What’s wrong with the job market? Will the Fed crash everything trying to fix what it can’t fix?

49 thoughts on “What’s wrong with the job market? Will the Fed crash everything trying to fix what it can’t fix?”

1. Income-generating asset owners and the wealthy will really face no big changes to their circumstances, but the Democrats are out to stick it to the common man. That is the way it has worked since 1986.😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣🤪🤪🤪
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   IRS will come after Taylor Swift concert ticket scalpers

   Demand for tickets to a Taylor Swift concert during her upcoming tour is sky-high, though anyone who turns a profit on reselling the passes could face scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service.

   https://nypost.com/2022/12/19/irs-will-come-after-taylor-swift-concert-ticket-scalpers/

2. OMG alert! Collapse soon in the US… 🤪🤪🤪🤣🤣🤣
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   U.S. poised to become net exporter of crude oil in 2023

   https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-poised-become-net-exporter-crude-oil-2023-2022-12-19/

   HOUSTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) – The United States has become a global crude oil exporting power over the last few years, but exports have not exceeded its imports since World War II. That could change next year.

   Sales of U.S. crude to other nations are now a record 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd), with exports of about 3 million bpd of refined products like gasoline and diesel fuel. The United States is also the leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, where growth is expected to soar in coming years.

3. Did you know that families earning half a million dollars a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies? Or that in some states, unemployment insurance benefits can be equivalent to a job with an annual pay of $100,000?

   It’s shocking but true, and it might explain why so many businesses can’t get workers back on the job almost three years after COVID-19 hit these shores. Today there are still at least 3 million fewer Americans working than there were in 2019.

   https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/it-pays-not-to-work-in-bidens-america-thanks-to-welfare-benefits/

   There are many reasons for the worker shortage, but one is that in many states, welfare pays more than or nearly as much as respectable middle-class jobs.

   The value of these benefits can be staggering — much higher, in fact, than many blue-collar professions. In our new study with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, we found the following:

   In 24 states, unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for a family of four with no one working are the annualized equivalent of at least the national median household.
   A family making almost a quarter of a million dollars annually still qualifies for ObamaCare subsidies in every state.
    In a dozen states, the value of unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies exceeds the salary and benefits of the average teacher, construction worker, electrician, firefighter, truck driver, machinist or retail associate.

   1. We had a high influx of immigrants to our state – I was told it was due to the high payout of welfare.

      There is definitely ‘racism’ against AMERICANS. A family member told me all these elderly would stand at the pharmacy counter and cry, unable to pay several thousand dollar copays for CRUCIAL meds. Yet immigrants come in here and go on free pharmaceuticals, free food, and free housing. Yet no one is reporting on this genocide.

      And to partially answer your question: many Americans have gone on disability. I used to talk to people on a forum and a woman told me she spends every day at the beach on it. It was disheartening to those of us struggling to live on what we made.

      1. The world hates Americans, especially white European Christians. Look at the adversary’s media. Tiglath-Pileser III and his two sons, Shalmaneser V
         Sargon II, would be impressed at how today’s adversary has done away and demoralized whites and replaced them. Just like the first time around in 720s BC.

         The adversary used the fruit of these people’s labors, spread it around the world and built it all up, and is now killing them. The NWO engineers no longer needs whitie as he only stands in the way of the Great Reset utopia.

4. U.S. begins buying back oil for strategic petroleum reserve
   PUBLISHED FRI, DEC 16 20222:21 PM EST
   •The U.S. Energy Department said on Friday it will begin buying back oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, the first purchase since this year’s record 180 million barrel release from the stockpile.
   •The department will buy up to 3 million barrels for delivery in February, a senior official told reporters.

   https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/16/us-begins-buying-back-oil-for-strategic-petroleum-reserve.html

5. Here’s what happens when you invest in blue areas. If you want to invest in real estate, which is a wise decision, relocate to the areas I recommend and start buying.

   Multicultural kingdoms can only be supported with massive trillion-dollar deficit spending accompanied with massive tax bills. That’s because most of the multiculturals cannot govern themselves and need to be governed. That takes massive amounts of government spending and massive amounts of government intervention. Iron and Clay kingdoms do not come cheap and require the people to give up most of their rights and be governed by a powerful centralized government.

   These cities treat multi-unit landlords like pieces of shit. This is just another reason why it’s much easier to invest in SFR’s. The hassling that liberal governments give multi-unit landlords is just not worth it anymore.
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   Family’s Chicago property taxes increase 440 percent; small apartment complex in bankruptcy danger

   https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-property-taxes-tax-bill-cook-county-lincoln-park/12575946/

   A one bedroom apartment will now cost Michael Markellos $17,494 in property taxes for one year.

   “This has put us in a tremendous financial bind, the building has gone negative in the bills,” he said.

   He and his mother own the 10-unit Lincoln Park apartment complex. Last year’s tax bill for all 10 units combined was $23,674, but now the same 10 units are $128,282 dollars this year; up 440%.

   “I was outraged. These are basically simple one bedroom units for college graduates who work downtown,” added Markellos.

   1. Thanks CJ. So you think SFR are still a good investment, then, I assume, even after the Fed action this week.
      Also, did you see my other questions in my overly-long previous post? (Sorry for the length.) A year ago when I bought gold, I withdrew inherited IRA’s from the stock market investments they were in, and just in time before it tanked in January! Since we own a home and two other properties (not rentals) outright, I wouldn’t necessarily want to wait for those to be sold to buy elsewhere. I was thinking of liquidating my own IRA to buy another property, but would have to wait one more year to do that w/out penalty. ( That IRA is currently just in cash and money market because I took it out of the stock market last winter also). That is why I asked about your thoughts on the possibility of bank bail-ins or government confiscation of retirement assets, the later which you mentioned a while back as a possibility. At this point in time, do you think either bank bail-ins or confiscation of assets in retirement accounts in a large investment firm (Vanguard) are a possibility in the next year?

      1. My SBD retirement account summary that used to be on the last page, now on the first page states that my company reserves the right to amend, modify, suspend, replace or terminate any of the policy in whole or in part at any time for any reason, by appropriate company action.

         So a hint that in the future employees may not receive their pension. It is well funded so I would think some sorts of catalyst would have to happen in order for it to terminate. Most new employees have 401k’s but the same fine print may be on their policy summary.

         The retirement carrot isn’t dangling in front of the donkeys like it used to. But I can see how CBDC, vaccine travel passports and even euthanization for elders can come into play, it’s all coming together for the SOS>

         1. Greg, my husband retired last year and is living off his retirement (which he and his employer both contributed to), social security and medicare. It does make one wonder how stable retirement funds are…. And my IRA is not sponsored by an employer, and is all my money that I saved and invested in mutual funds over the years. I don’t want to withdraw it early before being penalized for early withdrawal. But I also don’t want to loose it all to confiscation.

         2. My checking accounts total up to 100k. I earn nothing on that, yet my banks like Truist, Chase, and M&T park that money and now earn at least 4% risk free at the IOER reverse repo window.

            Talk about a racket. Truist just charged me $60 for two wires. That means I am effectively earning a negative rate.

            Collapse, my ass!

            It’s a total fear racket out there and the alt-media indulge in it.

            Before I plucked down 250k for my latest purchase, I had over $300,000 in one of my checking accounts and I asked the branch manager at Truist what I would earn if I put that money into a savings account. She said 10 basis points and a 12 months CD was about 50 bps.

            An elderly guy online in front of me had two or three CDs that were set to expire and he wanted to roll them back over. Talk about a racket of free money that the banks have. Some collapse. Any collapse will be totally manufactured.

            The CBDC concept will be proffered when the fake banking collapse happens. All fake. All manufactured. Most of the alt media are populated with compromised charlatans who take the mainstream news narrative and twist it to achieve their desired responses.

            1. I know, right? We are getting hosed by their fakery and their fiat currency. END THE FED!! They are from the same S.O.S. cult that killed my great grandfather in the Weimar Republic. He was a German Catholic doctor in the country. The Nazis wanted to start euthanizing old people and kids (with disabilities esp) first. Sound familiar? The socialist solution to clean up their own financial mess, is population reduction. Well in honor of my great grandfather, an unsung martyr who resisted their evil orders, its in my DNA to not go down w/out a fight. But at the same time, I am ok with dying, as long as it is for the truth. I have come to terms with that real possibility and am putting it in God’s hands to tell me what He wants from me. And I didn’t mean to go this deep, but I contemplate lots and I know you get it. Thanks for providing this site and letting me sound off and ask lots of questions. And I don’t even like money! But I like trying to figure out how the hell I am going to get out of this matrix. And BTW, I wouldn’t be typing this if my great grandfather didn’t tell his 18 kids to get out of Germany while they still could. My grandfather fled to America. After a mining stint in South America, he moved back to America with his family, including my dad, to…..wait for it….VA! 😀

               1. Speaking of Germany in my last post, in reference to my great grandfather in the Weimar Republic known for its socialism/facism, its excessive usury, its out-of-control inflation and Nazi population reduction efforts….History repeats itself!!! Look at what I just found about Germany today – numbers of “sudden deaths” have skyrocketed fourfold since 2021 when the mRNA shots were rolled out. Absolutely no coincidences. Our governments want us dead. Link here with charts:
                  https://palexander.substack.com/p/72-million-germans-and-covid-gene

               2. Yes but where can we flee FROM AMERICA now? They’re making America into a totalitarian hellhole.

               3. Reply to reader. There’s nowhere to run anymore except to flee the cities. It’s global.

                  The cities represented evil in the OT and they represent evil now. Nothing new under the sun.

