Elizabeth Warren’s Plans to MAGA

Posted on October 4, 2019 by MN Gordon

There are places in Los Angeles where, although the sun always shines, they haven’t seen a ray of light in over 100-years.  There’s a half square mile of urban decay centered on the Union Rescue Mission at 545 South San Pedro Street, where depravity, chaos, addiction, insanity and archaic diseases multiply and ricochet about like metastatic cancer.

Here, at Skid Row, some 10,000 zombies live within massive homeless encampments amongst spoils of garbage, feces, rats, and rot.  With little reprieve, they roll around on a filthy ground cover composed of fragmented concrete, glass, stone, and gravel.  Diseases that flourished in the Middle Ages, like typhus and flesh eating bacteria, infect these street dwellers – and those who try and help them – with remarkable efficiency.

Take Reverend Andy Bales, CEO of the Union Rescue Mission.  He’s a man with a big heart and a personal commitment to action.  His late father and grandfather lived homeless in a tent for many years.

Awhile back, while passing out water bottles to those he serves, Rev. Bales contracted three different deadly bacteria – E. coli, strep, and staph. Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Final Collapse is Inexorable

Posted on September 27, 2019 by MN Gordon

This week central planners pursued their primary mission with steadfast conviction.  They planned.  They prodded.  They prearranged tomorrow to save us from ourselves.  Some also grubbed a little graft for their trouble.

Other central planners took to debasing the dollar to price fix the federal funds rate within a narrow band of tolerance.  What in the world do they think they’re doing?

We know from our own everyday experience that people make choices.  What’s more, these choices do not occur in isolation.  There are a myriad of influences and constraints factoring into the countless choices people make as they go about their day.

One person drives their car to work.  Another takes the train.  While a third walks.  These choices may be individual preferences.  But they’re also subject to other factors – like proximity to work or the train station, the price of gas, the cost of parking, and much, much more.

Perhaps central planners can account for some of these influences and constraints.  But not all of them.  Not even half of them. Continue reading →

Posted in Government Debt, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments

Fiat Money Cannibalization in America

Posted on September 20, 2019 by MN Gordon

The United States, with untroubled ease, continued its approach towards catastrophe this week.  The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate 25 basis points, thus furthering its program of mass money debasement.  Yet, on the surface, all still remained in the superlative.

Stocks smiled down on investors from their perch upon what Irving Fischer once called “a permanently high plateau.”  As of market close on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average held above 27,000, the S&P 500 above 3,000, and the NASDAQ above 8,000.  What’s more, 401k accounts, to the delight of working stiffs of all ages, origins, and orientations, are swollen beyond expectations.

Below the surface, however, the overnight funding market was subject to much weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning the overnight repurchase agreement (repo) rate hit 10 percent.  Short-term liquidity markets essentially broke.

After several technical glitches, the Fed executed its first repo operation in a decade – $53 billion – to keep the interbank funding market flowing. Continue reading →

Posted in Inflation, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t Be Another Wall Street Chump

Posted on September 13, 2019 by MN Gordon

Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 156 requires financial institutions to advise investors to not be idiots.  Hence, the disclosure pages of nearly every financial instrument in the U.S. are embedded with the following admission or variant thereof:

“Past Performance Is Not Indicative of Future Results”

The instruction is futile.  Most investors are idiots, including many of the pros.  What’s more, suspiciously absent from all disclosures is “how” to not be an idiot.  Perhaps this is because such guidance would discourage many unwitting investors from getting mixed up with the stock market in the first place.

Without question, if you don’t know what you’re looking at, the past can be an abysmal predictor of future investment returns.  One year the S&P 500’s up 10 percent.  Another year it’s up 20 percent.  Then, to the surprise of practically every Wall Street analyst, the S&P 500 crashes 50 percent.

Still, practically everyone projects future returns based on past performance.  For example, your retirement advisor at Edward Jones will be quick to point out that the average annual return of the S&P 500 over the last 60 years is about 8 percent. Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Stock Market | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments