The current Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to reshape geopolitical relations and international trade and to give context to the situation, we’ve created this graphic using IMF and UN Comtrade data to showcase Ukraine’s largest trading partners and goods traded in 2020.

We are now at the end of a major economic era and bubbles in many asset markets and commodities are typical for the end of a cycle. This is exactly what we have seen in this century with historical overvaluations of stock, bond, and property values.

The U.S. dollar has been the world’s dominant currency since the end of World War II with roughly half of international trade, international loans, and global debt securities being denominated in USD as illustrated in the graphic below.

Kondratiev concluded that each long wave was driven by technological advances. He identified four distinct phases.

Our politicians seem convinced that giant mountains of dollars can be printed, borrowed and spent indefinitely without any repercussions, and 78% of Americans fully support what they are doing BUT if you are in that 78 percent, you are wrong!

I don't doubt that the S&P 500 will rise to 5,000 - someday - but it just isn't likely to be this year or next. Let's logically think about this and just where the two keys to market would need to be for 5,000 to be realistic, which are earnings and the PE.

If you want to know and understand what is happening to gold’s price, then you need to know and understand what is happening to the U.S. dollar. The value of gold is constant: its price changes according to changes in actual purchasing power of the US dollar. 

A perceptive explanation as to why our nation is committing insidious [i.e. spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way] suicide under the guise of erecting the false ideal of social egalitarianism and how Americans, in the process, are being dumbed down to a vulgarian's existence. Words: 2339

The US dollar, as the world reserve currency, is still the driver of silver, gold, and inflation pricing and the charts below show that they should now be ready to run based on the USD topping and then dropping in "price".

When will the next “Minsky Moment” arrive? We don’t know. What we do know is that by the time the Fed realizes what they have done, as always, it will be too late.