Ides of March-Here Comes the Greater Depression

Ides of March-Here Comes the Greater Depression - By Alan Franklin - http://www.raptureready.com/2017/03/12/ides-of-march-here-comes-the-greater-depression/

 

March 15 is an interesting date. It marked the allegedly prophesied assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC It could also herald the coming financial earthquake I have been expecting for years.

 

Mid-March 2017 is packed with "interesting" events.

 

On March 15, America runs out of money when the country hits its $20 trillion debt ceiling.

 

On March 15, Britain's bid to leave the EU starts with the triggering of Article 50 - the way for a nation to exit the EU - the Revived Roman Empire.

 

Interestingly, Caesar's March 15 death marked a turning point in Roman history, sparking the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

 

On March 15, the Netherlands holds the first European election of the year and anti-immigration politicians will make a big impact. The French and German elections follow on later, and both countries also have uneasy electorates...

 

Geert Wilders' patriotic anti-Islam, anti EU party, The Party for Freedom, is riding a growing wave of populism and appears on track to win the most seats the Dutch election, according to some polls.

 

Wilders and backers are a threat to the EU'S 'liberal' ideas as Mr. Wilders has pledged to close the Netherlands' borders, shut down mosques and leave the euro and EU if he gets into power. However, he is unlikely to win a majority in Parliament to put this into practice. For now. The same applies to Marie Le Pen in France, another patriotic politician striking a chord with a people sick of being swamped with hordes of mostly Islamic young men.

 

On March 17-18, the world's top 20 nations - the G20 - send their finance ministers and central bankers to a meeting to discuss the parlous state of the world's finances. Around the same time the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to launch the first of what may be a series of rate rises.

 

Countries from France to Italy, Greece to - yes, China - have severe financial problems based on too much debt. China's housing speculative bubble could pop at any time and it is no surprise that money has been flooding out of the country.

 

So what's all the doom and gloom about Alan, you may ask. After all, I have been predicting the final financial meltdown and the crash of cash since 2006 (see our book, Goodbye America, Goodbye Britain).

 

Well, what I didn't expect was the mega creation of "funny money," created out of thin air by the world's central banks when the financial troubles started in 2008. I was in America watching it happen on hotel TVs and saw the wall of worry that hit those who watched their pension pots melting away in a day. Then came the "wonderful" idea of creating money out of nothing...

 

This staved off the inevitable mega crash and made it a lot worse longer term by allowing people, firms and many organizations to speculate using cheap borrowed money, pumping up asset prices to ridiculous heights.

 

I believe asset prices in all classes are now near the top and have acted accordingly in a personal capacity. (I manage our own pension fund with long term success.)

 

I can read balance sheets: one of our many media jobs which we did contemporaneously was publishing a nationwide business newspaper for 16 years and we know about cash flow.

 

Remember, in days, the world's biggest economy faces going broke... Further, I do not believe  that the world's economies - especially America's - are in the rosy shape many "experts" claim.

 

You can make unemployment statistics look great by leaving out all those who have given up trying for jobs as there aren't many that pay good wages.

 

The U.S. stock market, the world's biggest, is at its highest point in history - shades of 1929! This doesn't mean the coming crash will definitely happen in the next month or two. But the cracks are there for those with eyes to see...

 

We do not usually give financial advice other than to try to get out of debt, but we feel  that the stock market collapse could now be quite close.  Yet the market is at a record high. This is economic insanity.

 

I think gold will be one of the few safe assets and expect it to appreciate rapidly in the next year. That is why we allow just one advertisement on our website - Bullion Vault, a firm we have researched and trust. So if people ask me how to put, say, ten percent of their investable assets into gold, that's where I direct them for fair prices and low charges.

 

Respected commentators, like the co-hosts of my favorite program, Squawkbox on CNBC, are guardedly pointing out the potential problems...

 

Steve Sedgewick said on March 2 that the average American credit card bill is now over  $16,000 and that consumer debt is back up to levels we haven't seen since 2008. (This includes mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc.)

 

Steve said people are now buying stocks at incredibly elevated levels.  He advised people to take a pause if they are buying stocks at the moment and said he did not like where it (market euphoria) was leading, as in 1999 and 2007.

 

His co-presenter Geoff Cutmore added: "Beware the ides of March. We've got to look for catalysts that crack the momentum." He referred to a high tech firm  which has just come to the market valued at $24 billion, and said he struggled to understand that.

 

Steve said he was worried because he was hearing the same kind of language he heard in 1999 and around 2006-2007.  People were saying valuations don't matter, debt levels don't matter. Things I grew up with don't seem to matter anymore.

 

Crises that were around in 2007,8,9,10,11 are still there. Debt levels are still there; Greece is in a terrible situation; also France is in an awful situation.

 

Geoff said he hated sounding negative but central banks had sprayed cash all over the global economy to try and help the recovery and that means all of the gains that were achieved were on the back of significantly higher levels of liquidity.  ("Funny money"    in my terms.)

 

Headlines on the show were:

 

• Financial Stocks Hit Highest Level Since Dec 2007
• Dow Jones Index Crosses 21,000 for First Time Ever
• Tech Stocks See Highest Level Since April 2000
• Materials, Consumer Discretionary Stocks and Industrials See All Time Highs
• Stocks Are Hitting All Time Highs on the Back of Hope

 

Here, my comment is: The stock market runs on two emotions - hope (or greed!) and fear.

 

We are having some building work done at our house, and the builders all have an expression when you talk to them. They answer your questions and finish up with: "It's all good!" (That's hope.)

 

I expect that to be short-lived. On March 15 the debt ceiling of $20 trillion kicks in on an unsuspecting world. This is $20 trillion: 20,000,000,000,000. That's like New York's downtown skyscrapers being built with $100 bills...

 

When America's borrowing has to stop- by law - the country will have to rub by on $200 billion cash. This runs out by the summer. Then comes fear. Congress may well - quite rightly - resist increasing Uncle Sam's credit card limit even more.

 

Here's what the wise old bird Ronald Reagan worried about. He said: "Can we, who man the ship of state, deny it is somewhat out of control? Our national debt is approaching $1 trillion."

 

He was concerned about a debt one twentieth the size of today's! That's not even counting the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities.

 

So forget tax cuts, forget healthcare reform, forget blowing a trillion of mystery money on bridges and roads. It won't happen. It CANNOT happen, in my opinion.

 

The dollar can't stay credible in the world if trillions are endlessly created. Paper money is only worth what people believe it to be worth. Worth remembering!

 

The U.S. dollar is, for now, the world's reserve currency with it being used for most worldwide financial transactions.

 

So what happens Stateside reverberates worldwide. The builders had better enjoy the happy sunlit uplands before the deep dive into the final countdown starts. The End Times clock is ticking.

 

To quote the title of one of Dave Reagan's annual conferences: "We are living on borrowed time." The emphasis is on the borrowing...