                  Self governing folk can figure it out. Even in the talmudic toilet referred to as the US.

                  If we really know why the US became this way and the tactics used to demoralize and destroy the fabric of society, I recommend not getting entangled like the rest of the people. The Bible says we stay with our own kind. If a person refuses to recognize this one overriding principle, his or her life will be made that much more difficult. Make it easier, listen to what the Bible says.

6. Au looks My T Fine

   1. Keeping an eye on the USDX.👁️ Wondering why it fades. Could be a weakening economy or fading bond yields. Market calling Fed’s bluff?

7. Once again PMI Composite Flash is a big swing and a miss.

   Manufacturing PMI (Dec)
   Act: 46.2 Cons: 47.7 Prev: 47.7

   S&P Global Composite PMI (Dec)
   Act: 44.6 Cons: 47.0 Prev: 46.4

   Services PMI (Dec)
   Act: 44.4 Cons: 46.8 Prev: 46.2

   1. The sick and dying are not stepping up and creating demand.

8. Excessive deaths and disabilities from the covid shots appear to be causing the labor shortages.
   https://tinyurl.com/4ecu7n8e

   1. https://tinyurl.com/bdhtybkp

   2. Indeed. That’s what I have been observing closer to home. The great unspoken.

   3. Beware of RFK Jr. – he comes from a satanic bloodline and is controlled opposition likely.

9. I don’t trust government statistics. I don’t know if they’re anywhere close to facts.

   1. That would make these trends even worse. To wit, the discrepancy between establishment and household survey data.

   2. https://tinyurl.com/bdhtybkp for accurate statistics.

10. I think a lot of CEO’s are reluctant to cut because they feel (wrongly) they can’t get the workers back should they need them. So there’s a lot of idleness in the workforce on top of the low participation rate.

    Bottom line is, there is no shortage at all except at the bottom for low-paid undesirable positions, because a lot of people are too rich or in better positions. There just isn’t that much (desirable) work, and a lot of undesirable work. It’s really a tale of two worlds that have lost touch with each other.

    Once it’s figured out you’ll see a whole lot of white collar reductions. It’ll stress pension systems and a lot of other systems to the max. We’ll see the introduction of CBDC and a host of new legislation in that interim. But the bottom line is there are a lot of white collar types who don’t really deserve to be there.

    https://layoffs.fyi/ this is an interesting site, you can track lists of who got fired, so you can also track and see if most of them who got fired 3 months ago have new jobs. Seems to still be the case. But I also notice a lot of people who have mediocre profiles, they can’t all be high fliers or even mediocre to be honest. These are the people who should be stacking bricks or laying pipes or whatever, but they actually have six-figure or close to six-figure jobs doing nothing particularly useful.

    Of course you get massive inflation if there’s a shortage of value-added work and production, and just an entire caste of people like this keeping themselves busy with writing or maintaining useless apps. Duh. It’ll work itself out but it’s gonna take a year or more to filter through completely.

    1. Yes, and those white collar jobs are mostly WFH. That makes the service jobs even less appealing by comparison. As a service worker, you’d feel justifiable resentment having to go in to do real work while Sally is on her “workcation” doing HR nonsense for twice what you earn. Corporations spend billions on make-work jobs for women that are seemingly designed to keep them out of service jobs. It’s not an accident. (Also helps suppress birth rates.)

       I don’t see the labor market returning to a semblance of normalcy until work from home ends. And I don’t see any sign of that ending.

       1. The Fed cannot yet admit the obvious; they lost their credibility with the 2% inflation target mandate. Powell said emphatically yesterday that the Fed is not contemplating adjusting this target. But in order to achieve that level the Fed will have to crush the economy. There is no other way around this.

          Thus, eventually, the Fed will have to relent on this 2% target and accept some sort of higher level (e.g. 3% or maybe 3.5%). Even if the Fed achieves 2% level, it will no longer be able to keep it at that level for an extended period of time.

          The last time the Fed engineered any type of soft landing was back in 1994, but inflation was nowhere near where it is today, and real rates across the entire yield curve were firmly positive. Thinking about it, the Fed has never engineered a real soft landing once circumstances got to this point in the cycle.

          Given the past three years of actions, the Fed has forever lost its credibility for its inflation mandate and must admit defeat. That won’t happen until it achieves a partial victory (e.g. CPI falls to 3-4% first). It must eventually wave the white flag and accept a higher rate for its inflation target.

       2. I was on a forum where people were talking about some of these nasty women prosecutors and judges who seem to want to stick it to people. People were saying they think it’s because these women are older and unfulfilled due to their choice to compete with men instead of choosing a home and family so now they take out their frustration on others. It was an interesting discussion to say the least.

