ericbj

Trump is clearly "very worried" about the situation he is escalating. So should we all be. His erratic and threatening behaviour has already done to the global economy immense damage, which is likely to produce snowballing effects. Now he seeks to shut down Iran's nuclear industry which he earlier claimed to have destroyed. This follows on from where there occurred in the target country a bloody, externally co-ordinated uprising. Peaceful protests, engendered by hardships caused by years of illegal U.S. sanctions, were invaded by armed men who shot at and killed observing police, and are alleged to have killed some of the protesters. Coincidence? Reminiscent of the 2014 Maidan Coup in Kiev. We should be concerned for all loss of life. Including the loss of life in Gaza. And the further loss of life that Trump may be about to unleash.

Americans fought in Vietnam. Some lived to regret it. Others opposed it. All peoples are subject to being misled by those who have established authority over them. No nation is exempt from spasms of extreme inhumane insanity. George Orwell remarked something to that effect. To fight de-humanising narratives our now vastly enhanced web for communicating information and ideas must remain open. Unrestricted by vested interests.

Thank you for that info. A factor that may be overlooked is that while some countries with high tariffs (commonly intended to protect their developing industries) may lower protections under pressure from the Emperor, the tariffs he imposes are not always retaliatory as they are claimed to be. Trump imposes tariffs on countries which have very low tariffs or none at all. And also for reasons that are primarily geopolitical rather than strictly economic. This is a short-sighted attempt to tax foreign businesses, and to dictate to foreign governments. The U.S. businesses and consumers bear most of the burden. Targeted countries in some cases take a leaf out of Trump's book, by increasing duty on imports from the U.S. Tit for tat. Wars are not one-sided, and trade wars are no exception. With stealth and patience Trump might have achieved a great deal. Instead, by acting like an enraged bull in a china-shop, he has aroused universal anger and distrust towards the United States. He is so outrageously gauche and uncouth that he would be a great comedian if he did not occupy his present position. Perhaps some day he and Volodymyr might have a show together? Putting aside the question of retaliation by foreign governments, fomenting consumer hostility towards the United States amounts to negative advertising for U.S. products. Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the United States Government seeking $10 billion in damages for "reputational and financial harm". The U.S. Government should lodge a counter-claim for damages far in excess of this amount.

Only if the Hegemon reforms. Ask the people in Vietnam, the Middle East, and elsewhere for their opinion.

I suggest that if they pay, for example, in yuan, the petrodollar price becomes irrelevant. Dollar prices are becoming increasingly irrelevant, although by no means totally so. It is still the major reserve currency although now less held than gold which is increasing in value while the dollar sinks. But I am subject to correction on this belief.

Certainly if you buy now you have missed out on some huge gains, and in conventional circuumstances one could expect a huge fall. I believe on the basis of what I hear and read online from those with deep long-time knowledge of the precious metals market that there is a long way to go before the top. Do research rather than take my word for it. And do not put all your eggs in one basket. And above all, do not borrow to invest.

Somewhat surprisingly, Carney speaks Truth to Power. Torpor is awakened by provocation. One may oppose what Carney represents. But recall Churchill's retort to those who criticised his pact with Stalin: "If Hitler imvaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference in this House to the Devil!" ---------- And if persistent provocation finally, and improbably, awakens the sleep-walking figures currently guiding Europe's destiny? Would that be to Trump's liking? I doubt it. He wishes to disengage the United States from Europe, the better to focus U.S. resources elsewhere and progressively to develop ties with Russia, weaning her away from China. But, in this scenario, continuing friction between Western Europe and the Russian Federation is desirable, both to continue weakening the EU and Britain and to restrict as far as possible Russia's ambitions in other parts of the world (as has already happened in the Middle East and Anatolian region). If the Monroe doctrine has been revitalised, so has the Makinder doctrine. ----------------- The Trump administration has publicly admitted that the world is now "multi-polar". If one believes this, the U.S. wishes to create an exclusion zone reserved to its own political and economic dominance over the Americas, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. (And also, one might add, throughout Space). This is a smoke-screen. In a recent strategy document, the Trump administration expresses its aim of achieving total dominance over the Western Hemisphere, as a prerequisite to crushing its economic rival, China, outside of the Americas. The Trump administration plans to use economic and military force to achieve its goals, where possible through threats rather than action; the cheaper option. It is for this reason that despite a huge and growing debt, the U.S. military budget has been increased by approximately 50%. It is not the action of a peace-seeking nation fearing attack, despite pretending that is so. The goal is unchanged: Global Hegemony.

