September 14, 2022
* Currencies & metals get sold Big Time on Tuesday
* Inflation actually gained .1% in August!
Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you… Well, my beloved Cardinals can forget about taking the two games against the Brewers, because the Brewers came out of the gate swinging last night and beat the Cardinals. UGH! These two teams go at it again tonight… WOW! Did stocks take one on the chin yesterday or what? More on that in a bit… I think we’re getting what we call an Indian Summer weather week this week, as the temps will be rising as the week goes along. It’s sure not time to close up the pool, if you ask me! Maybe the kids and grandkids will all come over this weekend to have one more day in the pool before it does get closed for the year. Mom! He’s doing it again! The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with their great song: Brown Sugar… I guess you have to be from St. Louis to get that line…
Well, inflation didn’t fall as much as the markets were expecting and putting all their eggs in the basket that the Fed Heads would stop being so aggressive with rate hike, and that lead to the largest selloff in stocks since June 2020… And we all know what happened then, right? Well, no plandemic is raging across the country this time, instead it’s an aggressive Fed that has the stock jockeys’s bejeebers being scared out of them. But, I’m not here to talk much more about stocks, so I’ll move on…
The dollar rallied and I mean rallied BIG TIME yesterday, with the BBDXY gaining 15 index points! So, all that dollar selling that had been going on since last Friday, was gone, pfft, gonzo, adios, arrivederci, and so on… The euro fell back below 1.0, and everything else fell into place behind the Big Dog euro. Bonds got sold, Oil got sold, and you should have seen the engineered selloff in Gold & Silver! One for the ages, folks… Gold lost $22 yesterday to close at $1,702.90, and Silver lost 45-cents to close at $19.41…
The price of Oil dropped $2, and bonds gained 14 BPS of yield in the 10-year… That’s a HUGE move folks for bonds in one day… I’m just saying… And the PPT and their ESF (exchange stabilization fund) were very active propping up the dollar that had seen over two trading sessions, getting sold. If it weren’t for the PPT and their ESF treasure chest, the dollar would be far worse than it was yesterday morning before the stupid CPI printed… I forgot to check shadowstats.com yesterday, so I’ll try to remember to do so today, to see where John Williams has inflation…
The price manipulators smelled blood in the water, yesterday, with Gold & Silver getting nudged a bit by the weak inflation data, but… seeing the slight selling going on, the price manipulators decided to pile on, and soon it got very ugly in Gold & Silver trading. These guys actually took Gold below $1,700 at one point, before allowing it to come back at the end of the day… I shake my head in disgust at these takedowns by the price manipulators, in fact these guys are giving me a rash! But there’s nothing we can do to stop them, other than every investor in the world buying physical Gold & Silver, that would drown out the price manipulators, and cause them to take their bat and ball and go home!
So… we may as well talk about it now… The stupid CPI dropped In August from July, but is till 8.3% VS last year… But before we go any further, that drop was in the Annualized Rate, as inflation actually gained .1% from July! Here’s the St. Louis Post Dispatch on the stupid CPI: “Sharply lower prices for gas and cheaper used cars slowed U.S. inflation in August for a second straight month, though many other items rose in price, indicating that inflation remains a heavy burden for American households.
Consumer prices surged 8.3% in August compared with a year earlier, the government said Tuesday. Though still painfully high, that was down from an 8.5% jump in July and a four-decade high of 9.1% in June.”
Chuck again… You know, I was truly waiting for the POTUS to come out and tell us we didn’t have any inflation again, like he did last month! I would call him a doofus, but that would be not nice of me to say that about the POTUS! And for all of you who think I’m taking political sides here, I also called the previous POTUS a doofus when he attached tariffs on Chinese imports without any way to track the progress or adherence to the agreement. So there!
In The overnight markets last night… I was actually surprised this morning when I checked the overnight markets and saw that the dollar got sold overnight. The BBDXY lost 2 index points overnight, and if you stop to think about this for a minute, you’ll see what I’m talking about regarding the PPT and the ESF and propping up the dollar… As soon as the U.S. session ended, the dollar went back to getting sold, without the propping up going on… I’m just saying…
Gold & Silver are trying to get up off the mat this morning, after having been knocked down there by the price manipulators yesterday, for the count… But Gold & Silver got up before the ref counted to 10, and have tried to regain their steadiness… Gold is up $2, and Silver is up 10-cents as we start our day…
The stock futures are down again this morning, so look for more carnage in the stocks today. The price of Oil steadied overnight and remains trading with a $87 handle this morning… And the 10-year Treasury’s yield has ballooned to 3.44% in the overnight night markets, folks… Boy, all those buyers last week that were buying this bond at 3.20%, sure have to be feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under them.
I want to thank all those dear readers that wrote to me, and told me that they liked the FWIW article on the 4th Turning… The likes have far outweighed the dislikes, so I have that going for me! I also had a couple of dear readers who said they didn’t get the link for the Frank Trotter video… In that case here it is again: Battle Financial Interview – Frank Trotter – YouTube
OK… Well, I read an article from Doug Cassey yesterday that had me thinking… See that’s what people do when they read something they hadn’t thought of! Doug said in his article that he thought that the recent Student Loan Bailout, was the beginning of what he called a “Debt Jubilee” … The problem with a debt jubilee is that someone still has to pay…. And that someone is Taxpayers… So, let’s hope the U.S. doesn’t go down that rabbit hole… That would be awful for you, me, and guy down the street!
Here’s Doug with a snippet of his article: “It is estimated that the immediate and deferred costs of the student loan forgiveness to be at least $590 billion.
Biden’s student loan debt jubilee went too far for even Obama’s former chief economic advisor, Jason Furman, who described it as:
“Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless.”
