Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

Today we caught up with Eddie Dropbear, the former CEO of Bank of America, who was succeeded by Samuellll Rambullll after the 2008 downcrash. Eddie is currently relaxing in the Bahamas, where he has been for 10 years. Asked about a possible coming downcrash, Eddie replied, "I'm warming up in the bullpen and we're getting it ready." Asked if he is concerned about whether a potential downcrash will devastate what's left of the middle class, Dropbear replied, "Middle class? What are you talking about? I didn't know there was anything left of the middle class, but if there is, it's a statistical aberration and we'll eliminate the rest of them soon enough." Asked if he will soon be changing his name to Eddie Dropbearrrr because letters are free like the Fed Reserve's money, he replied, "Nothing will be free after the US goes bankrupt and we will own everything."

[John]

** 21-Nov-2019 World View: Getting jailed over financial crisis

> Bernanke: Some Wall Street executives should’ve gone to jail over
> financial crisis

Yes of course they should have. The Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission in 2010 found "smoking gun" proof that the financial crisis
was caused by massive banking fraud. I wrote an article about it:

** Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 100414.htm

It was also described in the Big Short movie.

** 26-Dec-15 World View -- 'The Big Short' - an infuriating movie about the financial crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e151226


** 27-Dec-15 World View -- Reader comments on 'The Big Short' and the financial crisis
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e151227

What happened was that Obama refused to prosecute, despite the smoking
gun evidence, and in return the banks donated hundreds of billions of
dollars to Obama's campaign and to his cronies.

It was the most massive American corruption in my lifetime. So of
course some bankers and politicians should be going to jail.

[John]

** 21-Nov-2019 World View: Prophets and timing

> Biblical prophets never included timing; they pointed to a
> happening and sometimes the event needed to happen before the
> prophecy could be understood.

That's very interesting, referring to the Biblical prophets. Is there
any place online where this is discussed?

> Prophecy usually gets me thinking about the Socrates parable of 3
> prisoners in a cave. The prophet is like the one who escapes, and
> then when he goes back to rescue the others they want to kill him
> because he is disturbing their erroneous understanding of the
> world.

That would be a good example of the result of Leon Festiger's
Cognitive Dissonance. In my book on China, I added a chapter on
Cognitive Dissonance at the last minute, because I believe that the
concept can be used to make certain kinds of prophecies, such as
predictions of war.

> As for being locked up in a room full of beautiful women? In this
> sense you need to get out of Socrates' cave!

Well, there's no limit to pathos.

The question of timing is very interesting to those of us
in the prophecy "biz".

The Biblical Jeremiah could surely see the danger to Jerusalem
long before its destruction, and therefore could predict its
destruction, but not the timing.

The old saying, "If something can't go on forever, then it won't"
is very informative that a crisis will occur, but completely
uninformative about timing.

I've had the same problem with Generational Dynamics forecasts.

Today's stock market clearly has to crash, but there's no way
to predict when.

It's clear to everyone that something has to happen in Hong Kong,
but there's no way to predict when.

However, I have made some headway in being able to make time-specific
predictions.

Some negative predictions can be time-specific. For example, pretty
much the entire world was predicting a civil war in Lebanon in 2006,
and I said it wouldn't happen, because Lebanon was in an Awakening era.
I was right, and most of the rest of the world was wrong.

In spring 2009, it was clear that Sri Lanka was approaching the climax
of their civil war that had been going on since the 1970s. Most
of the world was predicting that the Sri Lanka civil war would continue
as before. I was able to predict that since Sri Lanka's civil war
was reaching a Crisis era climax, it be like the climax that ended
WW II, and that therefore, the Sri Lanka war would end. I was right,
and the rest of the world was wrong.

However, the problem comes with making "positive" predictions, like
the start of a war. Generational Dynamics combines Chaos Theory
with MIT's System Dynamics as applied to population flows. System
dynamics tells you what you can predict, and Chaos Theory tells you
what you can't.

The interesting thing has been the "58-Year Hypothesis" or, as I'm
calling it more frequently, the "58-Year Rule." It applies to any
situation where a catastrophic event occurs that affects the entire
population. For example, after the genocidal climax of a generational
crisis war, there won't be another crisis war for at least 58 years.
This at least provides a boundary, if not an exact timing.

