TRENDS ON THE ECONOMIC AND MARKET FRONT
ECONOMIC UPDATE – MARKET OVERVIEW
As we have been forecasting, with interest rates rising, not only would depositors take their money out of banks and invest it money market funds and high-yielding Treasuries, but more importantly, the socioeconomic and geopolitical damage inflicted upon humanity by politicians who launched the COVID War, would also devastate much of the banking system.
DOWNGRADE A WARNING SIGNAL OF LOOMING DEBT CRISIS; CONGRESS PARALYZED TO ACT
Fitch’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating set Democrats and Republicans in Congress to bickering over which of them caused the downgrade: Democrats for spending too much or Republicans for not raising taxes to cover the expenses they voted into the budget.
JUNK-RATED COMPANIES KEEP SELLING BONDS BUT ON TOUGHER TERMS
American Airlines, Six Flags, and other companies whose credit ratings have been down-rated to junk keep selling bonds. New issues this year through early August have totaled $91 billion, Bloomberg calculated, 35 percent more than the same period a year ago.
U.S. ADDS FEWER JOBS IN JULY THAN PREDICTED. GOOD NEWS FOR INTEREST RATES?
The U.S. economy sprouted 187,000 additional jobs in July, slightly lower than the 200,000 that many economists had expected and well below 2022’s average of 400,000 a month.
FITCH DOWNGRADES U.S. CREDIT RATING DUE TO DEBT, PARALYZED GOVERNANCE
Fitch Ratings knocked down the U.S.’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ last week, citing the country’s ever-growing debt load and an “erosion of governance,” especially in fiscal management.
DEATH OF THE DOLLAR: FITCH’S DOWNGRADE THE BEGINNING OF THE END
After holding a AAA credit rating for decades—the highest possible—the U.S. saw its rating downgraded by Fitch Ratings to AA+, prompting a series of critical comments from government officials and other notable executives.
AMERICANS SINKING INTO DEBT
Americans have charged a record $1 trillion to credit cards and other forms of revolving debt, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis announced last week.
WORRY SIGN: MAJOR INVESTORS HOLDING ON TO CASH
Asset managers are having a hard time persuading endowments, foundations, pension funds, and other large investors to stop sitting on their cash, according to the Financial Times.
SHARE BUYBACKS ARE OUT, CORPORATE REINVESTMENT IS IN
While the economic outlook was cloudy, corporations plowed their cash into buying their own shares to maintain share prices.
REMOTE WORK HAS DAMAGED U.S. PRODUCTIVITY, STUDIES SHOW
Employees working remotely are no more productive than they were when spending five days a week in the office and workers spending all their time at home are less productive than before the COVID War, according to several studies, The Wall Street Journal reported.
HOME INSURANCE COSTS MORE BUT BUYS LESS COVERAGE
After losing money in five of the last six years, home insurers are raising premiums but offering less coverage for the price as they try to rebuild their profits, The Wall Street Journal reported.
TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT
OIL PRICES CLIMB AS INFLATION SLOWS AND SUPPLIES TIGHTEN
World oil prices reached their highest in three months last week as inflation continued to slow in key nations and...
WHEN THE ECONOMY FALLS JOBS GO WITH IT
Workers strikes, still high inflation and high interest rates are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees. To illustrate the employment trends and the socioeconomic implications, each week we will list job losses. This is week 50.
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS TRENDS
No recession? Everything is fine.
Thanks to the COVID War which locked down much of the globe, the economic landscape has presented an array of challenges that have profoundly affected the business community.
INFLATION EASES BUT FOOD PRICES WILL KEEP RISING
Global food prices will continue to increase even though inflation in many countries is waning, analysts are predicting.
RECESSION AHEAD FOR EUROPE
Investors are adjusting their holdings in Europe in light of a growing conviction that the region faces a “painful economic downturn,” the Financial Times reported.
BANK OF ENGLAND RAISES RATES AGAIN AS INFLATION REMAINS HIGH
The Bank of England (BoE) raised its base interest rate for the 14th time in as many meetings, setting it at 5.25 percent, its highest in 15 years.
EUROPE POSTS FEWEST IPOs SINCE 2009
In the first six months of this year, European equity markets saw the fewest initial public stock offerings—just 34—since 2009 during the Great Recession, according to the Financial Times.
CANADA: BANKRUPTCIES SPIKE, JOB LOSSES RISE
During April, May, and June this year, personal bankruptcies increased 23.5 percent and business bankruptcies were up 36.9 percent, year on year, Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported, blaming sharply higher interest rates for the failures.
SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S ECONOMIC STRUGGLE
On 4 August, several Chinese government agencies and the central bank renewed their pledges to instigate bold and more carefully targeted policies to revive the country’s stagnant economy.