    2. What do you think of the idea of UBI? There are a lot of people who are useless, and doing useless work. I just called about my home heating issue. The first person asked to direct my call, the 2nd person asked to direct my call, the 3rd person muttered something unintelligible before putting me on hold, came back on line, and asked what I needed, placed me on hold, to make a phone call, came back on line to tell me my parts should arrive today. All 3 should be at home doing something constructive, paid not to work.

       1. As long as the UBI is a lot lower than whatever those useless halfwits are making now, otherwise it doesn’t help the productive people in society. One of the key reasons we have so much inflation is that a lot of people are vastly overpaid (i.e. they’re worth almost nothing yet they magically have a job often with very decent salaries too).

          1. What you say somewhat sums up my theory about the surge in covid housing costs. That short period of time when real estate exploded for absolutely stupid reasons based on some form of black magic. But the people who grossly overpaid for those houses legitimately qualified for those loans because they are making way more money than they should be? Are these big companies throwing money at them to make it appear they are doing well? Is the house of cards propped up by zero interest loans ready to collapse? I can say from where I sit – as a small business repairing specialized equipment – that my high profile customers are taking a long time to pay.

             1. Black magick indeed.

                I don’t know much for sure. But what I do know that a lot of the outrageous transactions were done by investment vehicles (Blackstone i.a.), and the suckers who followed them, thinking they are “in the know”. Realize that these people are deploying other people’s money, they don’t think very much about it. They just see a return they can make, so they make it. They don’t know or even care about where the money came from. That kind of thinking is for the bosses, these investment vehicles are just grunts. The value of an outfit like Blackstone is not so much they know what’s going on or what will happen, but they can squeeze an xx extra basis points out of the yield, and that’s it.

                Everything else was driven by policy. Animal spirits, in my opinion, is also a myth. It’s all policy. Or black magick as we see it.

                It seems the winds have turned now. There’s still a lot of money out there, but flow matters more than stock. And the winds have turned, for now. We will have to see where it all lands.

          2. As a gardener I know very well how important is to achieve the proper balance of energy in a plant to get plentiful and abundant fruits, it is a tricky and difficult job, but it pays off a lot if you do it in the right way.

             But it seems not be how the real world “overlords” manage their “garden” in this times.

             Jules, the problem we got is like an old, neglected, partly rotten, way way overgrowth elephant apple tree. The elephant tree has been feed a lot, thanks to SoS Central Bank’s “massive stimulus plans” and has growth as big as a calamitous monster but has been never pruned and the unproductive parts of it, woody branches, trunk and roots have grow so much they are taking for themselves more and more energy.

             And this is compromising the productive parts of the tree.

             Fruit trees got this tendency to growth bigger that they should and do need to be taken care and pruned each winter in order to get a balance in between wood growth and fruit growth. If not, the tree wastes most of its energy maintaining and growing itself and does not give you any abundant crops or proper size fruits.

             So what we got now?…

             The same problem of an scraggly unpruned tree: too much energy wasted maintaining the woody parts (those rich white collar employees with huge salaries doing no real work) and not much energy left to make abundant, healthy and big fruits (productive people in society paid very low salaries and harassed constantly with the increasing demands of the ever growing white collar class).

             In the precarious situation of the productive classes, for many, it does not pay off fruiting in the overgrowth elephant tree as the tree is so compromised that it is more and more difficult to get any decent, plump, big fruits able to support any viable and healthy seeds.

             The irony of this is that “our” rotten Central Bankers got the solution of this demographic problem of a less and less fruiting tree: they just graft younger foreign shoots or twigs in the old, neglected, overgrowth elephant tree, so they continue to crop lesser and lesser quality fruits as nothing happens for a while without the need of pruning the tree at all.

             1. I think you mistake which tree the overlords find productive for the tree you would find most pleasant. Reflect on this. The garden is functioning exactly the way it is supposed to, and the yield is bountiful.

       2. Don’t those types usually end up in government?

    3. A Central Bank digital currency in the states won’t happen until after War. The vast majority of physical currency notes are held overseas and the United States has never called in any currency note, unlike every other nation. The logistics involved in creating a new Reserve currency are overlooked by most.

       United States and NATO routinely pay off politicians and terrorist groups around the world with pallets of $100 bills.

       The globe has essentially gone to a digital currency anyway as only 3 to 4% of transactions now are handled with physical currency notes. The developed world has already shifted into a digital type of currency and concepts like Bitcoin can be viewed more like a red herring than anything else. While the alt-media worry about a CBDC like Bitcoin, the globalists transition us into the desired outcome mostly undetected.

       The problem with many people who claim that the United States dollar is going away and won’t be the reserve currency anymore overlook many de facto realities regarding the US dollar vs. all the other alternatives. There’s no other currency that comes close to matching its abilities, and in order for the globalists to achieve their desired goals moving out to the end of the decade, they need the use of physical notes to pay off people.

       Even in my everyday operations, maintenance and repair people no longer like cash, but want to get paid in Zelle or cash app, etc.

       I went to the bank a couple weeks ago and asked for $5,000 cash in $100 bills and the teller didn’t have it on hand. This was at Trust. It took about 15 minutes for him to fish up a bunch of twenties and fifties.

       While people like you and me look at the abolishment of cash as a sobering omen, the vast majority of people don’t even care. The vast majority of people no longer effectively use cash. At least 95% of all transactions today are tracked and traceable. It’s sort of the same reality with gold and silver bullion. 20 to 30 years ago, owning gold and silver eagles made more sense. But if you handed someone a gold eagle or a silver eagle they wouldn’t even know what it was, let alone accept it for barter. This is become the same way with cash. The average consumer of programming has been led to believe that cash is for criminals or it is filthy. Only very few people left in the developed Nations are getting their knickers in a knot over the concept of physical currency notes possibly going away.

       So ask yourself, why would the Federal Reserve implement a CBDC and risk rattling up the livestock? While the people sleep on, the desired infrastructure is being constructed. It may be different in the Euro zone, but they’re used to not having much freedom. All of the banker engineered wars in Europe have created a very docile population. Already, the Euro zone will soon outlaw cash transactions greater than 10,000 Euros, but who handles that cash anymore? The European nations just keep calling in notes and reissuing them.

       United States may go to a CBDC, but that won’t happen until after a military defeat.

       1. CJ, those are all good points, and I have a large number of random thoughts and questions on the topic of currency, which I think about often, if you have time to humor me. I do think a lot of my problems in understanding how to proceed are because I continually operate under an old paradigm of how I think money and currency should be, and not the new slavery paradigm I am expected to adopt.

          I have spent the last couple of years trying to understand the adversary, which is why I read your website. And I think I may ultimately fail to preserve myself financially in any meaningful way, despite my best efforts to get ahead of the current diabolical monetary schemes. The rules of the game keep changing, and corruption rules. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this level of evil, then understanding it enough to figure out how to overcome it and move forward in any actionable way to rise above it. (I’ve done some of the basics. But those actions are based on the old-fashioned money paradigm. Like get out of debt. Live within your means. Work hard. Stay out of the system as much as possible. Ok and yes, I am trying to purchase income generating assets in the form of housing, but currently am in the wrong location to do that and have to seriously move out of state – logistically almost insurmountable with family obligations- and I don’t want to purchase in a bubble if it’s going to be popped by the Fed’s shenanigans….and now who knows…And I really don’t expect you to have all the answers as our fearless leader here:). But again, just humor me. And maybe there are no answers. The book of Revelation does tell us in the end, that people are going to be throwing their gold and silver in the streets. And if we don’t know the time or the day when all of this is happening, then we have to proceed forward and make hay when the sun shines, as you say. But the sun isn’t shining all that brightly, as you no doubt have noticed.

          Do you think that since there will be a delay in CBDC, that there will also be a delay in confiscation? Or am I conflating the two events? Or do you think there will be any confiscation at all? To clarify, I think a lot of people are worried that the banks are going to take their money like they did in the depression. Especially if there is a liquidity crisis, which seems like a possibility (thanks to the Fed), the thought is the banks will do a “bail in.”

          Also, could you confirm whether I am right, that it was ultimately a liquidity crises that happened in 2008? I wasn’t paying that much attention then. Maybe you could humor us neophytes and explain in your terms what actually happened behind the MSM headlines in 2008, especially if we may headed toward a repeat of that now. I am thinking that it’s good to know history to have a better more thorough understanding of the underlying mechanism and how the hell to avoid getting swallowed up in the financial devastation. (Thoughts on the later? No pressure! :))

          Personally – and this may go for most people – I look at banks as a necessary evil because I need to a place to store cash, other than under my mattress, and a central deposit for my bills. Banks are irritating and nosy as hell, and they give me zilch percentage to store my money there. I don’t trust them, either. When I bought gold last year and wanted to wire a significant amount of MY money, they wanted to know everything about the transaction.

          And you are right, nobody uses cash anymore, which is why I use it a LOT now, every chance I get! (Ha ha, taking the contra.) Once I ordered something online from that Crap Made-In-China store called Walmart, and ended up involuntarily having an account created to do so. Another time after that, I went to Walmart and used my credit card, and later found an email with a statement as to every item I purchased there… I never asked for that, but it made me realize how every transaction is recorded (which I knew, but never focused on). To this day I use nothing but cash in that dread place, as I do almost everywhere else that I can get away with it. If nothing else, it’s the humor quotient, watching the cashiers fumble with bills.

          I know you think Catherine Austin Fitts is old hat, but she recommends cash Fridays just to give the system a “run for its money,” and I really make most every day that I make purchases a cash day. It’s just a drop in the bucket, but I like the thought (in my own powerlessness) of making it harder for the large entities to do their tracking and tracing, not that it will change much of anything in the S.O.S. quest to control everything.

          In regards to the metals, you are right, most people, esp. in the younger generation, are clueless (probably by design). I saw a video on YT recently of a guy who was offering people on the street an option of a $10 bill or a 1 oz. silver coin. Only one person out of twenty chose the silver, and the rest opted for the fiat currency. They looked at the silver coin as though they were baffled by it.

          Back to cash, they really tried to make it “dirty” with the covid pay-op, but that ultimately didn’t stick. Target routinely ran out of change at that time and would round up to the nearest dollar to give you change back. But big venues now near me don’t take cash any more. Had to buy tickets for Cirque du Coleil recently by credit card because they won’t take cash, even at the ticket window.

          And back to the metals, it’s only a store of value, but who knows how you would make it a means of exchange down the road, esp. if most people don’t even recognize it. Catherine Austin Fitts talks a lot about communities setting up alternative means of exchanges to circumvent the system, but most people have their head in the sand, and I don’t see that happening because they are few organized communities and people don’t think about the concept of money much, I guess….

          …And while I am on a rant, destroying our currency, as they are doing, is so very evil at a fundamental level. If a bill represents a unit of our labor, then they are destroying the fruits of our labor, our time, our very lives.

          Also, I just read recently that some of the first to be carted off to the concentration camps in Weimar Republic were the bankers. If that’s true, it’s totally understandable!!

          Sorry this got so long. Thank you in advance for reading and responding.

       2. CJ I don’t want to debate CBDC with you too much, as you have your view and I have mine. But I will say I think you are wrong on the timeline and the underlying concerns, and we’re at most 2 years out from full deployment (witness the power of this fully armed and operational battlestation).

          I think I haven’t shared this view concisely before so I’ll do it here.

          The reason is very simple: the Fed will be able to earn a spread on it vs. what they have to pay to banks on the reserves (IOER). It will also enable them to allow commercial banks to get rid of all the humongous direct and indirect (via reserves) sovereign debt exposure from their balance sheets.

          The current raising of interest rates is actually inflationary in a way: it only leads to (much) higher IOER payments, reflected now in the massive operational loss the Fed (and ECB) makes. The Fed cannot sufficiently tighten by raising rates anymore. They can do it by QT, but too much QT will take out the core eventually (it’s now starting to cause scorched earth in the periphery, watch auto loans about to take a nose dive).

          The Fed lowering rates to 0% would actually be the answer here if they wanted deflation. However, if they did that, it would constrict banks’ ability to lend. If you constrict them too much, the money which the government needs to pay off their debt no longer gets (marginally) created. This will then lead to a sovereign default. This is not the way they will do it.

          The path forward will be to launch CBDC, offer rates thereby tightening (commercial bank depositors will switch to holdings in CBDC) and thereby get the plebes to directly fund the sovereign debt. Eventually, the sovereign debt will be bailed-in to CBDC and parity between CBDC and commercial deposit money will be lost. CBDC interest rates will be highly positive and inflationary, whereas commercial bank money will have negative rates and be deflationary.

          This is my working hypothesis so far, it can change based on new market directions. Shorting long-term government bonds and going long on solid corporate bonds and equity is a very good call if this plays out. Real estate may or may not survive, very unclear in my opinion what happens here.

          So this CBDC is a very necessary and urgent project from a monetary perspective. It has nothing to do with “abolishing cash” or any of the other themes the media discusses in the context of CBDC.

          1. Perhaps a major component of the inflation is a result of a loss of confidence. I don’t agree with most of your assessments here. It’s just not adding up. I don’t agree with the 2 year time frame either.

             QE provides all the money needed and has since 2008. The world governments began consuming more than 100% of the world’s net savings 14 years ago. QE by its nature is disinflationary as the debt needs to be serviced and sucks out vitality from the economy.

             The central banks have been funding the trillions of dollars a year needed, and just like Ben Bernanke stated, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet could easily go to 100% of GDP like in Japan. I completely agree with him on this. Any sense of urgency that the powers are now injecting into this dynamic is manufactured and will be used as the means to implement their desired outcome. You are saying a CBDC.

             It’s not the bank deposits that are needed. The commercial banking system is too small now in the post 2008 world. That would only bail out the bank’s balance sheets. The borrowing needs of the nation states are so much more higher now that pensions and stocks and all sorts of non bank assets outside of the traditional banks would be needed and would then be stuffed with this theorized CBDC.