[John]

** 21-Nov-2019 World View: Where have they gone?

> Also, to have group think there needs to be a relatively large,
> cohesive group. The few remaining posters in the Financial Topics
> area of the forum constitute the remnants of a much larger, much
> more active and cohesive group that was here in 2009 that
> included, for example, mannfm11, freddyv, stilesbc, jlak, old1953
> and many, many others.

So why have they all left? Is it me? Is it Aeden? Is it you? Is it
the subject matter? Is it the Cassandra curse? Why?

[Higgenbotham]

** 21-Nov-2019 World View: Where have they gone?

> Also, to have group think there needs to be a relatively large,
> cohesive group. The few remaining posters in the Financial Topics
> area of the forum constitute the remnants of a much larger, much
> more active and cohesive group that was here in 2009 that
> included, for example, mannfm11, freddyv, stilesbc, jlak, old1953
> and many, many others.

So why have they all left? Is it me? Is it Aeden? Is it you? Is it
the subject matter? Is it the Cassandra curse? Why?

That's pretty simple if you ask me. But first let's talk about who is still here and why.

You are still here because you own the site. Aeden, in my opinion, is still here because he was never really bearish circa 2009. He consistently said the market would go higher and he was the only one who consistently said that besides JLak and Marc, so far as I can recall. Yet, at the same time, Aeden knew the crisis was off somewhere in the distance and he hung around here for that reason (I think). As for me, I never stopped believing that there will be a devastating stock market crash and have been able to stay afloat and wait for it. jcsok is similar.

Most others probably thought they had better things to do in life than to talk about a financial crisis that was clearly no longer happening (I would put Lily and StilesBC in that category for sure, as well as probably JLak, mannfm11 and CarlLieberman). Since the market was no longer having any upsets after 2011, most folks just drifted away for that reason, in my opinion. Other than that, we know freddyv passed away. There was one guy who left because of you, and I'll remember his handle in a little bit (TomAcre). Not sure why Old1953 moved on, as he had a lot to contribute, seemed to enjoy it, and wasn't particularly hung up on the crisis happening right away.

[Higgenbotham]

Having said all of the above, in my opinion, the less activity there is on this section of the forum, the stronger the indication that the stock market will crash.

Some who understand market sentiment might think that they will need to clean me out and silence me before the market can crash. I clearly understand that. And that might be what it takes.

It would not surprise me a bit if there are a couple dozen hedge fund guys and others lurking here but not posting for that exact reason.

[jcsok]

John, first of all, it isn't "you". As you are surely aware, I am mostly a lurker, and believe that there are many intelligent lurkers here. But I would postulate that traffic on this site is more limited than other forums because most people do not know what to say about a negative future. The pool is limited. I can't come to grips with Hig's draconian dark age theory, mostly because I choose to stick my head in the sand. Many more people are willing to consider a World War and discuss the China threat. That being said, approximately half of the people are "liberal", and will not think about the issues presented here. I am unable to discuss my thoughts of the future with my wife because she is of a quite different political bent. But websites such as Zero Hedge present much negative financial posts, and have a busy comment section, but they are more of a more narrowly defined negative bits and pieces, which I think interest more people because it is easier to comprehend. Lets face it, the long term, negative, abstract views present difficulty for most people to get excited about because people can't make a quick decision of what to do about the future. The cyber world we now live in trains most people to look at the short term, about a narrow focus. I do like ZH's byline about in the long term we are all dead.

The prepper sites discuss, with hysteria at times, of what to do for a specific SHTF scenario; but what can be said to prep for Hig's long term coming dark age? Most people don't, and can't, wrap their head around his concepts, because the vast, vast majority of people only care about what's in it for them in the next week, month, year, or at the most next 5 years. In this fast paced information world, few have time to THINK about the future, and fewer still are willing to discuss it. And, in my very limited opinion, today's liberal philosophy institutions don't train graduates to contemplate a negative future or what steps to take to alter the possible outcome. In my limited sphere, most of my compadres only discuss whats happening, not about what to do in the far off future; I believe that most people who DO think about the possible outcomes are paralyzed from discussing their beliefs of the future by fear of being labeled crazy, conspiracy theorist, prepper, etc.

