| By Bill Bonner Thursday, July 9, 2020 – Week 17 of the Quarantine SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – We read the news… and we’re staggered. Are you sitting down, Dear Reader? This is from the Congressional Budget Office’s budget review for June 2020:
The federal budget deficit in June 2020 was $863 billion, compared with a deficit of $8 billion in the same month last year, CBO estimates. That increase stems from the economic disruption caused by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and from the federal government’s response to it, including actions by the Administration and the enactment of four pieces of legislation. Let’s see… In June, the feds spent nearly 5 TIMES as much as they received in revenues – $242 billion in tax receipts versus $1,105 billion (that’s billion with a capital T) in outlays. In other words, the deficit for a single month under the “conservative” Trump was greater than the deficit for the entire last year of the “liberal” Obama. According to the CBO, the deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year is going to be $2.7 trillion… or $2 trillion more than the deficit for the same period last year. | Recommended Link | | The World’s #1 Timed Stock Expert, Jeff Brown, Is Back Again… He’s identified hundreds of Timed Stocks… 100% of which, according to over a decade of multivariate backtests, soared up to 931%… 1,313%… 1,526%… or MORE… Starting the exact moment – down to the second – that their timer hit zero. And now, this man, Jeff Brown… who blew the lid off Timed Stocks back in January, has returned… This time, with his most urgent message yet. In short: Thanks to two seemingly unrelated forces… | | | -- | Nothing to Worry About What do you make of it, Dear Reader? A fluke? We owe it to ourselves? It will go away when the V-shaped recovery happens? And what of this? While the federal government is directly or indirectly responsible for about half the economy… and the CBO reports the most catastrophic budget numbers in U.S. history… the stock market goes up! "Tech Royalties" could be the answer to a fruitful retirement. The Dow rose 177 points yesterday. And the Nasdaq hit a new record high. What do investors know that we don’t? That more money-printing is on the way? That it will push up stock prices even higher? That we should stop being such a worrywart and get with the program? Deep Analysis Apparently. Got a money problem? The solution is easy: just print up some money. That’s what the geniuses all say. Here’s a deep “analysis” from Yahoo! Finance: Sending people money works, and the economy is slowing down again. At the end of the month, the U.S. economy faces a critical juncture. Enhanced unemployment insurance that puts an additional $600 in the pockets of those out of work each week is set to expire. These payments, combined with a $1,200 check for those making less than $75,000 with an additional $500 for each child, were a key part of the first round of stimulus passed in March. A package that has helped the economy through one of its darkest periods in modern history. Does it occur to Yahoo! that there might be more to the story? The analyst goes on to tell us that giving people money “supports consumer demand.” That’s about as deep as it gets. Where does the money come from? What wealth does it really represent? Is taking it away from the people who earn it and giving to people who don’t really making us all richer? Politicians and economists are paid not to think too hard. But you’d expect a financial analyst/journalist/markets reporter to show a little more curiosity about it. The Federal Reserve has been providing fake money for the last 50 years. Has it made us richer? Keep reading… | Recommended Link | Americans Now Being Banned for “Failure to Comply.” Are you next? According to MarketWatch, ordinary Americans are being put on 'restriction lists', being banned from using certain businesses. Why is this happening? And what does it mean for you? Widely-followed geopolitical expert Nick Giambruno explains: "This is just the beginning of a much larger movement I've been watching unfold for years in the United States. Law-abiding Americans will soon have a critical decision