting that Trump had previously signaled to Germany that the US would to cut its military presence in NATO there too.

“That brings us to China, and the ‘nuclear option’ they have of dumping US treasuries to financially attack America. This is their one big play. Trump knows it, and he’s been protecting the US against it,” the financial commentator said.

Downsizing the Pentagon, according to Keiser, will shrink US debt, diminishing the possibility of a Chinese financial attack via the dumping of US bonds.

(BattleForWorld: According to Max Keiser, President Trump is pulling out America’s military from South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc. and this is good news if the Ruling Elites will allow this to get done. As this is not inline with the Ruling Elites’ world domination plan because the U.S. military is the world’s police to enforce dictatorial rule. Trump is taking positive advice from someone to downsize the U.S. military. PS: I hope readers are able to get more information from in-between the lines. Delicious. Enjoy.)

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