We are now into the second decade of this stock market bubble. I often think about the gem of wisdom that I first read here, "Markets can stay irrational longer that one can stay solvent". Thats why I have survived with my bearish bent. As in my last post, I am waiting for a blow off top, and this market has climbed a "wall of worry." Its a damn high wall at this point.

[John]

** 21-Nov-2019 World View: Forum posters

> That's pretty simple if you ask me. But first let's talk about who
> is still here and why.

> You are still here because you own the site. Aeden, in my opinion,
> is still here because he was never really bearish circa 2009. He
> consistently said the market would go higher and he was the only
> one who consistently said that besides JLak and Marc, so far as I
> can recall. Yet, at the same time, Aeden knew the crisis was off
> somewhere in the distance and he hung around here for that reason
> (I think). As for me, I never stopped believing that there will be
> a devastating stock market crash and have been able to stay afloat
> and wait for it. jcsok is similar.

> Most others probably thought they had better things to do in life
> than to talk about a financial crisis that was clearly no longer
> happening (I would put Lily and StilesBC in that category for
> sure, as well as probably JLak, mannfm11 and CarlLieberman). Since
> the market was no longer having any upsets after 2011, most folks
> just drifted away for that reason, in my opinion. Other than that,
> we know freddyv passed away. There was one guy who left because of
> you, and I'll remember his handle in a little bit (TomAcre). Not
> sure why Old1953 moved on, as he had a lot to contribute, seemed
> to enjoy it, and wasn't particularly hung up on the crisis
> happening right away. ...

> Having said all of the above, in my opinion, the less activity
> there is on this section of the forum, the stronger the indication
> that the stock market will crash.

> Some who understand market sentiment might think that they will
> need to clean me out and silence me before the market can crash. I
> clearly understand that. And that might be what it takes.

> It would not surprise me a bit if there are a couple dozen hedge
> fund guys and others lurking here but not posting for that exact
> reason.

I agree with your analysis, but I come to it from a different point of
view -- and I mean on the geopolitical side, versus you on the
financial side. I'm going to pass over the issue of some people not
posting because they want to harm you, since I don't believe that
issue applies to me.

I think I've talked about this before, but it's important to this
discussion. Let's take for example China's plans to launch a war with
the US, which has been pretty obvious for years, because the Chinese
military has been producing and deploying one ballistic missile system
after another which have no purpose except to attack American aircraft
carriers, cities, and military bases.

When I started talking about this both online and in person around 2004,
people discussed it with me to tell me that it was wrong. Obviously
many people at worst thought I was a nut, or at best thought I
was talking about a problem which was many decades into the future.
In either case, they found it amusing to discuss it with me, because
it was so outlandish, and I appeared to be a kook.

However, as time has gone on, there has been a clear split among
people that I know. I attribute this to the fact that as the years
have gone by, it's increasingly clear that I'm not a kook, and China
IS preparing for war with the US. Some people obviously don't even
want to think about it, and those people shun me or get angry with me
-- including friends whom I've known since college. The anger can
usually be attributed to Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance.

This was true of the people at Breitbart. Except for Bannon, the
Breitbart people were always extremely contemptuous of me. I always
fooled myself into thinking that the thousands of articles that I
wrote for them without pay meant something to them, but in the end
they made a fool out of me and treated me like a piece of garbage.
That's the kind of people they are, but it's common among young
people.

On the other hand, there are others who have had the opposite reaction
for the same reason. That is, as it became clear that the concerns
about China's military buildup are obviously true, a number of people
have actually expressed increased interest in the forum. I don't know
if you've noticed, but the average number of forum visitors has
increased some 20-30% in the last month. Maybe that's because of me,
or maybe it's because of you, or maybe I'm being attacked by China,
but it's happening.

But there's a nuance here. I was talking to someone who wanted to
compliment me on my work. So he said something to that effect. So I
said, "But you think it's completely full of crap, don't you?" He
said, "I read all your e-mail messages," referring to my e-mail free
subscription list. I said, "But you read them because you consider
them to like a daily comic strip." He said, "Oh, I think you may have
some very thoughtful points." I was pretty disgusted at that point,
but I should have said, "Oh OK, so you think my articles are like the
Peanuts comic strip?"

So returning to the whole point of this discussion, and why so many
people have stopped contributing, there are perhaps tens of thousands
of people who read my web site and the forum on a regular basis.
The biggest change since 2005 is that the threat from China is far
more credible today than it was then, and the people who visit the
web site and the forum no longer consider me to be a total kook.

