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Do You Know About This Secret Government ‘Financial Crisis’ Situation Room In the White House?

“The light on Wall Street can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.” — Warren Buffett (“The Maxims of Wall Street,” p. 113) Every October, a host of gold bugs and doomsayers predict another stock market crash. The latest…

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“The light on Wall Street can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.” — Warren Buffett (“The Maxims of Wall Street,” p. 113)

Every October, a host of gold bugs and doomsayers predict another stock market crash.

The latest is Robert Kiyosaki, the famed author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” who warned of the “Biggest Crash in World History” — starting this month! He has been predicting calamity repeatedly for the past 20 years, ever since writing his book, “Rich Dad’s Prophecy,” in 2002.

It looks like Armageddon has been postponed again. In fact, this year’s October is turning out to be one of the best months on Wall Street.  The Dow and other indexes hit all-time highs this week.

I’m not sure why Kiyosaki has been so bearish since 2002, given that he favors investing in businesses and real estate. Another Great Depression can’t be good for either.

October has witnessed quite a few crashes and crises — 1929, 1987 and 2008, all well-known examples.

In fact, I was one of those who “called” the worst stock market crash ever. On Black Monday, October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Average fell 22.6%. I remember it well because it was my 40th birthday! I still have a copy of The Wall Street Journal the next day:

I was also fortunate enough to send out a special alert to my subscribers six weeks before the crash with the headline: “Sell all stocks and mutual funds.” I was worried that the market was overvalued and needed to correct itself. Little did I know that the market would suddenly collapse.

Historians now blame the 1987 crash on the deregulatory laissez-faire environment at the time and computer-generated trading systems that had developed only recently.

For a variety of reasons, I’ve never given an “all-out sell signal” ever since. Here’s why:

Three Lessons I Learned from the 1987 Crash

This past Tuesday, which was my birthday, I spoke at the New Orleans Investment Conference on the topic, “The Three Lessons Most Important Lessons I Learned from the 1987 Crash.”

I thought this would be an appropriate topic, since the New Orleans conference is famous as a gold bug convention.

Here are three lessons:

  1. Beware of technical analysis and charting without taking the fundamental and economic outlook into account. Many technical analysts believed that the crash was so damaging that it was the beginning of a long-term bear market. It wasn’t, and many investors missed out on a huge buying opportunity.
  2.  Bear markets will occur from time to time, but crashes are even rarer, largely due to government intervention.

Washington’s Secret ‘Financial Crisis’ Situation Room

After the crash, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order creating the “Working Group on Financial Markets” within the White House, known more appropriately as the “Plunge Protection Team” (PPT). 

Members of the PPT include the Secretary of the Treasury (now Janet Yellen), the Fed chairman (Jay Powell), the chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and various aides.

The PPT meets secretly whenever there is the fear of a crash. It reports privately to the president and does not release its minutes or recommendations.

The most recent secret meeting took place back in March of 2020, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was chaired by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who reported directly to President Donald Trump.

The Treasury Secretary also has the capability of using a little-known “Exchange Stabilization Fund” to buy stock index futures, such as the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100, to prop up the markets during a crisis. Under Secretary Mnuchin, the fund had $682 billion that could be used to intervene and manipulate the markets.

Publicly the members of the PPT have never revealed whether it has used this fund to purchase stock index futures, but it is interesting how quickly the markets recovered from the March 2020 collapse.

Today, Secretary Janet Yellen has $142 billion in the Exchange Stabilization Fund, ready to intervene in the markets if a sudden monetary crisis develops.

Circuit Breakers Cushion the Fall

Another reason why the chance of a full-scale collapse/crash is unlikely is the establishment of circuit breakers in the major stock exchanges. There are three in place: A 7% drop in the market during the day will trigger a 15-minute halt in trading; a 13% decline will trigger another stoppage and finally, a 20% drop in one day will force the exchange to close until the next day.

For these reasons above, I have not predicted a major crash since the one in 1987. However, bear markets can and do occur. They can last for months if not years, such as the 70% decline in the Nasdaq in 2000-03 and the 50% sell off in the S&P 500 in 2008-09.

  1. The best strategy is to buy U.S. stocks for the long term and to take advantage of bear markets to buy more. To quote Sir John Templeton, “If you are a long-term investor, you will view a bear market as an opportunity to make money.” (“The Maxims of Wall Street” p. 110)

However, this strategy does NOT apply to foreign stocks and emerging markets, which are much more volatile. Bear markets can last for years in foreign markets, so beware.

For several reasons, Wall Street is an example of American exceptionalism, probably because the United States continues to attract and encourage entrepreneurs and inventors. But there is no guarantee this exceptional performance will continue, especially if the government stifles economic growth and entrepreneurship by imposing high taxes and regulations on businesses and individuals.

Get a Signed Copy of the ‘Maxims of Wall Street’ Dated Oct. 19

In celebration of my birthday, October 19, I’m offering a special “half off” deal on my popular book, “The Maxims of Wall Street,” which is now in its 10th-anniversary edition.

Your editor and Dennis Gartman hold a copy of the “Maxims.”

Dennis Gartman, the editor of The Gartman Letter, says it best: “It’s amazing the depth of wisdom one can find in just one or two lines from your book. I have it on my desk and refer to it daily.”

Great Holiday Gift: Special ‘Half Price’ Offer

Anyone who orders the “Maxims” this week will receive a copy autographed and dated October 19, 2021. The price is only $20 for the first copy and $10 for all additional copies. They make a great gift to family, friends, clients, stockbrokers and students, especially during the upcoming holiday season. To order, go to www.skousenbooks.com.

Good investing, AEIOU,

You Blew it!

Mandates are UnAmerican: Whatever Happened to Freedom to Choose?

“More and more, everything is either prohibited or mandated.” — Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga (former president of Bolivia)

All too quickly, the Biden administration and Democratic governors are becoming impatient with Americans who, for one reason or another, have chosen not to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

So, instead of patiently persuading people to get vaccinated, they are using the power of force, through executive orders, to force workers and school-age children to take the jab.

It’s worse in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was barely reelected with a minority control of the government, has imposed severe restrictions on travel inside or outside of Canada on those who are unvaccinated, including air, train and cruise ships.

Safe and Effective?

Are the vaccines truly “safe and effective,” as the media and government officials claim?

Many people are objecting for a variety of reasons, many of them legitimate. They may have an allergic reaction, even fatal, to the vaccines. Over 4,000 people have actually died from the vaccine. Granted, this is a tiny fraction of the millions who have safely received the shot, but if a negative reaction happens to you or your relatives, it matters.

Millions have also developed natural immunity from the virus, either because they got the disease, or are asymptomatic for one reason or another.

There are those who worry that the new drugs produced by Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson are experimental, rushed through the FDA approval process and may have long-term ill effects.

We’ve already learned that the vaccines do not seem to keep you from getting the coronavirus after a few months, thus requiring never-ending booster shots.

$3 Million a Year Washington University Football Coach Fired for His Religious Views

Finally, some object on religious grounds. One person who is objecting to the mandate for religious reasons is Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich, and he’s paying a heavy price — losing his yearly $3 million salary!

His lawyer issued a statement, saying, “It is a tragic and damning commentary on our culture, and more specifically that Coach Rolovich has been derided, demonized and ultimately fired from his job, merely for being devout in his Catholic faith.”

Harvard M.D. Objects to Mandates

Dr. Joel Hirschhorn, of Harvard University, has recently issued a report on the decline in vaccine effectiveness, noting that in most cases they provide only a few months of protection, and therefore, “should not be described as a medical solution worthy of population-wide use and mandates. And, in terms of ineffectiveness against the delta variant, does it make sense to believe that requiring repeated booster shots of the same vaccines will produce better results? At best, they may only delay breakthrough infections.”

He concludes: “We should not force COVID vaccines on anyone when the evidence shows that naturally acquired immunity is equal to or more robust and superior to existing vaccines. Instead, we should respect the right of the bodily integrity of individuals to decide for themselves.”

“Indeed, there is now indisputable medical evidence that natural immunity is more effective, especially against variants, and longer-lasting than vaccine immunity. That this truth is being ignored, and people are losing jobs and livelihoods, is disgraceful.”

Click here to read his article.

The post Do You Know About This Secret Government ‘Financial Crisis’ Situation Room In the White House? appeared first on Stock Investor.

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Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Officials in…

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March 13, 2024

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Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Officials in New Mexico confirmed that a resident died from the plague in the United States’ first fatal case in several years.

A bubonic plague smear, prepared from a lymph removed from an adenopathic lymph node, or bubo, of a plague patient, demonstrates the presence of the Yersinia pestis bacteria that causes the plague in this undated photo. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Getty Images)

The New Mexico Department of Health, in a statement, said that a man in Lincoln County “succumbed to the plague.” The man, who was not identified, was hospitalized before his death, officials said.

They further noted that it is the first human case of plague in New Mexico since 2021 and also the first death since 2020, according to the statement. No other details were provided, including how the disease spread to the man.

The agency is now doing outreach in Lincoln County, while “an environmental assessment will also be conducted in the community to look for ongoing risk,” the statement continued.

“This tragic incident serves as a clear reminder of the threat posed by this ancient disease and emphasizes the need for heightened community awareness and proactive measures to prevent its spread,” the agency said.

A bacterial disease that spreads via rodents, it is generally spread to people through the bites of infected fleas. The plague, known as the black death or the bubonic plague, can spread by contact with infected animals such as rodents, pets, or wildlife.

The New Mexico Health Department statement said that pets such as dogs and cats that roam and hunt can bring infected fleas back into homes and put residents at risk.

Officials warned people in the area to “avoid sick or dead rodents and rabbits, and their nests and burrows” and to “prevent pets from roaming and hunting.”

“Talk to your veterinarian about using an appropriate flea control product on your pets as not all products are safe for cats, dogs or your children” and “have sick pets examined promptly by a veterinarian,” it added.

“See your doctor about any unexplained illness involving a sudden and severe fever, the statement continued, adding that locals should clean areas around their home that could house rodents like wood piles, junk piles, old vehicles, and brush piles.

The plague, which is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, famously caused the deaths of an estimated hundreds of millions of Europeans in the 14th and 15th centuries following the Mongol invasions. In that pandemic, the bacteria spread via fleas on black rats, which historians say was not known by the people at the time.

Other outbreaks of the plague, such as the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, are also believed to have killed about one-fifth of the population of the Byzantine Empire, according to historical records and accounts. In 2013, researchers said the Justinian plague was also caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria.

But in the United States, it is considered a rare disease and usually occurs only in several countries worldwide. Generally, according to the Mayo Clinic, the bacteria affects only a few people in U.S. rural areas in Western states.

Recent cases have occurred mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Countries with frequent plague cases include Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Peru, the clinic says. There were multiple cases of plague reported in Inner Mongolia, China, in recent years, too.

Symptoms

Symptoms of a bubonic plague infection include headache, chills, fever, and weakness. Health officials say it can usually cause a painful swelling of lymph nodes in the groin, armpit, or neck areas. The swelling usually occurs within about two to eight days.

The disease can generally be treated with antibiotics, but it is usually deadly when not treated, the Mayo Clinic website says.

“Plague is considered a potential bioweapon. The U.S. government has plans and treatments in place if the disease is used as a weapon,” the website also says.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the last time that plague deaths were reported in the United States was in 2020 when two people died.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 21:40

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and…

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March 13, 2024

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women's Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and bewildering tunnel of social justice cultism?  Global events have been so frenetic that many people might not remember, but only a couple years ago Big Tech companies and numerous governments were openly aligned in favor of mass censorship.  Not just to prevent the public from investigating the facts surrounding the pandemic farce, but to silence anyone questioning the validity of woke concepts like trans ideology. 

From 2020-2022 was the closest the west has come in a long time to a complete erasure of freedom of speech.  Even today there are still countries and Europe and places like Canada or Australia that are charging forward with draconian speech laws.  The phrase "radical speech" is starting to circulate within pro-censorship circles in reference to any platform where people are allowed to talk critically.  What is radical speech?  Basically, it's any discussion that runs contrary to the beliefs of the political left.

Open hatred of moderate or conservative ideals is perfectly acceptable, but don't ever shine a negative light on woke activism, or you might be a terrorist.

Riley Gaines has experienced this double standard first hand.  She was even assaulted and taken hostage at an event in 2023 at San Francisco State University when leftists protester tried to trap her in a room and demanded she "pay them to let her go."  Campus police allegedly witnessed the incident but charges were never filed and surveillance footage from the college was never released.  

It's probably the last thing a champion female swimmer ever expects, but her head-on collision with the trans movement and the institutional conspiracy to push it on the public forced her to become a counter-culture voice of reason rather than just an athlete.

For years the independent media argued that no matter how much we expose the insanity of men posing as women to compete and dominate women's sports, nothing will really change until the real female athletes speak up and fight back.  Riley Gaines and those like her represent that necessary rebellion and a desperately needed return to common sense and reason.

In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Gaines related some interesting information on the inner workings of the NCAA and the subversive schemes surrounding trans athletes.  Not only were women participants essentially strong-armed by colleges and officials into quietly going along with the program, there was also a concerted propaganda effort.  Competition ceremonies were rigged as vehicles for promoting trans athletes over everyone else. 

The bottom line?  The competitions didn't matter.  The real women and their achievements didn't matter.  The only thing that mattered to officials were the photo ops; dudes pretending to be chicks posing with awards for the gushing corporate media.  The agenda took precedence.

Lia Thomas, formerly known as William Thomas, was more than an activist invading female sports, he was also apparently a science project fostered and protected by the athletic establishment.  It's important to understand that the political left does not care about female athletes.  They do not care about women's sports.  They don't care about the integrity of the environments they co-opt.  Their only goal is to identify viable platforms with social impact and take control of them.  Women's sports are seen as a vehicle for public indoctrination, nothing more.

The reasons why they covet women's sports are varied, but a primary motive is the desire to assert the fallacy that men and women are "the same" psychologically as well as physically.  They want the deconstruction of biological sex and identity as nothing more than "social constructs" subject to personal preference.  If they can destroy what it means to be a man or a woman, they can destroy the very foundations of relationships, families and even procreation.  

For now it seems as though the trans agenda is hitting a wall with much of the public aware of it and less afraid to criticize it.  Social media companies might be able to silence some people, but they can't silence everyone.  However, there is still a significant threat as the movement continues to target children through the public education system and women's sports are not out of the woods yet.   

The ultimate solution is for women athletes around the world to organize and widely refuse to participate in any competitions in which biological men are allowed.  The only way to save women's sports is for women to be willing to end them, at least until institutions that put doctrine ahead of logic are made irrelevant.          

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:20

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Congress’ failure so far to deliver on promise of tens of billions in new research spending threatens America’s long-term economic competitiveness

A deal that avoided a shutdown also slashed spending for the National Science Foundation, putting it billions below a congressional target intended to…

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March 13, 2024

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Science is again on the chopping block on Capitol Hill. AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

Federal spending on fundamental scientific research is pivotal to America’s long-term economic competitiveness and growth. But less than two years after agreeing the U.S. needed to invest tens of billions of dollars more in basic research than it had been, Congress is already seriously scaling back its plans.

A package of funding bills recently passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden on March 9, 2024, cuts the current fiscal year budget for the National Science Foundation, America’s premier basic science research agency, by over 8% relative to last year. That puts the NSF’s current allocation US$6.6 billion below targets Congress set in 2022.

And the president’s budget blueprint for the next fiscal year, released on March 11, doesn’t look much better. Even assuming his request for the NSF is fully funded, it would still, based on my calculations, leave the agency a total of $15 billion behind the plan Congress laid out to help the U.S. keep up with countries such as China that are rapidly increasing their science budgets.

I am a sociologist who studies how research universities contribute to the public good. I’m also the executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science, a national university consortium whose members share data that helps us understand, explain and work to amplify those benefits.

Our data shows how underfunding basic research, especially in high-priority areas, poses a real threat to the United States’ role as a leader in critical technology areas, forestalls innovation and makes it harder to recruit the skilled workers that high-tech companies need to succeed.

A promised investment

Less than two years ago, in August 2022, university researchers like me had reason to celebrate.

Congress had just passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. The science part of the law promised one of the biggest federal investments in the National Science Foundation in its 74-year history.

The CHIPS act authorized US$81 billion for the agency, promised to double its budget by 2027 and directed it to “address societal, national, and geostrategic challenges for the benefit of all Americans” by investing in research.

But there was one very big snag. The money still has to be appropriated by Congress every year. Lawmakers haven’t been good at doing that recently. As lawmakers struggle to keep the lights on, fundamental research is quickly becoming a casualty of political dysfunction.

Research’s critical impact

That’s bad because fundamental research matters in more ways than you might expect.

For instance, the basic discoveries that made the COVID-19 vaccine possible stretch back to the early 1960s. Such research investments contribute to the health, wealth and well-being of society, support jobs and regional economies and are vital to the U.S. economy and national security.

Lagging research investment will hurt U.S. leadership in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, advanced communications, clean energy and biotechnology. Less support means less new research work gets done, fewer new researchers are trained and important new discoveries are made elsewhere.

But disrupting federal research funding also directly affects people’s jobs, lives and the economy.

Businesses nationwide thrive by selling the goods and services – everything from pipettes and biological specimens to notebooks and plane tickets – that are necessary for research. Those vendors include high-tech startups, manufacturers, contractors and even Main Street businesses like your local hardware store. They employ your neighbors and friends and contribute to the economic health of your hometown and the nation.

Nearly a third of the $10 billion in federal research funds that 26 of the universities in our consortium used in 2022 directly supported U.S. employers, including:

  • A Detroit welding shop that sells gases many labs use in experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.

  • A Dallas-based construction company that is building an advanced vaccine and drug development facility paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services.

  • More than a dozen Utah businesses, including surveyors, engineers and construction and trucking companies, working on a Department of Energy project to develop breakthroughs in geothermal energy.

When Congress shortchanges basic research, it also damages businesses like these and people you might not usually associate with academic science and engineering. Construction and manufacturing companies earn more than $2 billion each year from federally funded research done by our consortium’s members.

A lag or cut in federal research funding would harm U.S. competitiveness in critical advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Hispanolistic/E+ via Getty Images

Jobs and innovation

Disrupting or decreasing research funding also slows the flow of STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – talent from universities to American businesses. Highly trained people are essential to corporate innovation and to U.S. leadership in key fields, such as AI, where companies depend on hiring to secure research expertise.

In 2022, federal research grants paid wages for about 122,500 people at universities that shared data with my institute. More than half of them were students or trainees. Our data shows that they go on to many types of jobs but are particularly important for leading tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Intel.

That same data lets me estimate that over 300,000 people who worked at U.S. universities in 2022 were paid by federal research funds. Threats to federal research investments put academic jobs at risk. They also hurt private sector innovation because even the most successful companies need to hire people with expert research skills. Most people learn those skills by working on university research projects, and most of those projects are federally funded.

High stakes

If Congress doesn’t move to fund fundamental science research to meet CHIPS and Science Act targets – and make up for the $11.6 billion it’s already behind schedule – the long-term consequences for American competitiveness could be serious.

Over time, companies would see fewer skilled job candidates, and academic and corporate researchers would produce fewer discoveries. Fewer high-tech startups would mean slower economic growth. America would become less competitive in the age of AI. This would turn one of the fears that led lawmakers to pass the CHIPS and Science Act into a reality.

Ultimately, it’s up to lawmakers to decide whether to fulfill their promise to invest more in the research that supports jobs across the economy and in American innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. So far, that promise is looking pretty fragile.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 16, 2024.

Jason Owen-Smith receives research support from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Wellcome Leap.

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