             Any way you slice it, the “plebes” will recognize they had assets confiscated. So, how do we convince the “plebes” to cough up their assets? How can the powers lie and keep the people accepting? It’s not as if a so-called CBDC can cover up the financial flows in a system. Somewhere along the line, the public will recognize their assets or real wealth have been confiscated. A digital coin will not hide it. If CBDCs are highly inflationary as you say how would even corporate bonds be a place to consider? Equities, perhaps.

             Why such a Cassandra type outcome as the logical solution? The global governments had been working fine under the regime of quantitative easing since 2008 and any catastrophe that ostensibly requires the globe to go to a central Bank digital currency will be manufactured. It is not necessary, and only the powers who want it will claim that it is.

             As long as real yields remain negative as they have been, I do not see how the governments can ever convince the plebes to accept this, especially in such a short time frame as two years.

             It’s all about acceptance. The public will not nor do the governments and central banks have to yet. That comes after war.

             Moreover, the hegelian outcome of any solution will have all to do with abolishing cash, monitoring the “plebes,”and doing it in a way that does not need continual government intervention of social media and such. A CBDC will just ruin a person’s life with a flick of a switch.

             QE worked fine, and the recent “mistakes” of monetary policy post-covid in which Bernanke himself disagreed with Powell’s actions, will be used to destroy the QE concept and roll out their next product. Any urgency is manufactured.

             I submit to you that all of these buffoonery actions of the Fed have a deep intent and are not being done by mistake. Powell’s fake stupidity is not happenstance. Indeed, they may very well propose a CBDC as the solution, but that was their intention all along. The technology for such a digital track and Trace was not in place when the world first commenced the quantitative easing program. Now it is.

             There is absolutely no catalyst other than war that will promulgate this line as you theorize. The powers will immediately get the blame. Yes, the people who caused the problem will provide the solution, but the timeframe is too tight and the people will not yet accept this. It’s too obvious. The people will never go along with it. That comes after War and they can string this along a lot longer than you think.

             1. When do you think these bank confiscations will happen? I’m on edge not knowing whether to stop putting money in CD’s and banks.

          2. Jules, thanks for offering your perspective. If you don’t mind, I have a couple of questions for you in your capacity of a banker, and apologies if you have already touched upon these thoughts in previous posts.

             As a background, I am not a banker, nor a landlord. I have been tasked with trying to preserve our wealth, as well as some generational wealth, and maintain a household. My role includes caring for a vax-injured and VERY disabled adult child (who qualifies for institutional care), and I receive a tax-free stipend to do so as an adult foster care provider. My household includes an older husband who retired last year and receive retirement, medicare and social security, and who is shortly going in for heart surgery for rapidly developing symptoms that look an awful lot like secondary vaccine injury (shedding?). (My other daughter is very intelligent and gifted and left this blue state a while ago for college and career, but unfortunately is now a Covidian that may have shed on us, but I will never know.)

             I’m sure you would agree that we are in a pivotal time in this nation’s (and globe’s) financial mess. It looks to me like all of us who are not in the very small top echelon of society, are trying to figure out how to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. We’re quite honestly in a silent war with silent weapons – vaccines and finances – hidden in plain sight.

             In the context of all of the above and my previous two emails, I have asked some pointed questions because I stand in a fork in the road with my family, in terms of staying here and rotting in a socialist state, or leaving for a less advanced form of socialism in a “red” state, but having to give up all I built (I did all the finish work in our home on a beautiful homestead that we own outright)…. and having to get rid of our other lakefront properties, and probably a non-transferable stipend (although most of it is federal funding, so it MAY possibly be transferable with a lot of work jumping through red tape.)

             You made some interesting arguments from your vantage point as a banker. I would like to ask you where you suggest I might put my IRA once the penalty expires around this time next year, if not into a SFR. What are the specific reasons you are not convinced that SFR are a good investment? Also, do you think that any form of bank “bail in” or “confiscation” is going to happen in the next year? If you do not think that renting a SFR is a good idea, then what would be, to earn some kind of interest or return on your investment that outpaces inflation? The best I could come up with, in talking with a traditional financial advisor, if I didn’t want to buy mutual funds of stocks or bonds again (which I don’t) is to purchase annuities. That didn’t seem like a great plan to me.

             I hate the idea of a CBDC because that sounds like confiscation to me. And also, removal of my financial freedom. Tell me where I am wrong, please (?)

             I really appreciate all the thoughts (including yours) on both sides of the equation here on CJ’s site.

             1. I think you are too scared, and you must not be. There is currently no need to implement any of these ideas yet. The public will not accept any concept or mechanism that would be highly confiscatory for citizens while only helping the banking system. It would be too obvious for even the most simple people.

