More Breakdown
We have been pointing out that the breakdown that is taking place in American life is also at work crashing our monetary system.
The signs of civic breakdown are all too visible. Some of it, but by no means all, shows up on TV. More can be seen on the Internet: thugs and mobs assaulting, beating, and killing innocent people, burning cities, smashing plated glass storefronts, and swarming in to steal everything in sight.
Some of this lawlessness and decay in action you have to be quick to see before the social media big brothers take it down.
Even with their overt concealment of the facts, it is clear streets in America’s major cities have turned into encampments for addicts and the homeless, and looting and arson have taken the place of law and order.
Murder rates have skyrocketed in large cities. No wonder there is an exodus from California’s once magnificent cities San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. So many people are leaving New York that overloaded moving companies are turning away business.
But our point is that while much of this social breakdown is visible, the same destructive something-for-nothing and spend-your-way-to-prosperity policies are like termites eating away at our monetary system.
And why not? The same interventionist, big government philosophy is at work in our civic and our financial lives. There the major signs are to be found in exploding federal debt and the crazed Federal Reserve money printing. There are additional symptoms wherever you look.
Items:
Wall Street Journal: Ending a series of weekly declines, new applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose by 135,000 in the week ended Aug. 15, one of a number of signals that the economy isn’t close to being out of the woods.
Michael Shedlock, TheStreet.com: Serious mortgage delinquencies soar to a 10-year high. Some 376K homeowners became 90 or more days past due in July. Serious delinquencies were up 20% from June and are now the highest they’ve been since early 2010. In total, serious delinquencies are now 1.8M over pre-pandemic levels.
John Cox, Real Clear Policy: Californians pay an average of 55.8 percent more for their residential electricity than other Americans, thanks to a politically mandated shift to higher priced, less reliable forms of energy. Not only have ratepayers had to endure artificially high electricity bills, but while sheltering in place amid triple-digit temperatures, they’ve also had to endure a recent plague of blackouts.
RTTNews: U.S. consumer price growth exceeds estimates In July. Core consumer prices showed their biggest increase since January of 1991, partly reflecting another jump in prices for motor vehicle insurance, which skyrocketed by 9.3 percent in July after spiking by 5.1 percent in June.
Wall Street Journal: The stock market and economy appear increasingly disconnected. Part of the reason for the divide: The share of Americans who own stock, either directly or through retirement or mutual funds, is falling, and stock ownership is increasingly concentrated among a sliver of the population. The top 10% of Americans by wealth owned 87% of all stock outstanding in the first quarter, according to data from the Federal Reserve. That share has grown over the past decade, from 82.4% in 2009.
Paul Krugman New York Times: The first thing to note is that the real economy, as opposed to the financial markets, is still in terrible shape. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s weekly economic index suggests that the economy, although off its low point a few months ago, is still more deeply depressed than it was at any point during the recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis…. So everything suggests that even if the pandemic subsides — which is by no means guaranteed — we’re about to see a huge surge in national misery.
When the cities break down, those who can call moving companies to get them out. Others pack up the U-Haul. But our financial structure and monetary system are breaking down like everything else and you may not be able to move lock, stock, and barrel out of a toppling economic environment. But Republic Monetary Exchange can help you pack up and get some of your assets out of the way of a crumbling monetary system with gold and silver.
Contact us right away. Thing are already getting out of hand.