Aside from the inflationary effects—which I’ll get to in a moment—the student loan jubilee also set a precedent that I think will be impossible to reverse. Consider how the people who behaved prudently feel.”
Chuck again… I’ve already registered how I feel about this boondoggle, with money that we don’t have to spend…
Under the category of “We certainly don’t need this now”, comes the news that the railroad union is at odds with Administration, and it could lead to a strike… That would leave all the heavy lifting of getting goods across the nation, to Truck Drivers… And when they get all worn down from being overworked, they’ll go on strike too, most likely that is… You think we have supply line distribution problems now? Just wait-n-see what happens first with the railroads…
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the aforementioned stupid CPI… We also saw the Federal Budget for August and it came in worse than expected. It was expected to be a deficit of 213 Billion, but instead printed at $220 Billion… Let’s have some fun with numbers here.. Annualized our deficit for this year would be $2.640 TRILLION! Why not? We just keep spending money that we don’t have, like sailors on leave in Tahiti!
And today’s Cupboard has Retail Sales for August… Well, this should be a much better number than in July, as August had all the back-to-school, expenditures… Remember when you took your child to college, and all the expenses that you incurred from that trip? I’m just saying… In our world of “opposites” these days, a positive Retail Sales print, would lead to a bad day for the dollar, if the “opposites” still rule… The BHI (Butler Household Index) indicates that Retail Sales will be flat once again… Uh-Oh!
I say Uh-Oh, because…. no consumer spending means no consumption, and that’s bad for GDP, which is already teetering on going negative for the 3rd consecutive quarter… That’s why!
To recap… What an ugly day it was in the markets… The dollar rallied like there was no tomorrow, at the expense of the currencies, metals, Oil & Bonds, while the stupid CPI did in stocks on the day. Gold lost $22 and Silver lost 45-cents yesterday… It was just plain ugly of a day, and hopes are that it isn’t repeated any time soon! All that lost ground in stocks, bonds, currencies and metals… At least the price of Oil, while down, was down just $2…
For What It’s Worth… Dor-o-thy! Dor-o-thy! That’s auntie Em calling for Dorothy to come home and get in the storm cellar before the twister hits Kansas… I put that in today, because 1. It’s my fave movie of all time, and 2. Because of the article in the FWIW today… It’s about how billionaires are buying lavish bunkers to hide out in when the fit hits the shan… And it can be found here: The Elites Are DEFINITELY Getting Prepared. Are You? – DollarCollapse.com
Or, here’s your snippet: “The ultra-wealthy are some of the best preppers in the entire world. I realize that statement may sound strange to many of you, but it is actually true.
The elite are very well aware that we are on the precipice of a full-blown societal meltdown, and many of them are spending enormous amounts of time, money and energy to prepare themselves for the extremely difficult times that are rapidly approaching. In some cases, ultra-wealthy individuals are forking out giant mountains of cash for luxurious underground bunkers in the middle of nowhere. In other cases, elitists are actually buying citizenship in far away foreign lands that they think will be safe. We are talking about some of the smartest and wealthiest people in our entire society, and they are so freaked out about what is coming that they have become absolutely obsessed with trying to save themselves.
Many of these individuals got to where they are today by staying one step ahead of everyone else. That is why it is so alarming that 2,150 corporate executives sold off shares in their own companies in the month August alone. Do they know something that the rest of us don’t?
Of course when things start getting really bad, many among the elite do not plan to stick around to see what happens. The following comes from a Guardian article entitled “The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse”…
Many of those seriously seeking a safe haven simply hire one of several prepper construction companies to bury a prefab steel-lined bunker somewhere on one of their existing properties. Rising S Company in Texas builds and installs bunkers and tornado shelters for as little as $40,000 for an 8ft by 12ft emergency hideout all the way up to the $8.3m luxury series “Aristocrat”, complete with pool and bowling lane. The enterprise originally catered to families seeking temporary storm shelters, before it went into the long-term apocalypse business. The company logo, complete with three crucifixes, suggests their services are geared more toward Christian evangelist preppers in red-state America than billionaire tech bros playing out sci-fi scenarios.”
Chuck again… and in my best church lady voice made famous by Dana Carvey: “Well, isn’t that special”! Well, when these billionaires go down there, maybe they’ll lose the key to unlock the bunker, and they’ll be stuck there! Wait! That could be a great book/ movie! I need an agent! Somebody find me an agent! HA!
Market Prices 9/14/2022: American Style: A$ .6719, kiwi .5991, C$ .7579, euro .9995, sterling 1.1551, Swiss $1.0402, European Style: rand 17.4368, krone 10.1155, SEK 10.6751, forint 403.29, zloty 4.7231, koruna 24.5457, RUB 59.70, yen 143.33, sing 1.4049, HKD 7.8482, INR 79.44, China 6.9591, peso 20.02, BRL 5.1919, BBDXY 1306.56, Dollar Index 109.57, Oil $87.11, 10-year 3.45%, Silver $19.51, Platinum $897.00, Palladium $2,103.00, Copper $3.66, and Gold… $1,704.18
That’s it for today… I’m into reading the books about C.T Ferguson… I’ve read 6 of them so far and have 3 more to go! I thank the reader that told me to try these books… My darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace, is in High School now (I know I still don’t believe it!) and she’s on the dance squad that performs at the football games. Her mom, my daughter Dawn, was a cheerleader at the same high school.,. that, obviously was years ago! Nina Simone takes us to the finish line today with her classic 50’s song: Feelin’ Good… Michael Buble’ did a remake of the song, but I prefer the original artist here… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please remember to Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler