from McAlvany Financial
Five Predictions for the Coming Decade of Decline
by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
There is a well-known modern proverb (often attributed to the novelist G. Michael Hopf) that goes, “Weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men.”
The saying sums up the cyclical nature of the rise and fall of societies– and it’s a topic in which I have tremendous personal interest.
Having recently reached middle age, I can comfortably say with the benefit of hindsight that I was born and grew up during the American prime time– the time at which the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world was at its peak.
The US is still an incredible country with so much prosperity and opportunity. But it would be completely naive and ignorant to claim that America is not in substantial decline.
The Latest Updates From Martin Armstrong for 2024.06.12
French Fears Ignite Selloff in U.S. Megabanks and Foreign Peers
by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Yesterday, The Hill published an OpEd by the man who, literally, wrote the book on the megabanks: Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Law at George Washington University Law School. Wilmarth raised critical points on why these megabanks continue to pose unacceptable levels of risk to U.S. financial stability and need to dramatically boost their equity capital – notwithstanding their fierce lobbying and propaganda battle to overturn the proposed new capital rules by bank regulators.
The forces of the universe seemed to align with Wilmarth’s gutsy OpEd yesterday. In a display of just how dangerously interconnected with derivatives these megabanks remain, their share prices tanked in tandem yesterday despite the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes each setting a new record high.
Fitch Doesn’t See Bottom of Office CRE Mess, Sees CMBS Delinquency Rates Spike Way Past Financial Crisis Peak in 2025
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
A big driver is the “secular decline in the office market” that even slashed interest rates would not end.
There has been a recent flurry of declarations by big fund managers with exposure to the office sector of commercial real estate that office CRE has “bottomed out,” or is “near bottom,” or that “we can at least now see the bottom,” or that “while we might not be at the bottom just yet, we’re close to it,” etc.
But Fitch Ratings has come out with an updated analysis of the US office market, and it doesn’t see the bottom just yet. Far from it.
Restaurant Apocalypse: The Do-Gooders Created All the Destruction!
by David Haggith
GoldSeek
Central planners and do-gooders often make things worse for those they claim they want to help. Once again, today, the “Restaurant Apocalypse” is in the news. It is largely the low-cost, chain restaurants that are closing down all over the US, and one of the big reasons they are shutting down and killing tens of thousands of jobs was the forced move in liberal states to adopt much higher minimum wages, pretending there is no limit to what you can demand of businesses.
The “Restaurant Apocalypse” was man-made
Anyone with an engaged brain could have seen this coming.
The businesses forced to pay higher wages, according to an article by Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, are ending the jobs because keeping those jobs means losing money hand over fist indefinitely.
Common Knoweldge Alert! Court of Appeals Rules That mRNA Covid Jabs Aren’t “Vaccines!”
The whole ‘Safe & Effective’ narrative is folding faster than a cheap card table being danced on at a Greek wedding. But this is when ‘they’ are at their most dangerous. Please, ramp up your emergency preparations as much as you can…
by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity
The common knowledge game is underway! This week’s big installment from the US court system was a decisive blow to the brainless administrative devotees of the “safe & Effective” mantra.
Vacating a district court ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Covid jabs are not vaccines as described in the (in)famous Jacobson case because they do not stop transmission or catching the disease.
They are therefore “medical treatments” and Jacobson actually argues that people have a fundamental right to decline treatments if they so choose.
So – smack! – down went the defendant’s case, which was an activist LA school system that wanted to force everyone under their employ to get vaccinated and boosted using coercive pressure.
Inflation Cools More Than Expected, Providing Relief for Consumers and the Fed
by John Carney
Breitbart.com
America got some good news on inflation on Wednesday, possibly opening the door for lower interest rates this year.
The Consumer Price Index climbed 3.3 percent in May from a year earlier, down from 3.4 percent in April, the Labor Department reported.
The “core” index—which excludes volatile food and energy prices to provide a clearer view of the underlying trend—rose 3.4 percent last month, down from 3.6 percent the previous month. That is the lowest annual increase in core prices since April 2021.
Compared to the prior month, the broad measure of consumer prices was unchanged. Core prices increased by 0.2 percent.
Inflation….. Market Insanity Continues
by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
This is not a “cold” report folks….
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.3 percent before seasonal adjustment.
The unchanged was caused by a decrease in gasoline, mostly, which everyone has seen in advance.
But the index in rents and owners equivalent rent were both up 0.4% which would annualize to 4.9%, or 2.5x the Fed’s “target” in these very large and unavoidable consumer expense. Further, medical care (another mandatory expense for most) was up even more, up 0.5% on the month and what’s worse is that prescription drugs were up 2.1% on the month which would annualize to more than 20%.
Hunter Biden’s Gun Conviction Does Not Resolve a Constitutional Dispute That Pits Him Against His Father
The president’s son, who faces up to 25 years in prison for conduct that violated no one’s rights, can still challenge his prosecution on Second Amendment grounds.
by Jacob Sullum
Reason.com
A federal jury in Delaware today found Hunter Biden guilty of three felonies based on his purchase of a revolver from a Wilmington gun shop in October 2018. That outcome is not surprising, since Biden had publicly admitted that he was a regular crack cocaine user around the time of the transaction. But Biden can still challenge the verdict by arguing that his prosecution violated the Second Amendment—a claim that pits him against his own father.