So now returning to the financial side, the same kind of analysis
applies. Few people in 2005 thought that a stock market crash was
credible, since all the problems had been fixed in the 1930s. After
the financial crisis, few people thought that an additional stock
market crisis was credible, since all the problems had been fixed
after the financial crisis. Today, it's a lot more credible that
there will be a stock market crash and global financial crisis.

So the same kind of reasoning prevails. People who read the
forum as guests are trying to decide whether to sell their stocks.
They don't want to post anything, but they may be looking for
guidance -- maybe from me, but probably more from you.

I just read jcsok's posting, and as he suggests there is a political
issue. Liberals don't want to think about an attack by China
because to do so supports Trump. Liberals DO want to think about
a stock market correction because it would hurt Trump.

[Higgenbotham]

So returning to the whole point of this discussion, and why so many
people have stopped contributing, there are perhaps tens of thousands
of people who read my web site and the forum on a regular basis.
The biggest change since 2005 is that the threat from China is far
more credible today than it was then, and the people who visit the
web site and the forum no longer consider me to be a total kook.

So now returning to the financial side, the same kind of analysis
applies. Few people in 2005 thought that a stock market crash was
credible, since all the problems had been fixed in the 1930s. After
the financial crisis, few people thought that an additional stock
market crisis was credible, since all the problems had been fixed
after the financial crisis. Today, it's a lot more credible that
there will be a stock market crash and global financial crisis.

So the same kind of reasoning prevails. People who read the
forum as guests are trying to decide whether to sell their stocks.
They don't want to post anything, but they may be looking for
guidance -- maybe from me, but probably more from you.

Could be. I don't consider myself to be a person who has a lot of credibility because I've been talking about a crash on and off (mostly on) for 10 years. And in defense of myself, I believe in the long, long view I will be correct in that the bubble up here the past few years will look small on a logarithmic chart covering decades as stocks descend to zero or close to zero. But I don't think 99+% of all people are interested in the long view; they want to know how to get through the next year at the most. And being wrong for 10 years (about 20% of an adult life) is not a recipe for success.

Sometimes this type of analysis is really hard for me because I have a lot of difficulty understanding how people's minds work. I've always felt the threat from China was extremely credible. My father, who is deceased, was an extremely astute observer on a number of fronts. When I was a child (1975 or so), he told me that when WW2 ended, the US military should have gone over to China and obliterated the entire country with nuclear weapons. Thinking about it more, it seems like it was about the time Nixon was over there with the panda bears. And the reasons he basically gave are consistent with what is being seen today (on the other hand, he was completely unable to see the financial crisis of 2008 developing even though I warned him it was going to happen and why). About the time you began discussing China in 2004, I told a good friend of mine that we are now at war with China. I thought he would view that as good information to discuss. I can only recall him getting short with me twice and that was one of them. He curtly told me that we are NOT at war with China. The topic was no longer open for discussion. So in my mind the only difference between 2004 and now is the manifestation of what was surely going to come.

I agree with jcsok that most of what I post is too dense for people to wrap their heads around. Even when I read some of the stuff I posted years ago, it in some cases takes me awhile to understand what I myself wrote and realize others were and will not be able to.

On the other hand there is a large amount of information that I cull through and reject as unimportant while posting what in many cases I feel is highly noteworthy, such as "former Fed insider says this at the 22 minute mark in a video." Many people may find that valuable and in that case would have no reason to contribute to the discussion.

And those who followed my bot smashing results when they were posted may consider me to have credibility. Though it should be understood that figuring out what a market will do in the next few minutes is a completely different skill than figuring out what it will do in the next few months. It may only serve to provide a false sense of confidence that is not justified.

[Higgenbotham]

Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ling-Ling (Chinese: 玲玲, 1969–92) and Hsing-Hsing (simplified Chinese: 兴兴; traditional Chinese: 興興, 1970–99) were two giant pandas given to the United States as gifts by the government of China following President Richard Nixon's visit in 1972. As a gift, the U.S. government sent China a pair of musk oxen.

The pandas had been captured in the wild in June and December 1971. They arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1972, and were formally received several days later, on April 20, at a ceremony attended by First Lady Pat Nixon. While at the zoo, they attracted millions of visitors each year.