Whether our current economic crisis will end with massive inflation or in a deflationary spiral (ultimately, either one results in a Depression) is more than an academic one. It is the single most important variable for near and intermediate term investing success. It is also important in regard to taking actions which can prepare and protect you and your family. [Here is my assessment of what the future outcome will likely be and why.] Words: 1441

Only in a debt-based money system could debt be curiously cast as an asset. We’ve made “extend and pretend” a quaint phrase for a burgeoning market for financial lying and profiteering aimed toward preventing the collapse of a debt- (or lack-) based system that was already doomed by its initial design to collapse. This primer will detail the major components and basic evolution of fake wealth creation, accelerating debt expansion, hollowing out of the economy, and inevitable financial implosion. Words:1583

Systemic-solvency and liquidity issues continue to plague the Fed and to restrain U.S. economic activity. Bank lending remains impaired, household income has taken a new hit, annual and monthly growth in the broad money supply appears to be stalling, again and U6 unemployment levels are at staggering levels. These ongoing financial problems have horrendous implications for the markets and systemic stability. [Let me explain.]

Financialization is like the bubonic plague–it constantly needs new victims as it kills off its existing hosts. Housing? Dead, killed by financialization, aided, abetted and powered by the Federal Reserve. Now the Fed wants to “save” what it already killed via financialization–housing–by buying $1 trillion in plague-infested mortgages and brute-force efforts to keep interest rates below inflation, i.e. negative rates.[Let me take this disease analogy further.] Words: 514

Daniel Thorn­ton, an econ­o­mist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, argues that the Fed’s pol­icy of pro­vid­ing liq­uid­ity has “enor­mous poten­tial to increase the money sup­ply,” result­ing in what The Wall Street Journal’s Real Time Eco­nom­ics blog calls “an infla­tion inferno.” [Personally,] I think it’s too soon to make sig­nif­i­cant changes to a port­fo­lio based on infla­tion fears. Here's why. Words: 550

With the U.S. election just six months off, political pressures will mount to favor fiscal stimulus measures instead of restraint. Such action can only accelerate higher domestic inflation and intensified dollar debasement culminating in a Great Collapse - a hyperinflationary great depression - by 2014. [Let me explain why that is the inevitable outcome.] Words: 2766

The classic argument is that, because 70% of the economy is driven by consumer spending, an increase in gasoline prices will cause a decrease in consumer spending, which will cause an economic decline. [My research, however, indicates that] the premise that higher oil prices will cause inflation and/or a recession is wrong. [Let me explain why that is the case.] Words: 1097

Is it a coincidence that Greece, a country with a 40% smoking rate, has dug itself into such a financial mess? What is fiscal irresponsibility, if not an unwillingness to deal with discomfort today in exchange for future financial health? [Let me explain why an analogy to a country's addiction to smoking is so appropriate when considering the Greeks' attitude to their country's sovereign debt woes.] Words: 650

The time is now fast approaching when all debt will be defaulted on...A debtor's default will impact the creditor (who is usually also a debtor to yet other creditors), causing him to default, and so on. When this begins in earnest, it will wipe out the banking system and thus everyone's "money." The paper currencies will not survive this. We are seeing the early edges of it now in the euro, and it's anyone's guess when it will happen in Japan, though it seems long overdue already. Last of all, it will come to the USA. The purpose of this article is to present the early-warning signal and explain the actual mechanism to these events. Words: 1386

The developed economies of the world have opened the money spigots...[and this] massive money and credit creation is sitting in the banking system like dry tinder just waiting for a spark to set it ablaze. How quickly it happens is anyone’s guess, but once it does we are likely to be enveloped in a worldwide inflation unlike anything before ever witnessed. [Let me explain further.] Words: 625