Category Archive: 5.) The United States

Financial Savvy Ways To Thrive In The Auto Market

  The auto market can be challenging and unpredictable, but with the right strategies and insights, automotive business owners can thrive. This article will explore the financial savvy ways to succeed in the auto market, focusing on understanding the current landscape, saving money, using modern financial tools and AI, and navigating warranties and service contracts. …

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Rückläufige US-Erdölvorräte lassen Ölpreise steigen

Die Vereinigten Staaten weisen sinkende Ölreserven auf. Dies führt zu einem Druck auf die Preise. Trotz eines Anstiegs der Rohölvorräte im jüngsten EIA-Bericht sind die kommerziellen Erdölvorräte in den USA in den meisten Wochen der letzten anderthalb Jahre zurückgegangen und liegen unter dem saisonalen Durchschnitt der letzten fünf Jahre und sogar unter dem Fünfjahresdurchschnitt vor der Pandemie.

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United States: The ISM Conundrum

Bond yields have tumbled this morning, bringing the 10-year US Treasury rate within sight of its record low level. The catalyst appears to have been the ISM’s Manufacturing PMI. Falling below 50, this widely followed economic indicator continues its rapid unwinding.

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Latest Thoughts on the US Economic Outlook

The US economy is starting to show cracks from the ongoing trade war. While we do not want to make too much from one data point, we acknowledge that headwinds are building whilst US recession risks are rising.

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Real Estate Perfectly Sums Up The Rate Cuts

It’s only a confusing when you just accept the booming economy of the unemployment rate. From this perspective, 2018 was, and more so 2019 is, a downright conundrum. By all mainstream accounts, this just shouldn’t be happening.

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US Economic Crosscurrents Reach the 50 Mark

In the official narrative, the economy is robust and resilient. The fundamentals, particularly the labor market, are solid. It’s just that there has arisen an undercurrent or crosscurrent of some other stuff. Central bankers initially pointed the finger at trade wars and the negative “sentiment” it creates across the world but they’ve changed their view somewhat.

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It’s Not Just the News That’s Fake–Everything’s Fake

What do we mean when we say corporate media is fake? We mean it's a carefully crafted con, a set of narratives, cherry-picked data and heavily massaged statistics (the unemployment rate, etc.) designed to instill the reader's confidence in a narrative that serves the interests not of the citizenry but of a select few pillaging the citizenry.

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What Does It Mean That Real Estate, Not Equities, Is Driving Monetary Policy?

In the world of assets classes, I don’t believe it is equities which hold the Federal Reserve’s attention. After the 2006-11 debacle, the big bust, you can at least understand why policymakers might be more attuned to real estate no matter how the NYSE trades. It may be a decade ago, but that’s the one thing out of the Global Financial Crisis which was seared into the consciousness of everyone who lived through it.

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Our Ruling Elites Have No Idea How Much We Want to See Them All in Prison Jumpsuits

Even the most distracted, fragmented tribe of the peasantry eventually notices that they're not in the top 1%, or the top 0.1%. Let's posit that America will confront a Great Crisis in the next decade. This is the presumption of The Fourth Turning, a 4-generational cycle of 80 years that correlates rather neatly with the Great Crises of the past: 1781 (Revolutionary War, constitutional crisis); 1861 (Civil War) and 1941 (World War II, global war).

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Monthly Macro Monitor: We’re Not There Yet

I first wrote about the current economic slowdown a year ago and Jeff Snider actually started seeing signs of slowdown in the Eurodollar market as early as May 2018. So, the slowdown we’re in now certainly isn’t a surprise here at Alhambra. I think though that we often forget how long these things take to develop.

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Globally Synchronized, After All

For there to be a second half rebound, there has to be some established baseline growth. Whatever might have happened, if it was due to “transitory” factors temporarily interrupting the economic track then once those dissipate the economy easily gets back on track because the track itself was never bothered.

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US FX intervention still someway off

The likelihood of active FX intervention by the US authorities remains low but is increasing and the Trump administration can be expected to continue to pressure the Fed to cut rates.The Trump administration has been focusing on the US’s trade deficit with some of its main trading partners such as China and Germany. A strong dollar is exacerbating this deficit and has visibly exasperated President Trump.

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As Chinese Factory Deflation Sets In, A ‘Dovish’ Powell Leans on ‘Uncertainty’

It’s a clever bit of misdirection. In one of the last interviews he gave before passing away, Milton Friedman talked about the true strength of central banks. It wasn’t money and monetary policy, instead he admitted that what they’re really good at is PR. Maybe that’s why you really can’t tell the difference Greenspan to Bernanke to Yellen to Powell no matter what happens.

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“Alexa, How Do We Subvert Big Tech’s Orwellian Internet-of-Things Surveillance?”

Convenience is the sales pitch, but the real goal is control in service of maximizing profits and extending state power. When every device in your life is connected to the Internet (the Internet of Things), your refrigerator will schedule an oil change for your car--or something like that--and it will be amazingly wunnerful. 

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Predatory “Green Capitalism” Is Monetizing the Air, and It’s Going to Cost You

You want to reduce CO2? Then trigger a global depression that reduces global consumption of everything by 50% and destroys 95% of the phantom wealth owned by the global elites trying to monetize the air. I recently asked What's Left to Monetize?, and longtime correspondent Mark G. provided the answer: the air we breathe, via carbon taxes and markets for trading carbon credits, i.e. financializing / monetizing Nature to benefit the few at the...

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When Everything from Bat Guano to Quatloos Is Soaring, Speculative Euphoria Has Reached an Extreme

The more extreme the speculative euphoria, the greater the risks of a reversal. One sentence sums up the speculative euphoria gripping markets: January and June of this year are the only months in the last 150 which have seen all assets post a positive total return. (Zero Hedge)

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Vested Interests in Charge = Guaranteed Failure

It boils down to two very simple principles: accredit the student, not the institution and teach every student how to rigorously learn on their own. Vested interests have every incentive to maintain the status quo: specifically, those who currently own the assets, income streams and power will continue to own the assets, income streams and power.

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What’s Left to Monetize?

What's left to monetize? It appears the answer is "very little." Advertising has always monetized consumers' time and attention, what we call engagement today. Newspapers and periodicals publish advertisements, radio/TV networks and stations air adverts, movie theaters run trailers/ads, billboards occupy our mental space while driving and websites and apps post adverts.

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America’s Concealed Crisis: Fifty Years of Economic Decline, 1969 to 2019

If we consider the long term, it's clear America's economy and society have been declining for the average household for 50 years. What if the "prosperity" of the past 50 years is mostly a statistical mirage for the bottom 80% of households? 

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Following in Rome’s Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Inequality

Here is the moral decay of America's ruling elites boiled down to a single word. There are many reasons why Imperial Rome declined, but two primary causes that get relatively little attention are moral decay and soaring wealth inequality. The two are of course intimately connected: once the morals of the ruling Elites degrade, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, too.

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