Vigilant Investor

We’ve been quite busy the past few days, so here’s a quick summary with links of articles with more details.

The Fed and the world’s central banks are now well aware they’ve got a global credit crisis on their hands that is far nastier than they expected.  So to work they go!

In the U.S. we are seeing what the authorities have in mind with their $700 billion package, which is the first of many to come — never mind the assurances that this is all it’ll take.  It looks like we’ll be seeing a great deal of nationalization in banking.  Paulson, no doubt, appears ready to use the full authority granted him as U.S. Treasury Secretary.   We worry about the blank check Congress has just obligated taxpayers and dollar holders to.  As we noted in a post a few days ago, the Monetary Base suggests the flood of freshly minted cash is to be hitting our shores soon.

• Fed, ECB, Central Banks Cut Rates in Coordinated Move
• White House considers ownership stakes in banks
• Fed eyes plan to fund short-term business loans
• Fed Considers Plan to Buy Companies’ Unsecured Debt
• More Treasury Bonds on Way to Ease Crisis
• Paulson Says U.S. to Use All `Authorities’ in Crisis

In the U.K. things have gone from bad to worse.   Socialization has even less of a stigma in Europe, so as in the U.K. you’ve got all sorts of intervention falling in line to bail out the banking system.  Meanwhile, Iceland is in such bad shape, it appears the small nation could be hit with insolvency fairly soon.

• Darling unveils bank rescue
• U.K. Banks Get Unprecedented Government Bailout; Stocks Fall
• In Flailing Iceland, Disbelief and Regret
• Icelandic Regulator Takes Control of Kaupthing Bank
• Barclays, RBS in Talks on U.K. Government Funding
• Russia Lends Iceland 4 Billion Euros to Save Banks
• Belgium, Luxembourg scramble to sell Fortis

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As we’ve said for a long while, to date we’ve only experienced the outer wisps of the big storm that’s coming ashore.  You know, what meteorologists call “squall lines” that stretch out from a hurricane’s thicker clouds and eye.  Hours before the bulk of the storm hits, those in a hurricane’s way are treated to series of heavy rain squalls and then breaks of sun.  Eventually, those end and you’re in the storm for real.

That’s where we are right now.  Stated another way, the problems we’ve had so far have been just mere appetizers for the main course, and more than a few who’ve pooh-poohed this whole problem so far for not such a big deal will be eating crow.

Here are a few items that tell us we’re getting close to a serious capitulation point:

U.S. Auto Industry is in a shambles with sales collapsing.

Folks who mattered used to say, “However goes GM, so goes the U.S.A.”  Well, that went out the window with the collective belief in the myth that the U.S. could simply become a service economy, and that the productivity measurement was all that mattered — with technology at the helm of the ship.  Well, we’re all learning now first hand that if we can’t all just sell mortgages to one another, of houses inflated by excessive money printing through the credit system.  Unless we actually produce something to exchange with the rest of the world, we can’t afford to buy the things even we make — like autos.

Well, U.S. auto sales have plummeted 15.5% since August 2007, with the Big Three getting hammered. First the good news: GM is down 20%.   And now the bad news: Ford is down 26.5%.  The Ugly: Chrysler is down 34.5%!   We don’t expect that to improve any time soon.  Some folks — the auto companies themselves — are pointing to lower gas prices they say will jump start sales again. But a 40 cent drop is hardly a reprieve compared to just a few short years ago, and moreover will not last.   As we warned years ago, the 0% financing incentives would merely urge people to advance buy autos, half of which seem to have done so in massive gas guzzlers.  As more buyers default on their car payments further crunching available credit, this situation will only worsen.

The United States of Bailouts

All said, add the Auto Industry to the folks in line with their hands out to get the U.S. taxpayer and fellow dollar holders (by printing money) to bail them out.  Let’s see, there’s the implied nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac…  There’s Bear Stearns and a host of others who’ve been swapping their garbage credit for U.S. Treasuries from the Fed.  We expect the Airlines to be next.

