2018-2019…Pop Goes The Bubble

Fiat paper money: Once gold and silver derivatives

Today, instruments of debt issued by central banks

After the 2008 financial crisis, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke invoked Milton Friedman’s theory that a helicopter drop of money could prevent a collapsing credit bubble from becoming a Great Depression.

When credit bubbles burst, defaulting debt and disappearing demand cause the velocity of money to plunge; and, in 2008, Bernanke resorted to Friedman’s untested theory hoping to prevent the US economy from collapsing as it did in the 1930s.

Velocity of Money

Friedman’s helicopter drop of money increased US bank reserves an extraordinary 65 times, i.e. from $13 billion to almost $850 billion; adding unprecdented trillions of dollars to the Fed balance sheet. Between 2008 and 2014, Fed liabilities ballooned from $850 million to $4.4 trillion, mirroring in nominal terms the exponential growth of the US national debt during the Reagan presidency.

Friedman’s helicopter drop, however, proved to be a band aid, not a solution. Central bankers hoped the historic helicopter drop of $4.4 trillion would return the velocity of money to pre-crisis levels and reverse deflationary forces set in motion by the collapse. It didn’t.

Deflation is the pathological slowing in the velocity of money

Professor Antal E. Fekete

At best, the bankers’ helicopter drop bought time, i.e. ten years (2009-2019). At worst, it created the largest asset bubble in history in stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, and cryptocurrencies..

In December 2018, the massive asset bubble began to deflate, confirming a prediction made in December 2014 by Richard Hoey, chief economist at BNY/Mellon,:

I’m worried about 2018. I think about that time everything will come due. We’ll have wage inflation, the Fed will have to tighten hard…and the oil price collapse in 2014 will give you the oil price spike of 2018…Most of our recessions are triggered by oil price spikes…The big recessions always come from the big spike in oil prices. I’m not worried about 2015. I’m not worried about 2016…not too much about 2017. I think the bill comes due 2018 but that’s too far in the future to worry about now.

Don’t Worry About The Us Economy…Until 2018 Richard Hoey, CNBC Interview, December 31, 2014

Richard Hoey was right about 2018. On December 17, 2018, CNBC reported:

The stock market is on pace for its worst December since the Great Depression. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are on pace for their worst December performance since 1931 when stocks were battered during the Great Depression.

On December 18, 2018, The Financial Times wrote:

Sharp stock market sell-off on Fed rate rise…Shares tumbled after the US central bank lifted the target range for the federal funds rate by another quarter point to 2.25-2.5%, in a unanimous decision, and suggested it was not done raising rates.

The Collapse Of Fiat Paper Money

Today’s crisis will be even more devastating than the Great Depression. In 2018, currencies are no longer anchored to gold as they were in the 1930s. Not only will economies collapse, so, too, will fiat paper money.

According to the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Ray Dalio, the US dollar could soon fall as much as 30% which could leave it looking like the Turkish Lira…the US might have to go through a similar type of inflationary debt crisis which is currency being suffered by emerging market economies like Argentina and Turkey. Triple-digit inflation has taken countries around the world by storm in 2018. Argentina, Iran, Turkey, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe currently have annualized inflation at the hundred and 111%, 187% 38%, 127% 27% and 170%...

TheGoldTelegraph, Is the US dollar on the verge of a major currency crisis? December 10, 2018

Shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, I talked with Sandeep Jaitly about when the financial endgame might begin. At the time, in April 2009, we agreed it was not possible to then know when the massive imbalance of credit and debt would self-correct, i.e. self-destruct.

Today, we know. In 2018, the historic $100 trillion asset bubble has started to collapse and, in 2019, Sandeep, myself and Durant Schoon will offer a securitized crypto token, Wampum, designed to profitably survive the collapse of the fiat asset bubble, to investors in a securitized token offering, a STO.

Information regarding Wampum is posted at https://bullionplay.com/directors-thoughts/ as is the background of the project, see www.bullionplay.com.

The video of Sandeep and myself discussing the timing of the collapse, The Grain of Sand and the Economic Collapse can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mce_lncZL74.

In September 2018, Ray Dalio described financial markets as ‘being in the seventh inning’. Two more innings and the game’s over. Of course, there’s always the possibility of overtime and if you want to bet on it, go ahead.

These are most interesting times.

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

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Darryl Robert Schoon

www.drschoon.com

www.bullionplay.com