to make." Will you be banned next? | | | | Arc of Empires But we’re not complaining about our brethren in the writing business… We are all lost souls, adrift on a sea of ignorance, superstition, and jackassery. Instead, with some pushback from our dear readers, we continue to explore what might be called “The Fate of Empires.” "Pressure Point" Technique Could Double Your Money in 30 Days. In short, they are like dazzling 4th of July fireworks… They shoot high, explode in a grand display of shock and awe, and then fall to the ground as burned out cinders. This has nothing to do with “better” or “worse.” We might prefer that old age not come so fast. Or that gravity lighten up. Likewise, we might like for the freedom, glory, and wealth stages of the U.S. empire to drag on a little longer. But there are cycles… and iron laws… And there’s stuff that happens that we can do nothing about. The arc of empires is one of them. Yesterday, we tracked Lord Byron’s description of the trajectory of empires… from freedom… to glory… to wealth. We saw wealth peaking out in 1999… as the “vice” of counterfeit money did its evil work, undermining Main Street while making Wall Street more flush than ever. Disbelief Since then, the cream of U.S. industry – the 30 Dow companies – is off by 65% from what it was at the end of the last century, as measured in old, pre-1971, gold-backed dollars. Using 1970 – a half century ago – as a baseline, a student now needs to put in at least four times as much time on the job to pay his college tuition. And a typical worker needs to work about twelve times as long to buy an ounce of gold… and six times as long to buy the 30 Dow stocks. Our mouth drops open in disbelief. A lot of things are cheaper – imports from China… wheat… oil – especially when measured in “time prices” (the amount of time you need to work to buy them). But over the last half a century – your editor’s entire adult life – real wealth has slipped through most Americans’ hands like the rivers of Babylon. They splashed around in it… enjoyed the warm glow of its big screens and double-wide trailers… but it moved on without them. And this has happened during what should have been the richest, fastest-growing, most dynamic, and innovative period of all time. | Recommended Link | | Impossible! Pentagon releases 50-year-old Technology to Save 5G This is an ALL-OUT 5G emergency. Telemedicine, virtual schools and 97 million Americans working remotely have put America’s current networks under immense pressure. We need 5G NOW more than ever. It’s a matter of economic survival. So the government made a radical decision that once seemed impossible. It released a 50-year-old technology to help deploy 5G Starting July 23rd. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm… all NEED this technology to take 5G mainstream… It promises to open up a $274 billion market and usher in the FINAL stage 5G millionaires. If you want to be one of them here’s what you must do now: | | | -- | Big Questions For most people, time is not just money; it is their main capital asset. And measured against gold, housing, education, medical care… or even a new set of wheels – most Americans are poorer today than they were half a century ago. They now have to exchange more of their time to buy these things. Who… what… is to blame? There is probably more than a single suspect – including the great, ineluctable arc of empires itself. But if we were a deep analyst from Yahoo!, we’d be looking for fingerprints… How come GDP growth fell, even as the Federal Reserve stimulated demand with trillions in fake money? …How come America’s wealth phase seemed to roll over after 1971, when the fake money replaced the real, gold-backed dollar? …If you can get away with a $863 billion deficit – in a single month… why not a $1 trillion deficit… or $2 trillion? …If you can fill the gap between income and expenses by borrowing and printing money, why does any government ever go broke? …And what happened to all those empires/countries/city-states/private enterprises/households in the past who tried it? Did they prosper? More to come… Regards, Bill
Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to feedback@rogueeconomics.com.