Then there is the FDIC which expects an $8.9 million ding on its bank insurance fund from IndyMac alone — although some estimate that number is understated for effect, with the real number closer to $12 billion, and even upwards of $20 billion.   The FDIC just upped from 90 to 117 the number banks on its danger of failing list, which, while only recently released, only covers expectations through the end of June — a number it expects to continue to rise.  The fund only has about $45 billion in it, just a hair above 1% of the deposits it actually insures.  Add them to the line  — they’ll be there soon enough.  The last time they had to go to the Treasury was during the Savings and Loan crisis — which is a comparative picnic at Disneyland compared to our current environment.

Then there is the Pension Benefit Guarantee Association, the government’s woefully underfunded pension insurance.  And we fully expect municipalities that to be part of the benefit problem since many have done very little to control spending with real estate values rising steadily and ever more rapidly since the mid 1990s.  They’ve not bothered to fund their benefits. Rather, politicians have punted those obligations to future generations while gathering as many votes as they could with generous benefit agreements with government employee unions.

But from where will that money come when the Federal government itself is running massive deficits already?  This is the same federal government, if you recall, that if you apply real business accounting to its entire shortfalls — including the necessary accruing to account for the present value of the gargantuan future promises of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — with the prescription drug program as insult to injury — you’re talking a $4.6 trillion hole.  And that’s just going to grow more massive each year we don’t deal with it.

So back to our question: from where will the bailout money come?  We’ll answer that in future posts in the coming days. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, a few headlines for your perusal:

• National City offers cash to cut equity lines.
• Wells Fargo Increased Dividend 10 Percent only to Raise $1.5 Billion via preferred offering this week (why the dividend if you’re scraping for cash?)
• Main Bank of China Is in Need of Capital The Central bank of China is looking for ways other than printing to come up with cash.  (We’ll post more on this later!)
• Banks head to the Emergency Fed Lending Program as Wall Street Investment Firms Pass on it.
• Russia to continue Backing off Freddie and Fannie holdings

Nothing really adds up all that much regarding the severity of the drop in oil and gold.  Quite naturally we expected some venting — nothing goes straight up forever.  Nonetheless, why gold — the traditional declaration of “BS” on a currency and a country’s financial sector — should start its plummet just when things start to get really sticky (talk of the Freddie and Fannie bailouts, and worsening bank balance sheets) does not  make any rational sense.    This is why we suspect the physical bullion market is showing unprecedented demand –even scarcity in that most in the biz can’t deliver small denomination gold simply because the backlog of orders…. While the paper market, which can see tremendous manipulation on the short term, has plummeted.  “Orchestrated” is the word that comes to mind, but it’s only buying time.

Sober thinking from Jim Rogers. What’s most worrisome is how entrenched mainstream thinking is in the two journalists doing the interviews. While some might suggest that these two are just financial talking heads, their objections are straight from the standard list of most apologists of the fractional reserve financial system and the current spate of bailouts to “save the system from even worse.”

What a racket.

No doubt, there are quite a few problems behind why oil has jumped above $128 a barrel.  Never mind hooey arguments about greedy oil companies that resonate with the economic illiterates among the loudmouth media and the complaining voters.

While we don’t have much good to say about any politician on the matter of energy, we really can’t disagree with President Bush’s observations about pressuring the Saudi’s for more output:

“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation,” he said.

“One interesting thing about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity.”

This, said Bush, after noting that Saudi output really is not the ultimate solution to the U.S. price problem.  Mind you, many in the U.S. Congress are wagging their fingers at the Saudis — like candidate Hillary Clinton — for not increasing their production significantly enough to alleviate U.S. price pressures, as if the world should rotate around the U.S. dilemma.  The same folks giving grief to the Saudis are the same ones who refuse to allow the U.S. to develop its own energy resources as Bush notes above.

Not that the Republicans have been any great movement as of late to get anything done themselves, with R candidate John McCaine having been a pivotal vote in the Senate preventing the development of Alaskan reserves.  Indeed, the U.S. has not built a new refinery in three decades, and refuses to allow development of both oil and clean burning coal, not to mention nuclear reactors.  Even environmentalists are preventing air windmills, much to the happiness of those with fancy homes on the coasts who loath having their million dollar views ruined by windmill farms harvesting the constant ocean breezes.