                Before we get to these concepts, the central banks and governments will exhaust other avenues first. The whole concept of the IOER is nothing but a red herring once interest rates stabilize with bond yields. Of course, this hurts the Fed’s income statement as rates rise, but it will even out. It’s not the level of interest rates, it’s the flow and direction.

                The banks were making plenty of money before, during, and after 0% Fed funds. The whole fear of the banks being bailed out goes back decades. They always get bailed out with taxpayer dollars and guarantees. That’s why they lent out 30-year mortgages at 3%. It was bought up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I can go on and on. We are already paying.

                What will be tried first before any overtly digitized confiscatory measures is waiting to be dropped

                1) Balance sheet additions (like Bernanke says up to 100% of GDP)
                2) Government austerity
                3) The Fed swallows its pride and accepts 3-4% inflation target

                Don’t listen to the fear disinfo; inflation with negative yields is the bankers and government’s best friend. The borrow at silly low rates and lend out for positive yields. Just look at mortgages right now. Who owns the 3% mortgages? Not the banks; you and I do via Fannie Mae, HUD, Ginnie Mae, and Freddie Mac

                The Fed has engineered an overnight reverse repo window REAL rate of -300 bps and trillions are parked there. CPI is 7%. The banks still lend out for more. Bank deposits earn 50 bps for depositors. The banks now make money processing and charging fees. They are the middlemen and as rates are more managed by the Fed, they become the primary lender. The money is pushed to the banks from the Fed and the banks lend and make the profit.

                Before the Fed proposes and gets you to accept a CDBC, it will swallow its pride after a partial victory and declare that inflation at 3-4% is acceptable.

                If the public is worried about asset confiscation, it should be worried at how it is already getting crushed by inflation. It should be worried about what is happening now; not something theoretical and in the distance.

                So, will a CBDC ruin real estate? Of course not. Will a CBDC ruin stocks? no. Will a CBDC decimate your IRA? absolutely not! If a CBDC is highly inflationary I want to own as many rental properties as possible. If a CDBC does what Jules says, there will be blood in the streets, and it won’t be the CBDC that’s doing it. It will be the desire of the governments to take away your assets. Not happening until war.

                I am not here to scare to the shit out of the reader. I am here to help prepare. There are so many options left. Continue doing what you do best. I cannot be distracted with these outliers, regardless of how certain someone says they may appear to be.

                1. Thanks CJ, I appreciate all your wise words here and in other posts, and I don’t think you are nearly as ostensibly rude or not nice as you say you are. Hugs 🙂

                   I want to clarify that I am not afraid! Aren’t we all here from the tribe of Menasseh? Go Menasseh! Down with the S.O.S. !!! The Bible says “Be not afraid” one time for each day of the year. In my life, I have gone where most angels fear to tread, but I really try in my older years to understand and weigh out what I am doing first! (And sometimes I didn’t do that enough in my younger years, and I have made stupid mistakes.)

                   If anything, BTW, I am very, very angry that I am subject to the shenanigans of Saint Jerome and all the other POS that rule over us. I just want to live a happy life and I don’t want to think about a damn war, CBDC, or fleeing socialistic tyranny, for God’s sake! (I know, boo hoo.). OK I am done feeling sorry for myself here. My German Catholic great grandfather stood up the S.O.S. Nazi’s and (died doing it) – I will do the same if I have to, so bring it on. Grrrr.

                   In the options you present to most of us, you make it sound very easy, but they really are not for me and my circumstances! I have no formal financial training and frankly, I don’t love money, but only see it as a vehicle to live my life. I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to figure out what the S.O.S. is up to, because I instantly recognized “covid” as communism and not some dread disease. That led me down this path of searching and finding your website, and realizing that I need to at least TRY to understand. I believe in research and questioning everything. Unfortunately my husband has no interest in financials, so it’s literally just me.

                   I honestly had to read your post a few times to try to understand. Despite the technical terminology, I think I got the gist. Could you do me another favor? Could you do a blog post on CBDC? What exactly it is, from your persepective, and what it does and does not cover, when it will be implemented and why, etc. There is a lot of mystery surrounding CBDC. And there are are a lot of concepts swirling around that mystery online.

                   And thanks for the reminder that we already bailed out the banks (duh, I actually did forget that one), and I forgot we already owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all the others like it. I always forget how we are really a socialist country with some vestiges of private property rights. In a strange way that makes me feel more reassured about the potential for confiscation.

11. Jim Cramer was out this morning saying that perhaps we should look into increasing immigration to assuage the job market stresses.

    This is all so rich and and we can see how each Tetris piece fits snug against one another.

    1. Jim Cramer and others in the MSM are trying to program us to accept increased immigration of non-english speakers diluting the USA into a multicultural dump. By the way, most of these immigrants are NOT and will NEVER be vaccinated so they won’t die off like the whites that are vaccinated.

       1. 👍

       2. Is that meant to replace whites?

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