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
As we had long forecast, the higher central banks raise interest rates, the lower the Merger and Acquisition trend… which hit record highs at the height of the COVID War in 2021 when interest rates sank and governments pumped in countless trillions to artificially prop up sinking economies.
UKRAINE WAR TREND UPDATE
RUSSIA CUTS OFF GRAIN SHIPMENTS, WARMONGER BLINKEN DOESN’T LIKE IT
Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State and top war hawk in Washington, accused Moscow of weaponizing food by carrying out military strikes on Black Sea ports to blackmail countries to capitulate to its demands in Ukraine.
ZELENSKY PERFORMS DAMAGE CONTROL AFTER SPAT WITH POLAND OVER GRATITUDE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week tried to cool heads in Warsaw and Kyiv after Poland expressed outrage over Ukraine’s decision to summon a diplomat over a comment about its lack of gratitude during the war effort.
POLAND’S RELATIONSHIP WITH UKRAINE TESTED OVER STEPAN BANDERA
Pawel Jablonski, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, warned last week that the acknowledgment of the WWII-era massacre of 60,000 ethnic Poles by Stepan Bandera, a national hero in Ukraine, remains the biggest obstacle in their relationship that has been tested in recent days.
AMERICAN MAJORITY: STOP CUTTING CHECKS FOR UKRAINE
Most Americans polled now say they want Congress to stop funding the Ukraine War effort and just 17 percent say they would back a U.S. intervention with troops.
U.S. LOSING STREAK CONTINUES: LOSERS TRAINING LOSERS
How proud Washington is, and how the U.S. media keeps bragging that the U.S. military is training Ukrainians to fight the Russians. The same U.S. military that has spent scores of trillions to kill tens of millions since World War II... and lost every war it has fought since then.
UKRAINE PEACE PROPOSAL: NO WAY, NO HOW
A Ukrainian delegation headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend in hopes of getting the Global South to endorse a new peace proposal.
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE by Paul Craig Roberts
THE DEAFENING SILENCE ABOUT THE VAX
Here is a small collection of reports from the last day or two documenting the extreme danger of the Covid “vaccine.” Independent medical scientists, which means medical scientists not on Big Pharma’s payroll, grant list, or subject to control or influence by Big Pharma-associated colleagues, administrators, employers, have proven conclusively that the Covid “vaccine” is far more dangerous than the Covid virus engineered by Tony Fauci’s NIH grants to the University of North Carolina and the Wuhan Laboratory in China.
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE by Dr. Joseph Mercola
MORE VACCINES EQUALS MORE DEATH
A peer-reviewed study published in 2011, using 2009 data, demonstrated that “among the most highly developed nations, those requiring the most vaccine doses for their infants tended to have the least favorable infant mortality rates”
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE by John & Nisha Whitehead
TECHNOCENSORSHIP: THE GOVERNMENT’S WAR ON SO-CALLED DANGEROUS IDEAS
What we are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideas—legitimate or not—and the people who espouse them. Seventy years after Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 depicted a fictional world in which books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled, we find ourselves navigating an eerily similar reality.
PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW® 2024
IN YOUR FACE: GOVERNMENT WANTS TO PICK YOUR NEXT PRESIDENT
A war against fundamental political and free speech rights of Americans, prosecuted by a rogue government, saw several milestones this past week.
FAT-MOUTH FAT MAN CHRISTIE MEETS WITH ZELENSKY IN UKRAINE, SAYS KYIV CAN WIN
Chris Christie, a Republican hopeful for president, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv last week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to showcase his support for the country in its war with Russia.
TRENDS IN TECHNOCRACY by Joe Doran
BOOK PUBLISHERS “QUIETLY” LOOKING TO INTRODUCE AI
Hordes of would-be “authors” are continuing to find their voice…well, their generative text-based AI voice.
They’re learning how easy it is to produce articles, promotional materials, blog posts, lyrics, short stories and even novels using Artificial Intelligence writing assistants like ChatGPT, Bard AI and others.
HUMAN BRAIN CELL ORGANOIDS BEING WEAPONIZED IN CREATION OF “LIVING” AI
The Australian military is now funding experiments that subject lab-grown human brain cells for use as “organoid” computer chips to power Artificial Intelligence.
TRENDS IN CRYPTOS
HONG KONG EXCHANGE APPROVAL PUTS RETAIL CRYPTO (OFFICIALLY) BACK ON THE TABLE
It’s hardly a secret that though China officially banned bitcoin mining in 2021 and cracked down on cryptocurrencies, Chinese investors have continued to find ways to participate.
COINBASE “BASE” LAYER 2 BLOCKCHAIN SET TO OPEN TO PUBLIC DEVELOPERS
Like Binance before it, Coinbase Exchange has gotten into the blockchain network business, as well as acting as a crypto exchange service.
BLOCKCHAIN BATTLES
Between vulnerabilities in its “Orb” eye-scanning device code, and a national ban from operating in Kenya, Worldcoin had a less than stellar week.
TRENDS IN GEOPOLITICS
FRANCE CALLS NIGER COUP LEADERS ILLEGITIMATE, WILL KEEP FORCES IN COUNTRY
France, a former colonial power that invaded numerous nations across Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world to kill and conquer countries so they could steal natural resources and whatever they wanted, that has maintained a troop presence in the mineral-rich Niger, announced last week that it will not pull out its forces after a request by the military junta now in control of the country.
NIGER JUNTA EMERGES UNSCATHED AFTER THREAT OF MILITARY INTERVENTION FROM ECOWAS
The leadership behind the recent coup in Niger emerged unscathed by a deadline imposed by the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, to relinquish power in Niamey or face the possibility of military intervention.
AS U.S. RAMPS UP TENSIONS WITH IRAN, TEHRAN GOES ON WEAPONS SPENDING SPREE
Iran has fortified its naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz with long-range missiles and drones after reports that Washington is set to put Marines on commercial ships sailing through the key oil waterway—which is seen as the latest escalation between the two countries.
NATO INFRINGEMENT? POLAND SENDS TROOPS TO THE BORDER AFTER ALLEGATIONS THAT MINSK VIOLATED AIRSPACE
Poland announced last week that it will send more troops to its border with Belarus after claiming that Minsk violated its airspace with military helicopters—a claim that Minsk rejected.
DUH-MOCK-RACY: ISRAEL HOLDING OVER 1,200 DETAINEES—MAINLY PALESTINIANS—WHO HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED
An Israeli human rights group said last week that Israel has about 1,200 Palestinians detained who have not had a trial and don’t even know the reason they’re being held because of a murky law that allows them to be held on secret charges.
TRENDS-EYE VIEW
DRUG COMPANIES BEHIND MIRACLE WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS HIT WITH LAWSUITS OVER STOMACH PARALYSIS
The drug makers behind two of the most popular weight-loss drugs on the market—Ozempic and Mounjaro—are facing lawsuits claiming that they failed to warn users that the drug can cause paralysis of the stomach.
LATEST COVID LOCKDOWN CASUALTY: STUDENTS DIDN’T LEARN BASIC SKILLS DURING REMOTE LEARNING
Employers are finding it difficult to fill professional service jobs and many companies are blaming remote learning for many of the shortcomings because of the lack of real-world training.
NEW YORK SEES INCREASE IN COVID CASES, ‘EPIDEMIOLOGISTS’ BLAME HEAT WAVE FOR KEEPING PEOPLE INDOORS
The same New York “health officials” who told you to “hunker down” at home to prevent COVID-19 disease transmission for years are now blaming a heat wave that kept city-dwellers indoors as a likely driver in an increase in new cases.
TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE by Ben Daviss
“SCRAMBLER THERAPY” MAY CURE CHRONIC PAIN
Chronic pain is a more common medical condition than depression or diabetes. Treating it focuses on managing the discomfort because there is no cure that has proven reliably effective.
“ELECTRIC CEMENT” COULD TURN YOUR BASEMENT INTO A BATTERY
Home batteries hanging on a wall could be outmoded by electrified cement, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NEW PROCESS CREATES “UNNATURAL” AMINO ACIDS
Every living thing is made of proteins, and proteins are made from just 20 amino acids that nature provides.
TRENDS IN AI
CHATGPT-3 HAS THE REASONING ABILITY OF A COLLEGE STUDENT, TEST SHOWS
On standard tests of logical reasoning, including the SAT, OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 AI performed about as well as a typical college student, according to psychologists at the University of California Los Angeles.
META’S NEWEST AI IDEA: CHATBOTS WITH PERSONALITIES
Meta is experimenting with AI chatbots that have personalities to convey to the company’s four billion users around the world.
CREATORS UNITE TO CALL FOR LEGAL PROTECTIONS AGAINST AI INFRINGEMENT
Individual artists have complained, protested, and even sued OpenAI, Meta, and other AI developers for using their work to train AIs without compensating creators or asking their permission.
USING OLD-FASHIONED SOFTWARE TO RIDE HERD ON AI
Machine-learning engineer Liran Hason knew that widespread AI adoption would depend on quelling fears of AI going rogue and making up things, spewing offensive results, or waging war on humanity.
CHINA ANNOUNCES RULES GOVERNING AI
China’s government has announced the world’s most far-reaching strictures to date governing artificial intelligence.