Whoever buys oil with dollars will pay MORE dollars because they will be worth less. Do not hold on to dollars. Quickly change them into what is holding value, or appreciating. My choice would be gold and silver at the present time. They pull back from time to time but the trend is still upward because of supply and demand. The situation will eventually change. In the future. The stock market may be rising, but pushed up by weakening dollar. It will crash eventually. However some commodities, such as agricultural products (food) will always be in demand.

It may be alright taking that risk for small values of bullion, and depending what borders you are crossing. (I believe I have read somewhere of people entering the U.S. having gold coins confiscated). If considering a real emergency-reserve or a store-of-value buy from a dealer who can arrange storage with a reputable precious-metals vaulting company, such as Loomis, legally ALLOCATED TO YOU (in your name) and, if individual items (coins or small bars). SEGREGATED. The vaulting company must have regular independent audits. You buy from the dealer, and if required he arranges storage with the vaulting company; and the storage + insurance charges (typically trimestrial) are paid by him on your behalf, out of a cash balance you hold with him. He will normally e-mail you a detailed monthly statement of your holdings showing items, quantities, individual values and total value at current spot-price; and cash balance remaining. Never have your gold stored by the dealer. That is how many Thais lost their gold at the time of the '97 Crisis. In terms of value stored, silver is vastly more expensive to vault than gold. When you wish to sell, you can sell through the dealer. Alternatively you can, by arrangement, take delivery. If you think you may in future wish to take delivery, best to have vaulted in your part of the world, in a secure jurisdiction. Such as Singapore for South-East Asia. Your bullion account is linked to one particular bank account, and for security reasons changing this bank account is not something that can be done at the drop of a hat. So choosing it needs forethought. For quick and easy purchase, storage + insurance, and sale, it may be worth considering purchasing a tiny fraction of an LBMA Good-Delivery Bar through a firm called Bullionvault. Your gold, silver, platinum or palladium will be ALLOCATED, but obviously not segregated. You cannot take delivery (unless you own a huge amount). There is a choice of locations for storage. (despite their name, they do not themselves vault the metal) Purchase and sale can be made either directly with them or via a continuous auction hosted on their website. In the latter case you can see the buy- and sell-prices being offered and requested, yet to be fulfilled; and can thus judge what price you wish to offer or ask. Wnen you sign up they give you 4 grams of silver to sell (or keep) to get the hang of things. Their website has some useful documentation; and is available in English, French and German.

Do as you feel best. The future cannot be foretold with certainty. But gold is not truly volatile at present. It has occasional pull-backs. That is normal. But higher lows, and higher highs. The trend is likely to continue. If price too high, think of silver. In 'normal' times that can be very unpredictable (volatile), but recently, percentage-wise, it has been outperforming gold. Because of various factors, including intense industrial demand and dwindling supplies, it is likely to climb much higher. Precious metal miners are an even better bet in present conditions. But avoid the exploration companies unless you really know what you are buying, and are prepared to gamble. And bear in mind that certain countries may decide to nationalise their mineral resources.

The first manipulation is the illusion of choice. You think you have two parties representing different visions for America but both parties are funded by the same billionaires, vote for the same surveillance bills, approve the same defense budgets, and serve the same corporate interests. The choice you are given is which color tie the puppet wears, not who controls the strings. The second manipulation is emotional hijacking. The news does not inform you, it activates you. Every story is framed to trigger fear or anger or disgust because those emotions bypass your rational thinking and make you easier to control. You are not watching journalism. You are being subjected to psychological operations designed to keep you in a constant state of agitation. The third manipulation is tribal sorting. The algorithm learns what makes you angry and feeds you more of it until your entire worldview is shaped by outrage at the other side. You are sorted into a tribe not because you chose it but because keeping you tribal keeps you predictable and profitable. The fourth manipulation is false scarcity. You are told resources are limited and the other tribe is taking what belongs to you. Immigrants are stealing your jobs. Welfare recipients are draining your taxes. The other party is destroying your healthcare. Meanwhile the billionaire class has more wealth than any humans in history and could solve most of these problems tomorrow if they wanted to. The fifth manipulation is memory holing. Stories that threaten powerful interests get buried or forgotten within days. Exposed crimes result in no consequences. Historical context that would help you understand the present is never taught. You are kept in a perpetual present with no past to learn from and no future to plan for. The sixth manipulation is controlled opposition. The voices you think are fighting for you are often funded by the same interests they pretend to oppose. The outrage merchant on your side of the aisle is playing a character designed to keep you engaged and angry and tuned in while nothing ever actually changes. The seventh manipulation is the Overton window. The range of acceptable opinion is artificially narrowed so that anything outside it seems extreme. Ideas that were mainstream fifty years ago are now treated as radical. Ideas that serve elite interests are treated as moderate common sense. You are not choosing your beliefs from the full range of human thought. You are choosing from a menu they wrote. The eighth manipulation is learned helplessness. You are shown so many problems with no solutions that you eventually give up and accept that nothing can change. This is intentional. A population that believes resistance is futile does not resist. They scroll and complain and feel superior for understanding how bad things are while doing absolutely nothing about it. The ninth manipulation is identity capture. Your political affiliation becomes your identity, and any attack on your party feels like an attack on you personally. This makes you defend politicians and policies that harm you because admitting they are wrong would mean admitting you were wrong, and your ego will not allow that. The tenth manipulation is the most insidious of all: you are manipulated into believing you are too smart to be manipulated. Every person reading this thinks the manipulations I described apply to other people, the stupid people, the brainwashed people on the other side. That certainty is itself a manipulation. The moment you believe you are immune is the moment you become most vulnerable. For more see here : https://tritorch.substack.com/p/everything-you-watch-or-read-is-owned

Trump Makes a Rare Concession — No One Expected This https://youtu.be/hmPC1JXPLw8 "Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated." But cross-check the quotes and they prove valid. A useful assessment.

There could be some economic fall-out from Trump's capers: Bond Collapse Forces U.S. REVERSAL As Investors CANCEL Treasuries For China RMB Debt The numerous comments are revealing and sometimes hilarious.

The debtor is the U.S. Government. And the debtor - the U.S. Government - already has the Fed "printing more dollars". Why? - Because of a shortfall in demand the last time there was a sale of Treasury bonds. The Fed had to buy unsold Treasury bonds with money printed out of thin air. If you are in favour of Modern Monetary Theory maybe you are OK with that. At the next offering, the U.S. Government will likely have to offer higher interest as an inducement to potential buyers. Buyers are not so blind as to ignore depreciation of capital over the duration of the bond. Alternatively, the Fed will have to buy more debt once again.

He said what needed saying in a manner that nobody else was capable of. So let's give credit where credit is due. His predecessor would have been useless. ["If Hitler imvaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference in this House to the Devil" - Churchill responding to criticism of his pact with Stalin]

Solution to United States Government debt:

What you write does not make sense because it is not the way things work in real life. Debt only makes a person, company, or country richer if it is used to generate profits that exceed the capital + interest that must be repaid. Borrowing up to a certain proportion of income (or GDP) can, if wisely invested in productive business, increase wealth. But we are no longer in that ball-game. Returns on investment have become very slender, as indicated by current levels of GDP in the western world. But then add in the interest payable which is now met by creating further debt, and the whole thing is beginning to snowball. Dollar debt in the form of Treasury Reserves are, on my understanding, created in two ways: 1. Loaning to the U.S. Government dollars paid for imports from abroad; and 2. Foreign and domestic entities loaning dollars to the U.S. Government as a store-of-value. (The only "tier-1 asset" apart from gold, as defined by the B.I.S.) In case (1): dollars which might otherwise have been exportted, weakening the currency, are instead retained in the U.S. Where they can be used to support government spending, on condition of paying the interest and redeeming them at maturity. If at maturity those dollars are exported, they will weaken the currency, just as they would have if never loaned to the U.S. That a massive export of dollars causes the dollar's exchange value to fall is precisely the reason that major holders of Treasuries must liquidate them by degrees and not all in one go. The law of supply and demand. (Even if the dollars were not exported, but were made available on the domestic market, this would also undermine their value) In case (2): the argument is much the same. If in doubt as to the effect of putting into circulation excessive debt-instruments (currency notes etc) one can study the Weimar Republic, or in more recent times Zimbabwe. Weakening the dollar by exporting it to exchange it for another currency explains the reason behind currency controls, which we may see reintroduced in the near future. In my youth one was not permitted to take more than 50 GBP outside the Sterling Area.

If you look at the sales pitches for the upmarket products of investment advisory services such as Stansberry, they make umpteen claims about past successful predictions as well as future predictions. There can be little doubt that like most businesses they project themselves in a very positive light. I do not believe they are deliberately dishonest. Exaggerrate, yes. They are supported by subscriptions, not as some are, by commissions from the companies they recommend. And have been in business for many years. But of course, caveat emptor. I found a very useful website - name forgotten - that double-checked their claims and made educated guesses as to companies they were promoting, but whose identity was only revealed upon payment of the subscription. About seven or eight years ago, knowing absolutely nothing about investment in stocks etc, I took out several of these rather expensive subscriptions. I made a decent profit with my modest investments over one year, but figured I had really gained nothing (but an education) because of what I had paid out. But then I was hit with nearly 40% taxes by the French Government, putting me firmly in the red. I decided such services were worth it for a person with a good bit more money to invest than myself. Another problem with the stockmarket was the amount of time it absorbed. For the past few years I have just sat back, with some small investments in gold and silver mining, mainly royalty and streaming companies.

Your claimed investigation of people who make such claims is irrelevant to those who find their advice useful in preserving their wealth, irrespective of whether the advisers make any money from it. (Incidentally I follow her regularly and pay her no money; though I do not begrudge her anything she makes from her channel). You do not make clear how you know that she and others like her have no investments. I personally am unaware of her wealth. But others I am happy to seek free advice from (it's a kind of sales intro.) include some who have amassed very large fortunes. Such as Bill Bonner, Doug Casey, Porter Stansberry, etc. Names you would know if you know anything about investment. But of course you are free to miss out on whatever you want, including preserving your purchasing power. It was never my intention to pander to those with a mystical belief in an infallibly eternal dollar. History shows that fiat currencies fail eventually. Will the dollar be an exception?

I guess you do not understand what she says, which is why you judge her by her looks. Although she looks fine to me !

Unlikely the U.S. will default on its debts in the sense of repudiating them. Instead it will repay them in dollars that are devalued by "money-printing". Precisely why Trump seeks control of the Fed: no more control of inflation. https://www.bullionvault.com/silver-price-chart.do

Loans are normally secured against assets. Is this the case with current U.S. borrowings?

Maybe you should look into real assets other than paper or electronic blips. One might suggest gold. Or, if you want something of high industrial demand, silver.

If you rely on U.S. dollar income this concerns you. Ditto if you rely upon other western fiat currency income, although they may be slower to fall in real value (as measured by inflation).