FEATURED READS Bank of America Analyst Says the Economy Isn’t ‘All Clear’
Despite Donald Trump and others touting a roaring economic revival, Bank of America Head of Equity Savita Subramanian isn’t convinced. She says economic risks are “completely to the downside,” citing statistically high metrics and investor sentiment… Doug Casey on the Consequences of COVID-19
Bill’s longtime friend and colleague Doug Casey has strong opinions on the coronavirus crisis. He says it’s overblown… and that the government’s “interventions” will only make things worse… MAILBAG Bill shared dear reader Kevin R.’s feedback in Wednesday’s essay, “Where We Are Now.” Another dear reader responds… and one gives a different perspective… I think Kevin and a lot of people are really missing the point. A lot of people owned slaves back in the beginning of our country. Was it right? No. Does it mean we should tear down all of the monuments? No. They did what was culturally acceptable at the time. Applying today’s standards to that time period is unrealistic. If building a country and doing great deeds, taking great risks to create a country that gives them the right to protest, means we now have to wipe any memory of them off the face of the planet, then we have a lot of other wrongs to right. Must anything invented or designed by anyone that owned a slave now be discarded? You really might want to rethink that line of action as slavery has been around since the beginning of time. If you think about it – why do we not go after the Egyptians? I mean, slaves built the pyramids. Do we tear down the pyramids? Do we seek reparations from Egypt? Or do we go after the Romans? Tear down the Parthenon? You get the problem with trying to draw a line in history that involves slavery. I am not condoning slavery. But everyone needs to have a reasonable amount of perspective of what was happening at the time, learn from the mistakes, and vow to never do it again. – Jeff L. Dear Bill, we may all be saying the same things… or are we? The statues that Americans of all races and creeds are now ashamed of, and rightly so, were not built at the end of the Civil War. They were constructed in the 1970s by hateful, greedy, power-hungry, and often Neo Nazis and clansmen. They could not imagine an America where the descendant of a slave and the descendant of a slave owner could live together in fairness and in an equitable society. They could not imagine a place “where justice and righteousness shall flow like a stream,” as the good book says and Dr. King quotes. You may need to exorcise Lord Byron’s demons. – Nena A. Meanwhile, others reflect on Tuesday’s Diary, “Bye-Bye, Bell-Bottom Years”… Let me see if I’ve got this right. Keep jacking up tuition… Teach kids about the wonders of socialism… Run a socialist candidate who promises to forgive student loan debt. Let the taxpayers pay it off instead. Socialism is the most predatory form of capitalism. It steals from one group to buy the votes of a larger group. – Richard P. Hello Bill, I can relate to all your comments today. I graduated from college in 1971 and was able to pay my last year of college by working for 16 weeks in the summer of 1970, with change to spare. I earned $2.85 per hour at a unionized factory job and thought I really had it made, in terms of a “high paying” summer job! (By way of comparison, the minimum wage was raised to $1.00 per hour that year). How different it all is today, and a challenge for young people and their parents. Also, let’s continue to celebrate our heroes of the past – statues, monuments, and all – while recognizing that they were flawed human beings like us, and products of their time and context. They should not be compared with a utopian vision of 2020. Explanatory displays beside monuments can be added that give a fairer and more balanced assessment that fits our current context – without removing the memorials themselves. – Richard F. What a succinct explanation. I’m 73, and grew up during those glorious ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, when it seemed life could only get better. But I lived in Michigan, and by the late ’70s, we marveled that so few outside our state saw how badly we were faltering. So many of us moved to the Sunbelt states, and while there were jobs, they paid half what we’d made up north. I’ve always felt I did something wrong to have a lifestyle lower than that of my parents. But your article showed me that isn’t the case at all. Thank you, and may we somehow pull ourselves up from the barbarism we now face. – Mary L. And finally, after Bill’s last June missive, “Bleach Our History and Move On,” one dear reader says things haven’t really changed for Blacks in America… I was intrigued by your article on having to remember your past to build a better future. We, as Black people, have been living with the past of hate from the time then and the now. Nothing has changed in the archaic laws that continue to hurt people of color. We know why this society’s laws of narcissistic hatred won’t change: because the Republican leaders are the Grand Wizards of the KKK and other white racist groups. Plus, white conservatives honor the code of these laws because you elect those who espouse the culture of hatred by denial of economic opportunity to every generation of Blacks in this country. When will we feel free from the apprehension of being hunted like some animal? When? Black America is still being enslaved by laws that are continuing to destroy us. – Charles W. Are young protestors missing out on historical context, like Richard F. suggests? Are white conservatives to blame for a “culture of hatred,” as Charles W. believes? Write us at feedback@rogueeconomics.com. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… His Readers Report Making $3.8 Million – Now He's Inviting You to Try His Newest "FLIP Trades" System Today Jeff Clark has never worked a day on Wall Street. Yet, his readers report that he's helped them make more than $3.8 million from his trading recommendations. Now, he'd like to help you. For a Limited Time: You're invited to try his newest "FLIP Trades" system. 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