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National News See other National News Articles Title: Is The Dollar Collapsing? 7 Key Indicators You Can't Ignore Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com, As outlined in the graphic below, there are seven key indicators to watch as the US government falls deeper into the self-perpetuating debt spiral that I think will culminate in the collapse of the US dollar. Indicator #1: Federal Budget Deficits The chart below shows the actual and projected federal budget deficits. It’s important to note that the projections have the ridiculous assumption that there will be no wars, recessions, or other events that cause extra federal spending. Even with this rosy and unrealistic forecast, the US government is projected to have a cumulative deficit of over $22 trillion over the next ten years, which will have to be financed by issuing more debt. Indicator #2: The Federal Debt The federal debt has exceeded $35 trillion, representing more than 123% of GDP. It’s important to remember that GDP is a flawed statistic. For example, it counts government spending as a positive. A more honest measure would count government spending as a big negative as it compounds the debt spiral. In the US, government spending accounts for at least 37% of GDP. This means that the debt relative to the productive economy supporting it is much higher than most people realize. Indicator #3: The Federal Interest Expense Annualized interest on the federal debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time this year and is shooting higher. The interest cost on the federal debt is already the US government’s second-largest expenditure—larger than even the defense budget. Interest expense is set to exceed Social Security and become the BIGGEST federal expenditure in the coming months. Indicator #4: The Federal Funds Rate In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed brought interest rates to roughly 0% and held them there for years. Then, in late 2015, they started a rate-hiking cycle that lasted until the repo market turmoil in late 2019. After the outbreak of the Covid mass psychosis in early 2020, the Fed brought interest rates back down to around 0%. Inflation subsequently hit 40-year highs in 2022, forcing the Fed into another rate-hiking cycle, one of the steepest in history. In just 18 months, the Fed hiked rates from around 0% to over 5%. The Fed has now pivoted back to monetary easing and rate cuts without having defeated inflation. That’s because the skyrocketing interest expense threatens the solvency of the US government and forces the Fed to cut interest rates and keep them artificially low to try to control interest costs. Indicator #5: Money Supply The skyrocketing interest expense forces the Fed to implement interest cost control policies, which inflate the money supply. These include buying Treasuries with money the Fed creates out of thin air and similar measures. No matter what the Fed calls it, the only way they can try to control interest costs is to inflate the money supply. Remember, the Fed has only two tools in its toolbox: currency debasement and gaslighting. Since 2020, the US money supply has skyrocketed by 37%, an incredible change in such a short period. If your after-tax wealth has not increased by 37% since 2020, then you are not keeping up with the Fed’s monetary debasement. You are losing ground and on the road to serfdom. Indicator #6: Consumer Price Index The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most politically manipulated statistic in all of government. That is saying something because many government statistics are completely manipulated, but inflation, as measured by the CPI, is probably the most manipulated. The CPI is a basket of prices trying to measure the average price changes for 340 million Americans. It’s an impossible task because every individual has a different price basket. Consider someone who lives in New York City compared to someone who lives in rural Montana. They have totally different price baskets. Using the CPI as a measure of price increases for 340 million people is even more preposterous than taking the average temperature across 50 states in the US as a meaningful statistic to determine what clothes you should wear today. Further, the government gets to cherry-pick what items go in the CPI basket and their weightings. It’s like letting a student grade his own paper. In short, the CPI is misleading government propaganda intended to conceal the government’s atrocious currency debasement. All that being said, it is useful to monitor the CPI, not as a meaningful metric to gauge inflation, but as a metric to analyze the Fed’s actions and gaslighting. Indicator #7: The Gold Price Gold is mankind’s most enduring form of money—for over 5,000 years— because of unique characteristics that made it best suited to store and exchange value. Gold is durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and most importantly, the “hardest” of all physical commodities. In other words, gold is the one physical commodity that is the “hardest to produce” (relative to existing stockpiles) and, therefore, the most resistant to debasement. Gold is indestructible, and its stockpiles have built up over thousands of years. That’s a big reason why the growth of new gold supply— typically 1-2% per year—is insignificant. In other words, nobody can arbitrarily inflate the supply. That makes gold an excellent store of value and gives the yellow metal its superior monetary properties. People in every country of the world value gold. Its worth doesn’t depend on any government or any counterparty at all. Gold has always been an inherently international and politically neutral asset. This is why different civilizations around the world have used gold as money for millennia. From a historical point of view, using fiat currency as money is a relatively new concept. As it fades, I expect people will rediscover the world’s premier money: gold. This trend is already well underway. I expect the price of gold—which is already hitting record highs—to soar as this all plays out. If the gold price is already hitting record highs, imagine what could happen now that the Fed has flipped back to monetary easing with potentially even more currency debasement than the previous rounds of stimulus. I think the gold price could skyrocket. While this megatrend is already well underway, I believe the most significant gains are still ahead. Holding physical gold bullion in a private non-bank vault in a wealth- friendly jurisdiction like Singapore, Switzerland, or the Cayman Islands is a good idea. Poster Comment: Better would be an article telling us when the Dollar Dies. The Dollar is kept up in value by the ability of the US military to say we will bomb your country if you do not do what we say. Corruption is destroying the US Dollar because it is destroying our military. We have had one unwinnable forever war which has taken place in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Palestine. We spend $1.51 trillion a year if you count not just the DOD but the other 6 agencies that hide the rest of the MIC budget. Ukraine will be lucky to survive until inauguration day, January 20, 2025. In Palestine adjacent conflicts, we have an adversary in Yemen that has far superior missiles to the US. And Russia has given Iran their Mach 9 Zircon cruise missile which the Houthis and Hezbollah can copy. This will push the US and UK navies 1,000 Kms away from Yemen and Lebanon. It will also destroy Israeli commerce. Iraq could be encouraged to push the American military out of their territory. American bullies have required all Iraqi oil sales to be deposited in a NYC bank whose funds the Iraqis can beg to spend on necessities. If the Iraqi popular militias were to surround US bases, they could demand release of their funds from that NYC bank and the withdrawal of all forces in exchange for the safe release of US military personnel. This is best done before January 20, 2025 inauguration day. Might have President Vance in office that day who is a former Marine. Who knows? At that point, Zircon cruise missiles and Iranian S-400 air defense batteries could make Iraq and the Persian Gulf No Fly Zones for the US and Israeli jets. Meaning, Israel would be forced to decide between nuclear war and a peaceful withdrawal from all occupied territories namely Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Lebanon. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 12.
#6. To: Horse (#0)
Bitcoin is today flirting with it's all time high price of about $73.777 and gold is continuing to break into new ATH territory as well. If Harris should magically win, I'd expect those trends to continue, just as BTC began it's upward move from the 20k range right after Biden "won" in 2020. BRICS had their meeting, the election, Iran hinting at retaliation are all factors, it seems.
My best trade was buying XOM at $40, another thousand shares, when the Biden 2020 steal become obvious. The dividend was about 10% @ 40 as I recall. I've been watching bitcoin of late. You could make a ton of money, but you'd have to ride that like Willy Brown did to the Kameltoe. I'm too lazy. Look at the charts.
If Trump wins, and the dollar still has life left in it, we could see BTC go back under $40k. If that happens, I say buy.
XOM @ $40 (when the 2020 steal was obvious) and gold @ $904 (2010?) and silver $9.00 was my last big play. When (future) Prez HomoPedo declared war on fossil fuels, I knew that was the play. It was risky (there was some talk about Exxon cancelling their dividends (the end of GM)). It was risky AF. I won. Tripled my bux. I live on the dividends.
Free market Crypto (bitcoin / ethereum) has international value. It's not dependent on the US economy and limited supply is a good thing. Yes, crypto isn't for everyone and it's not particularly safe for non-techies who don't know how to safeguard from hacking. But I see it as a very viable store of value for being in worldwide demand. The real kicker is if/when an economy makes it legal tender. That's not an easy step, and El Salvador did do that, but crypto has the advantage of growing technology behind it that can make it more and more usable for average people.
Of what? Electricity consumption? Bukele is my god. What happens if the electricity goes off???
#13. To: Esso (#12)
The entire world's volume of bitcoin mining and transactions could easily be handled by a single laptop computer. Easily. The reason so much more energy is spent can be summed up in one word: Competition. It's because of competition in mining that far more energy is expended. The bitcoin network is designed so that bitcoins are mined about every 10 minutes. The more computers doing the mining, the harder the mining puzzles become, and if mining is then too hard making puzzles take more than an average of 10 minutes to solve, the the easier the puzzle get. So lots of energy consumption is only because of competition to solve the mining puzzles, and not because the bitcoin network actually needs it. It doesn't. If all electricity goes off (as it is here for up to 14 hours a day...) then we got much bigger problems to worry about. And when power comes back, everything resumes.
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