My "Warning".

[CrackbottomLouis]

I think we have some breathing room. Make hay while the sun shines because it sets eventually.

 

[hiwall]

I do agree with VirginPrepper.
There is just too much debt in the world. What exactly is the true value of the paper dollars in your pocket? Zero.
I'm not sure it will all fall down in 2020 but it is inevitable that it will fall down. Central banks around the world and especially our own Federal Reserve are working to keep the ship afloat. But that was tried with the Titanic too but it only lasted a short time. I would highly suggest everyone get their ducks in a row.

 

[Tank-Girl]

I am watching the unnatural acts the US Fed is doing to the repo markets to keep the banking system liquid.
They're injecting over 61 billion dollars a month + into the banking sector and putting it on balance sheet which ultimately falls on the back of the tax payer.
These funds injections where "suppose" to be a temporary fix but now these multi-billion dollar injections are a permanent fixture.

It turns my blood to ice and even though I was focused down hard on my prepping it has taken on a new level of intensity.

Time is really running short and when it hits all of what you have at home is all that you are going to have.

 

[Sourdough]

I am watching the unnatural acts the US Fed is doing to the repo markets to keep the banking system liquid.

Have you read this.............????? Maybe you should NOT read it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-secretly-bailing-out-major-bank

 

[Supervisor42]

I am watching the unnatural acts the US Fed is doing to the repo markets to keep the banking system liquid.
They're injecting over 61 billion dollars a month + into the banking sector and putting it on balance sheet which ultimately falls on the back of the tax payer.
These funds injections where "suppose" to be a temporary fix but now these multi-billion dollar injections are a permanent fixture.
It turns my blood to ice and even though I was focused down hard on my prepping it has taken on a new level of intensity.

Time is really running short and when it hits all of what you have at home is all that you are going to have.

I love it when people buy into a story with half of the truth and panic.
OMG! The Fed is cutting interest rates and pumping billions of dollars into the economy to keep it on life support!!! We're all gonna die!

Just lookey here!
(Half the truth, one year graph, Fed interest rate)

The whole truth.
(5 year graph, Fed interest rate)

So if the Fed is pumping billions into the economy by lowering rates, was the economy pumping billions into the Fed the 2-1/2 years it was raising rates?
Of course not.
Didn't hear a single word when the Fed was raising rates didja?
The Fed has to increase rates to keep inflation in check or we find ourselves in the Jimmy Carter years of 10% inflation.
If you want to go poor in just 4 years, watch the cost of everything you buy go up by 40%. I did.
Have another look at where we are today verses how deep in the do-do we were years ago. We're fine.
The president said the Fed was "overzealous" raising rates earlier. He was right.
The Fed is simply 'undoing' some of the increases they shouldn't have made in 2018.

 

[hiwall]

So if the Fed is pumping billions into the economy by lowering rates

Actually what Tankgirl said has nothing really to do with interest rates.

They're injecting over 61 billion dollars a month + into the banking sector and putting it on balance sheet

The Fed is pumping money into the system with their repo lending. Though it is difficult to say exactly how much. Some days it is over $100 billion in just one day. But it is not all "new" money because they lend the money for just one day. Then the next day the bank just rolls it over. But we don't know just how many banks are involved and how much of the money is rolled over every day.
Though it is a fact that the FED is pumping in $60 billion per month of fresh new money with their current non-QE QE.

You are correct that the FED should be raising interest rates to help control inflation. The interest rates in the USA have been and still are way, way below the standard or average amount (about 6%) and they have been that way for 11+ years. When they lowered rates in 2007-08 they said it was a temporary emergency measure and yet here we are 11 years later and still have those emergency rates. We have been at these very low rates so long that it is dragging down the historic average.

The high inflation rates rob everybody. Somehow the government has brainwashed the American people into believing the inflation should be 2% per year. NOOOOOOOO. It should be zero. To make the high inflation rates look better the government keeps changing how they determine the rate. They change it almost every year and every change they do makes the rate appear lower.
If interest rates were still measured the way our government used to do them the rate this year would be somewhere in the 6% to 9% range not the around 2% the government now says it is.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
Or alternate methods that some use that show even higher inflation.
http://www.chapwoodindex.com/

 

[Supervisor42]

Actually what Tankgirl said has nothing really to do with interest rates.

The Fed is pumping money into the system with their repo lending. Though it is difficult to say exactly how much. Some days it is over $100 billion in just one day. But it is not all "new" money because they lend the money for just one day. Then the next day the bank just rolls it over. But we don't know just how many banks are involved and how much of the money is rolled over every day.
Though it is a fact that the FED is pumping in $60 billion per month of fresh new money with their current non-QE QE.

You are correct that the FED should be raising interest rates to help control inflation. The interest rates in the USA have been and still are way, way below the standard or average amount (about 6%) and they have been that way for 11+ years. When they lowered rates in 2007-08 they said it was a temporary emergency measure and yet here we are 11 years later and still have those emergency rates. We have been at these very low rates so long that it is dragging down the historic average.

The high inflation rates rob everybody. Somehow the government has brainwashed the American people into believing the inflation should be 2% per year. NOOOOOOOO. It should be zero. To make the high inflation rates look better the government keeps changing how they determine the rate. They change it almost every year and every change they do makes the rate appear lower.
If interest rates were still measured the way our government used to do them the rate this year would be somewhere in the 6% to 9% range not the around 2% the government now says it is.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
Or alternate methods that some use that show even higher inflation.
http://www.chapwoodindex.com/

Wow, you threw out a lot of information there!
I'm only going to pick one. Chapwood inflation index.
I think for the inflation index to have any real meaning, it would be a cross-section of average American families across the country.
Now I know all the 'important people' live in a big blue mega-city with a population over 500,000. It ain't cheap to live there.
(90% of the US population does not).
Top ten cities on their 5-year average list:
Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco, Long beach, Seattle, Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego, Washington, Los Angeles.
That's a nice sampling of all Americans, yeah, right.
How many are in California?
If you look at the other 40 cities, they are all blue mega-cities with more than 500,000 people living in them except a couple.
You could call that chart "The urbanite inflation index" and be accurate. Do they have high inflation? Sure.
What about the other 90%?
We don't matter because prices for us don't go up diddley-squat.
And that does not fit their agenda.

 

[CrackbottomLouis]

Ah, the joys of fiat currency. It'll crash eventually. Currencies have a 100% failure rate throughout history. Or they will scrap our currency, institute a new one with an exchange rate into it, and start the whole ponzi scheme over again. The only real wealth is being debt free, having land with the ability to produce basic needs like food and clean water off of it, a generous store of basic necessities, and skills that enable you to earn enough in any currency to maintain ownership of all that. And the ability to protect it of course. And knowledge. That's priceless. You have all that all these smoke and mirror shenanigans mean nothing.

 

[phideaux]

I was under the impression that COLA for Social Security was based on inflation rate..well according to my COLA for 2020 of 1.6% , somebody's math ain't right.

Doesn't really matter anyway because Medicare increases are rumored to be 7% increase...
That's a big goose egg for most and. Big negative for the rest

COLA..cost of living ... inflation 2% .....
I'm in the situation Crackbottom described...so I really don't give a rats patooty.

Jim

 

[hiwall]

There is high inflation at our house. Food is constantly going up. Gas is certainly up. My health insurance is a very big part of our monthly expenses (about 1/2) and it goes up a huge amount every year (average rise is about 20+%). Our truck and house insurance goes up every year. Our property tax goes up every year. So, yes, there is high inflation at our house.

 

[phideaux]

There is high inflation at our house. Food is constantly going up. Gas is certainly up. My health insurance is a very big part of our monthly expenses (about 1/2) and it goes up a huge amount every year (average rise is about 20+%). Our truck and house insurance goes up every year. Our property tax goes up every year. So, yes, there is high inflation at our house.

Same here..

But our government has determined that our costs of living only increased 1.6%.

Inflation and COLA is the same thing to me.

They're all crooks and sleeze balls.
I'm ok with whatever they decide, but I know many folks that are going backwards and pinching pennies.

When your increase is $6 to $9/mo,
And your Medicare costs rises $7-$9 mo....wow.

I know some widows drawin $600-$700/mo...who will actually lose income due to Medicare increase.

Jim

 

[hiwall]

If our government used their own old formula to figure inflation, everyone getting a SS check would find it much larger than it is now.

 

[Sourdough]

Well WORTH the time to read "Slowly".

https://straightlinelogic.com/2019/11/18/the-builders-by-robert-gore/

 

[Supervisor42]

Well WORTH the time to read "Slowly".

https://straightlinelogic.com/2019/11/18/the-builders-by-robert-gore/

Interesting article about the global economy. (Which is sucking pretty bad with most countries down into negative interest rates)
He never mentions the US.
We are not them...but we could have been.
Look at the second graph I posted in #35 at the line as it approaches 2016.
Imagine the rest of the graph after 2016 being upside down.
Instead of raising rates, lowering them by that amount far below the deep do-do level.
That's where most of the rest of the countries are today. (Take a look at European negative interest levels),

One decision, and One man, made that much difference, for US.