The central charge against the president’s son was a violation of 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an “unlawful user” of a “controlled substance” to receive or possess a firearm. The two other charges, also felonies, involved Biden’s misrepresentation of himself as a legal gun buyer. Biden faces combined maximum penalties of up to 25 years in prison, although his actual sentence is apt to be much shorter, assuming he is incarcerated at all.
Don’t Overrely On National Presidential Polls
by Brian C. Joondeph
American Thinker
Election season is well underway. President Joe Biden is mumbling, bumbling, and stumbling his way toward his party’s nomination for a second term, the final nail in the coffin of American greatness and exceptionalism.
Former President Trump is supposedly so unlikeable that his opponents are trying to arrest and imprison him in the style of a banana republic dictatorship, which America is rapidly becoming.
Opinion polls are a snapshot of public sentiment and preferences. In the case of presidential election polls, polls reflect the views of a hopefully representative sample of the U.S. voting population which when extrapolated, mirror the views of the entire country.
Le Pen Vows to Deport Foreigners Who Push “Totalitarian Ideology” in France
Promises to shut down radical mosques.
by Paul Joseph Watson
Modernity News
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen has vowed to shut down radical mosques and deport Islamists with dual nationality in her first major speech after winning the EU elections in France.
“Give me one reason, only one, to keep on our territory foreigners who collaborate with a totalitarian ideology that wants the death of the French?” Le Pen told a raucous crowd.
Laying out her manifesto on the subject of mass migration, Le Pen asserted, “Dual nationals connected to the Islamist ideology must be stripped of the nationality & expelled.”
“The French who adopt the ideology of the enemy must be brought before justice & punished,” she added, demanding, “The laws exist, they just need to be applied. These laws will be applied without weakening.”
Hunter Biden’s Conviction On Firearm Charges is a Red Herring
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org
We now have matching news from the opposing camp. Just as Trump is the first US President to be convicted by a jury, Hunter Biden is the first son of a sitting president to be convicted of a federal felony.
This conviction of Hunter Biden leaves me unsettled, as does his likely pending conviction for federal income tax evasion. The real issue is the information on Hunter Biden’s laptop that the FBI was able for awhile to suppress and brand as “Russian disinformation.” This is under US law obstruction of Justice by the FBI. All responsible should, if US law is still enforceable, be arrested, indicted, and prosecuted. It would be justice to see the FBI in the dock after all the innocent people the corrupt organization has put there.
Enormous Mobs Are Literally Taking Over the Streets of Major U.S. Cities On a Nightly Basis
by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Every night, huge groups of young people are literally taking over streets in large cities all over America. In many cases, major intersections are completely blocked off for stunts and dangerous competitions involving vehicles. These events are called “street takeovers”, and they are often accompanied by theft, violence and other acts of crime. You have probably heard of “street takeovers” happening in big metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Seattle, New York and Chicago, but at this point they are even happening in many rural areas. In fact, I just came across an article about how street takeovers have become a major problem in the state of Maine. As you will see below, the scale of these events is often so large that police will just sit back and do nothing to stop them. When they are outnumbered a hundred to one or a thousand to one, the police are often extremely hesitant to try to break things up.
Some of the biggest “street takeovers” in the nation occur in northern California, and this past weekend was certainly no exception…
The Silver Sands of Time: How the Metal is Changing the Energy Landscape with David Morgan
from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network
Kerry and David Morgan discussed the recent performance of gold and silver, with both metals experiencing significant rallies. They projected potential trading ranges for silver between $29 and $31 and gold between $2,200 and $2,400. The speakers also discussed the dynamics of the silver market, highlighting the substantial demand from industries like photovoltaics and projecting a billion ounce market for the next 10 years. They expressed shared concerns about the environmental impact and efficiency of energy production, emphasizing the need for alternative sustainable solutions and greater awareness and exploration of alternative sustainable energy options to address the challenges associated with energy and sustainability.
Click Here to Listen to the Audio
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The Greatest Theft in World History
by Brian Maher and James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
We remain besieged by responses to our D-Day coverage.
Certain readers nearly chain us Mr. Benedict Arnold. Reader B.H. — for example.
From whom:
I find the comments about D-Day very disturbing. There was no need to disrespect D-Day on that day. Whatever your views on D-Day they could have been discussed at any time than on that day. You do all Americans a disservice when you have to dig into every aspect of the shortcomings of American troops and service during war.
As a result of this I may well cancel my subscription to all services. I’m very disturbed by your actions and I’m willing to bet you have gotten a ton of reaction to your unappreciated comments about such a hard time in our history.
Voters Swing ‘To the Right’ and Saudi Arabia Defects From the Petrodollar Deal!
Will the US have an election? Not if the outcome has the possibility of turning out like Europe. Meanwhile, the US is scrambling to try and entice Saudi Arabia to stick to the petrodollar.
by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity
The massive denunciation of so-called liberal politicians in the EU brought me hope this weekend. From France to Germany to Hungary to Italy and to Belgium, the voters spoke loudly and clearly.
In France, Macron’s party didn’t just lose, they got clobbered taking in less than half the vote than did Marine Le Pen’s party.
Against this backdrop, the US is now scrambling to try and emergency shore up a “security package” for Saudi Arabia which apparently declined to re-sign the expiring 50-year-old deal Kissinger put together that gave the world the petrodollar. (More…)