Hypocrisy aside, we’re not hearing one of the core causes for skyrocketing energy costs: plain old fashioned inflation. And by “inflation”, we don’t mean the modern misuse of the word to describe the consequences of inflation — rising prices –, but rather the actual cause of the rising prices: climbing money supply.   The world is now awash with dollars thanks to a steady thirty years of the Fed and the U.S. banking system creating dollar after dollar with its fractional reserve, fiat privilege.

Looking at the money supply graph, you can see that the various measures of U.S. dollars have been on a steady rise since the 1980s, and especially ramped up in the 1990s.   Most were lulled to sleep about the ugly effects of inflation due to two factors, both of which served as siren songs for the unsuspecting public and the herd of sheep hitting their record bonuses on Wall Street:

1. Inflating nice asset prices like stocks, bonds, and houses
2. Exported inflation dollars bought cheap goods made abroad, a honeymoon that lasted until the last few years, when foreign nations were flush to the gills with dollars and ready to part with them to buy things that were not so easily printed and common — and very essential, like energy!

“The Federal Reserve as other central banks is obviously taking onto its balance sheet a lot of mortgages these days.” “Well, the creators of the Federal Reserve system would be rolling over in their graves if they knew the Federal Reserve is buying mortgages.”
– Former Federal Reserve Chariman Paul Volcker

Whether or not the creators of the Fed would be rolling over in their graves is debatable in our opinion. Like Andrew Jackson — we believe central bankers have always been dangerous, incompetent meddlers. We feel the Fed should never have been created — and and that it continues to prove itself as bungling as any other central planning committee. But we digress…. That said, the former chairman’s grave concern over the central bank taking on billions of not so hot private debt is quite valid.

Volcker went on to warn that recent intervention by the Fed in securities markets might compromise it’s independence. He went on to say that the Fed’s inability to contain inflation will create a 1970’s like scenario. Again, he’s right there. We’ll also add, it’s too late Paul — the nationalization of the US private debt has begun. When politicians, who’s outlook is only as far as the next election — get involved, the trend will only accelerate. So to will corresponding inflation and Dollar degradation.

Beyond the blatant example of the Fed’s $30 Billion bailout of Bear Stearns — we now see Senator Christopher Dodd proposing the creation of an FHA program to insure refinanced mortgages following partial forgiveness of the loans by lenders. OK, let’s think about this. In an environment where U.S. foreclosures have risen 65% over the past year — and private banks/lenders are preferring to seize homes rather than renegotiate with already defaulting borrowers — the Federal Government is going to step in with money it does not have (but will be all to happy to print) — to back already bad debt.

Also, earlier this month, the Fed agreed to accept securities backed by student loans pledged as collateral for Treasuries the central bank would in turn lend to Wall Street Investment Banks. Let’s analyze that deal. Investors had become far less willing to finance student loan debt at pre-existing prices — due to liquidity issues, the economy, and the fact that consumers (including students) are hurting — and are therefore higher credit risks. The cost to finance such loans would have to naturally go up. Wall Street investment banks (you know, the ones who paid themselves billions in record bonuses over the past year) were less willing to hold onto securities they owned backed by this type of debt. However, if they tried to sell it — they would sell it for a loss. No worry, the Fed would lend/swap them Treasuries for the riskier (and worth far less) student loan backed securities.

Effectively, you have the government, or quasi government institutions backing substandard debt with money it will have to print. That spells one thing — accelerating inflation — and the always accompanying confiscation of private savings. And we’re not talking the low single digit inflation figure the government “calculates” (and bases Social Security payment increases on). We’re talking about the inflation you see in the supermarket ($4 for a handful of blueberries anybody?) — and at the gas pump.

When we hear the Treasury Secretary, or the Chairman of the Fed talk tough on inflation and defending the Dollar — we just smile. When we hear political candidates blaming oil companies and “speculators” for rising prices — we smile again.

We think the next 3-5 years will be quite interesting.

“I think we were really on the verge of a financial collapse of unbelievable proportions that we haven’t seen since the 1930’s.”
– Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill describing the Bear Stearns bailout in an April 16, 2008 interview on Bloomberg

Read that quote again by Paul O’Neill – because, yep folks, that’s really where things stand. Our financial system effectively patched together by an inflationary, money printing band-aid. And, as the real estate markets in England, along with those in Spain, Ireland, et al. continue to melt down, we maintain our belief that the whole fiasco is far from over. (Our regular readers know we said the same when conventional pundits said the worst was over in 2007).

The interesting thing about economics is that people have been conditioned to believe in the charade that it is a mysterious, complex, science – and to be successful at understanding it, explaining it to the great unwashed, and at running large portfolios – one must be a superior mathematician educated at the most prestigious of universities. As we watch the same geniuses educated at said universities – some of whom had supposedly developed mathematical models which had eradicated risk – continue to drive hedge funds (and at least one major Wall Street brokerage firm) valued in the $ billions straight over the cliff – we say – “oh really?”

We instead choose to take Harry Truman’s quote — “There is nothing new in the world but the history you do not know” – to heart when we look at economics. History is in fact the study of human behavior – of what has worked, and what has failed. To ignore historical facts one must be either arrogant, a fool – or an arrogant fool. So, as Sir Alan Greenspan and his knights at the Fed Round Table repeatedly cut rates earlier this decade – we warned that the unfolding scenario looked a whole lot like Japan in the 1980’s and 90’s! A Stock market bubble, followed by a stock market crash – and subsequent economic pain. Then came massive interest rate cuts to supposedly “stimulate” – which instead caused a real estate bubble – followed by a real estate collapse, and a severe, prolonged recession.

Sound familiar?

What next? We see the bailouts continuing — simply because the alternative is the severe and necessary corrective pain to clean out the mess and get prices of all things back in line. And what politician, Wall Street banker, investor, or voter wants to deal with that reality? And bailouts spell inflation. Not the fudged low-ball inflation that’s used to calculate Social Security payment increases or “official” economic growth. We’re talking about real inflation. The rapidly rising kind you are seeing at the supermarket and the gas pump on a daily basis. As these inflationary bailouts continue – look for prices of all things tangible to increase dramatically.

Commodities bubble? We think not – because bubbles require excessive stockpiles/inventory/supply – and we don’t see that at all – in anything. And we see inflationary (money printing/bailout) policies accelerating.

Oil at $125 in the near future anyone? $5 Dollar gas at the end of the year? Food prices continuing through the roof? It would not surprise us at all.

When your dealing with an addict, you don’t trust their word when they say they’re going in the right direction when they won’t even admit they have an addiction problem.

That’s the problem with our financial system. Consumers are addicted to credit and money supply expansion policies. Wall Street enjoys the comfy ability to profit from deals financed with money minted out of thin air. The banking system enjoys being able to profit from loaning and deal-making with the money you think is there in the bank, ready for withdrawal when you want it. (No doubt, those banks really love their 10% fractional reserve requirement and having the Fed a the ready bail them out with fresh cash when the de-facto embezzlement is revealed when depositors actually decide to withdraw their supposedly liquid money all at once, as amid bubble-bursting environments they’re wont to do.) And, of course, Washington D.C. loves having a secretive, privately held central bank finance its shortfalls. What politician won’t practically sell the sun, moon, and stars to win an election, to hell with the future generations that will suffer when the tab for said free lunch comes due? Just print the difference, and let some other sucker figure it out down the road.

And that’s the problem. Down the road is arriving leaving us with no good options. And, so, above we have Glen Beck and Ron Paul soberly discussing the issue the other primary candidates pretend doesn’t exist because the only realistic solutions are too controversial to assure victory among the masses of voters, who most assuredly have made it clear they much prefer having their ears anoint with yet even more impossible to promises delivered in language soaked in honey. As such, Ron Paul and Glen beck will be dismissed as they are always, although we’ll admit it is a good sign that at least Glen Beck is catching on.

Nonetheless, the addicts out there– voters included — consider Ron Paul to be among the Tinfoil Hat Wearing Crowd (a title which yours truly has been labeled a few times). So the system continues to conjure up more ways of getting our addict more of the junk he craves, and the Fed — the dealer who has steadily and stealthily pilfered over 95% of the dollars value since its creation in 1913 — stands ready to give the addict his fix.

The addict, no doubt, loves the party — the good times of the high. But even more desperately, the addict wants to avoid the pain of cleaning up his act and enduring the awful reality that is withdrawal. Addicts will sell themselves into prostitution, and worse, to avoid cleaning up. And so, too, our actors in our economy resist reality — choosing instead to prop up asset prices based in fiction — houses, condos, irrationally priced securities –, and systems rooted in fleecing dollar holders and those on fixed incomes for the benefit of the few. Addiction is a bitch.

But we all know, feeding an addiction is not the path to restoring health, and unfortunately our addicted economy is long in the tooth in juicing itself up into artificial cycle-highs and juicing up more in warding off cycle-lows. No doubt our addict economy has swooned a few times; recently it almost fell over during the 2000-2002 fiasco, but for the good fortune of Alan Greenspan standing on the corner telling everyone that he had the good stuff that would make everything OK.

And so the next bubble crashes — a big one — rife with dislocations so massive one wonders if this time the addict will be forced to face reality… or if he’ll make it through another bubble with another fix. If he gets back up to his old ways, I’d not be betting on his good fortune lasting long.

What of the Fed? Congress? The people? The cry for another fix has been heard loud and clear. Its just a waiting game now.

 Leave it to the British to hit the economy with such a bold declaration.  Granted, in the United States all policy makers are very fond of saying something to the effect that this situation and the subsequent policy reactions  are the most drastic since World War II.  World War II?  We think this is a polite way of saying “since the Great Depression,” while hoping folks won’t go all panicky on the situation as they load their bunkers and prepare for the worst.

Granted, contemplating the concept of “bunker” has been more or less what Vigilant Investor has been doing since April 2005 — which by the way, today marks our 3rd anniversary since going full bore on the internet. Prior to that we published to our client base only as the Ernharth Wealth Report discussing the emerging Great Credit Bubble with issues dating back to 2001.

But what of this Great Depression talk the British press had jumped on?  Let’s take a look.

We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

Well… Of course this is an issue, but what’s new about food stamps?   So, it would look as if this alarming headline really does not address the issue of Depresssion and Unemployment in a more relevant fashion other than to lament for the poor … so we will address this issue briefly.  Is another Great Depression a reality?   Let’s start from where this article begins: with the unemployed — a figure that hit 25% during the 1930s.

America has slowly been subsidizing an underclass for decades.   One wouldn’t know this is happening using the official unemployment figures because,  as we’ve reported over the years, the unemployment stats published by the government have been so politicized that the chronically “not working” are simply removed from the official figures, categorized instead as discouraged workers.  Those folks are  not unemployed, since unemployed, you see, implies someone is actually looking for a job.  So, if you’re not looking for a job, you can’t be unemployed.  So you must be something else.  Discouraged perhaps?  Discouraged it is!

The last real figures calculated using older methods like those used during the depression put U.S. unemployment (meaning those capable of working and not) closer to 13% vs. the official number running dramatically lower.  And that does not account for the only employer with long term growth strength in the U.S. — the government, which has also done a slight of hand by hiring otherwise unemployed folks in various welfare to work schemes — reminiscent in its own way to FDR’s give a man any job routine.

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Regulators “are playing with fire,” said Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian and economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “With good luck, none of these liabilities will come due. We can’t expect that good luck, and we haven’t had it.”
– Bloomberg (March 26, 2008)

The reason you want solid collateral to secure a loan is obvious. You want to protect adequately against the borrower’s potential inability to pay you the loan back. How interesting that the Fed is taking 30 $ Billion of illiquid mortgage securities as collateral from otherwise insolvent Bear Stearns to bail the Wall Street firm out. As intriguing (alarming) — is the Treasury’s encouragement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more mortgage-backed bonds.

We ask — who in their right mind would lend out their own money backed by such risky collateral? Who today would buy mortgage backed bonds with their own money?

Ah, there lies the rub! It’s not their money which backs these shenanigans – it yours!

We’ve continually warned about the bailout addicted U.S. Another voice of clarity and reason all along has been Bill Fleckenstein. As usual, he nails it in his latest commentary, “Catering to the Bailout Nation.” BTW, Bill’s recently released book Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve – is definitely worth a read! We wonder — has anyone ever been un-knighted? Can they do that?

Any reasonable person knows that bailouts beget more (and larger) bailouts. Like a drunk having another drink, it’s just going to make the hangover (and resulting inflation) even worse.

Also, ask yourself this one – why are big Wall Street banks getting bailed out (with taxpayer money) – when the 5 largest recently paid themselves 39 $Billion in bonuses?

Think long and hard about the answer to that one – because you are paying for it – in overt taxes, and the great hidden tax – accelerating real inflation.

With today’s 75 basis point rate cut – we see continued evidence as to whom the Fed really serves. As we have long said, it’s not you and I – it’s the Big Wall Street Banks. The “Big Rip-Off” of your savings continues. Jon Markman gets right down to it…

Here’s a decent clip that shows the debate is changing on the Federal Reserve as both Ron Paul and Jim Cramer discuss the fallacy that is the Fed. Tipping points are critical junctures where one paradigm closes while another opens. Such shifts can be dramatic.

As for our video, just five years ago you’d never hear a discussion like this hit the airwaves, and if it did, it’d be lost and forgotten as soon as the broadcast ended. Not so any more. As the markets digest, things will change.

If we said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: Inflation ain’t the price of things going up. Its the consequence of printing too many dollars and expanding too much credit out of thin air, which is all the Fed has ever done since its creation. Hence, while many can’t figure out why, we’ve predicted this for several years now:

Wholesale Prices Rise in 2007 by 6.3 Percent, Largest Amount in 26 Years

The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.

Meanwhile, retail sales fell by 0.4 percent in December, the worst showing in six months, the Commerce Department reported. Consumer confidence has plunged, reflecting the worsening housing slump and a lingering credit crisis.

Sure enough, the trade deficit gave the impression that we could enjoy the modern alchemy of printing money out of thin air while having prices drop. Well, that was during the honeymoon period of deficit inflation. As the fantasy gives way to reality, all those dollars circulating around the globe are being exchanged at an ever increasing pace for things that can’t be printed so effortless as they are. Folks also wake up to the reality that money supply expansion is being implicated in the housing bubble and subsequent collapse. And so the dollar is slowly repudiated for what it is: a worthless piece of paper backed by excessive amounts of debt that can only be paid if more pieces of these paper are printed to enables it.

And so, America — having paved over her factories for mega mall parking lots and golf course communities — has begun to sell herself to the world so she can pay her bills. As Patrick Buchanan so aptly observed of the United States’ self-indulgence and reckless leadership, “We are prodigal sons, and the day of reckoning approaches.”

I wish the story weren’t so dire for so many. But it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps the cheapest import you can get for China right now is a tiny bit of historic philosophy, which aptly translates to “chaos is opportunity.” And boy is there ever large doses of both at the moment.

Are you confidently making the most of it?

For many who are freshly digesting what’s been unfolding in the credit markets and how it all continues to shake out (or fall apart, as the case may be), the situation appears to them as a rogue, unexpected crisis that was only identified as it was unfolding, with conclusive postmortem only possible in hindsight.

After all, when billion dollar mangers, popular economists and analysts, and mega investment banking institutions all appear to be blind-sided simultaneously, what else can we conclude?

To that, we say “hold on a minute!”

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Our long–term readers know we have continually cautioned about serious economic consequences to come. Not because we’re “doom and gloomers” – but because we feel the best way to take advantage of the truth – is to first acknowledge it. Our opinion has been that when these truths gain increasing acceptance – the full brunt of their effect will soon to be felt. While those in the mainstream conventional camp have long been in denial over unpleasant, troublesome, displeasing economic facts (i.e. the truth) – things are beginning to change.

In today’s New York Times, Bob Herbert writes an “on the money” op-ed titled, “Recession? What Recession?” In it he describes increasingly looming economic eventualities we have long warned about – and he does not sound optimistic – at all.

We feel the consequences of unhealthy, dysfunctional economic policies will, for the uninformed – and those in stubborn denial – have sadly devastating effects. One being their savings & purchasing power inflated into oblivion. However, for those who acknowledge the truth – and act appropriately — this is a time of incredible opportunity.

The window is closing. The boat is pulling away. There is still time. Are you prepared?