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I’ve seen the lights go down on Broadway

I saw the Empire State laid low…

Look: It’s a prediction, but it’s an informed one. Would love to hear from some of you in the financial industries. I realize unfunded liabilities that don’t get paid don’t contribute to the actual debt: no money to pay means no money to pay. But I also realize that people counting on those promised entitlements are probably not just going to roll over and die.

I know. I was alive in the 70s.

So here we are: Cloward Piven by way of destroying the dollar standard. Which in turn will lead to an increase in commodity prices, soaring interest rates, and a set of regulations meant to keep ordinary citizens from protecting themselves by way of financial diversification.

Radical Marxists who for years planned a way to crash a world’s superpower are now in the positions of power to do so. And it could be as soon as July.

But no worries: clean debt ceiling increase! Plus, crush the TEA Party! Go team aristocracy!

(note: this is a lengthy presentation that I think is worth your time)

57 Replies to “I’ve seen the lights go down on Broadway”

  1. eCurmudgeon says:

    (note: this is a lengthy presentation that I think is worth your time)

    Perhaps, but I’m immediately distrustful of anything that doesn’t come with an accompanying transcript.

    Or is this some sort of anti-search-engine ploy?

  2. bgbear says:

    It is the governments wealth, you’re lucky we let you keep any of it you greedy bastards.

  3. “As far as this case is concerned I have now had time to think it over and I can strongly recommend a course of leeches.”

  4. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

  5. TaiChiWawa says:

    July 1, 2014 — That’s apparently when he’s going to get to the point.

  6. leigh says:

    Jeff, my advice is to ignore this person’s advice. I got fleeced in a similar scam in the early 80s and that lesson saved me a bundle when my friends were putting all their money in tech stocks in the late 90s.

  7. I’ve been listening to this for about an hour and I’m wondering if he’s leading up to…, wait for it…, Bitcoin!

  8. Lawrence says:

    At least in Firefox, it looks like, if you try to leave the page and instead select “Stay on Page,” a transcript of the video appears. The entire thing is a pitch for reports that you can get for free… if you subscribe to the guy’s newsletter.

  9. dicentra says:

    He says he wouldn’t touch bitcoin with a 10-foot pole; however, it demonstrates the loss of trust in U.S. dollar.

    He says there are 4 ways to put your money out of the reach of the U.S. gubmint that are currently legal but may not be in the future as the gubmint gets desperate, e.g., taxing all savings at 10%.

    Touts precious metals, especially silver (and involves another booklet) and then talks about stuff he’s not going to reveal except in a booklet.

    I don’t know about the solutions he proposes, but the diagnosis — imminent dollar collapse — is probably sound. Foreign countries are getting out of the dollar, and our piss-poor monetary policy will do us in.

    Exactly as the Gods of the Copybook Headings said it would.

  10. dicentra says:

    So, buy silver and bury it in your backyard, is what I think.

  11. So it’s just another call to go long in commodities: gold, silver and lead.

  12. TaiChiWawa says:

    Secret valuable asset is farmland.

  13. Shermlaw says:

    A relative who manages other people’s money told my wife that the best places to put spare cash are: guns, ammo and nonperishable consumable commodities. My wife thought she was joking. She was dead serious and made that statement last summer.

  14. Blitz says:

    Very strangely timed post. Found out today that an investment I made while living in upstate NY about 22 years ago ( and promptly forgot about ) has pretty much tripled. I don’t trust gold or silver paper, So Imma put it into an IRA.

    Is this the right way to go? I want to pass it to my daughter.

  15. Jeff G. says:

    One of the things he talks about is regulations forthcoming that will keep Americans from being able to purchase gold. One of the reasons I posted it is because he talks a lot about what we most of us knew — this printing of money and the flooding of the system — but what I found interesting was the tidbit that the FED has no other choice but to continue printing money. And that the regulations forthcoming are going to, if this guy is right, bring about the final collapse. Maybe I should have locked in interest rates on the new build after all.

    As for bitcoin, what do you all think about that? I was seriously considering investing — not much, like a hundred a month if I can manage it — so I’d be interested to hear what you think.

    And yeah, I got the link from a National Review email, but the standard thing now seems to be that the transcript, which reveals itself in real time through the video, is available as you leave the page.

  16. serr8d says:

    Blitz, I’d buy metal gold. Always tangible, if you can keep it safely stowed away. And please, not in a bank.

  17. serr8d says:

    jg, here’s the bitcoin references you’ll need.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/search/apachesolr_search/bitcoin

  18. serr8d says:

    Some perspective on the two “alternative currencies” – bullion and bitcoin -from the man who has run a hedge fund for 37 years and currently manages $23.3 billion, Elliott’s Paul Singer.

    After 37 years in the investment-management business, we are not easily shocked. However, two things about bitcoin have shocked us recently. One is that bitcoin and some of its fellow alternative currencies are finding such favor among investors while gold (the only real alternative currency) is languishing. The second is that the most heated investment-related conversation we have had in many years was with a young person who, when told of our mild dubiousness toward bitcoin, basically lost it and started yelling in its defense. Bitcoin comes with passion and belief – at least at the moment.

    There is no more reason to believe that bitcoin, a computer-generated, algorithm-driven currency of supposed limited supply, will stand the test of time than that governments will protect the value of government-created fiat money. One difference: Bitcoin is newer and we always look at babies with hope.

    If you are looking for an alternative currency, look into gold. It has stood the test of thousands of years as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Better yet, it is not just a computer entry out in the ether somewhere, and it was last seen available at a good price.

    Bitcoin and its relatives speak to understandable impulses (against big government, in favor of freedom and modernity), but we do not see this particular experiment lasting. At least you have to work really hard to dig gold out of the ground.

  19. Alypius says:

    I’d avoid this guy like the plague. He sounds almost exactly like those shady alarmist commercials on talk radio (“www.77fear.com is a critical resource!”), especially given the list of “reports” that come with a subscription. Save your money and listen to your financial advisor, or at least your commentors!

  20. Blitz says:

    Serr8d, it seems almost impossible to track the day to day prices of metal gold and silver. Paper prices? wow, up down, sideways and always overnight. I need Jho I think on that. Anyway, it was a small investment and at prices as of this am? MAYBE 2 1/2 qz gold. I really do want to pass this on to my baby, as she is the reason I made it in the first place.

    It’s like finding cash in an old jacket, except this time, I don’t want it.

  21. dicentra says:

    Save your money and listen to your financial advisor

    I wouldn’t. Financial advisors are the worst-affected by normalcy bias. Their entire livelihood depends on business as usual; otherwise, they can’t help you prepare for the future.

    OTOH, I have no idea what to do about my own savings account. I don’t contribute to my 401K anymore because the dollar isn’t a good investment in the next decade or so.

    So if we get hyperinflation, which seriously devalues one’s savings, is it prudent to hang on to whatever dollars you have, in hopes that it will recover, or is it better to invest in toilet paper and bottled water?

  22. I kept waiting for him to mention getting the return that I deserved using one of his four weird tricks. Sorry, but the man is a charlatan. He has a few bits of information salted with so much BS and self promotion as to make it less than worthless.

    There are other things I have read recently about how governments that start down the path of borrowing printing can never dismount from the beast and ride it to their eventual demise. We have a political class that has foresworn its fiduciary responsibilities in favor of an ideological oligarchy. This won’t end well. The various weird tricks to preserve and grow your capital won’t help much when the SHTF. It’s going to be grim until the adults reestablish control and that probably will not be until things have gotten much worse.

  23. Here’s a reference for the historical London fix for gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Kitco.com is also good for the latest bid/ask as well as the current London fix which is what all the serious buyers and sellers of commodities use.

  24. eCurmudgeon says:

    At least in Firefox, it looks like, if you try to leave the page and instead select “Stay on Page,” a transcript of the video appears. The entire thing is a pitch for reports that you can get for free… if you subscribe to the guy’s newsletter.

    OK… After giving that a quick read, most of it looks like the same territory people like Karl Denninger has been covering for some time, although Karl, to his credit, tends to forgo the sales pitches…

  25. eCurmudgeon says:

    As for bitcoin, what do you all think about that? I was seriously considering investing — not much, like a hundred a month if I can manage it — so I’d be interested to hear what you think.

    Off-topic (or perhaps not): I was at a vendor conference last week, and one morning the presenter between keynote sessions offered $20 to anyone in the crowd who asked a security-related question he couldn’t answer.

    “Explain Bitcoin!”

    He won the $20…

  26. Blake says:

    I think the Barnhardt dictum is correct: If you cannot stand in front of it and defend it with your assault rifle, it is not an asset.

    Stansberry is right about currency collapse, but, Stansberry’s “normalcy bias” is an intact technological society.

    Rather ironic, considering Stansberry discusses normalcy bias.

    It would be great to have Aussie currency, but, when things fall apart, how do I redeem the Aussie currency?

  27. newrouter says:

    >or is it better to invest in toilet paper and bottled water?<

    maybe some canadian currency?

  28. Blake says:

    eCurmudgeon, Karl thinks we’re headed for deflationary collapse, which would help the general population and kill big business. Which is the opposite of Stansberry’s prediction.

    It’s hard for me to disagree with Karl’s conclusions, because everything fedgov and fedreserv does with money policy favors big business and big government at the expense of the ordinary American.

  29. newrouter says:

    >when things fall apart, how do I redeem the Aussie currency?<

    same could be said of gold

  30. Blake says:

    nr, if you have gold, silver or lead in your possession, it’s probably a useful commodity. A paper claim to gold or silver probably isn’t very useful.

  31. newrouter says:

    > A paper claim to gold or silver probably isn’t very useful.<

    if hyperinflation happens the aussie currency will have a market value relative to the dollar. you might need a wheelbarrow for the exchange. also you could see what aussie currency fetches for commodities in australia. that's why i like canadian currency. it's closer.

  32. Merovign says:

    It’s too late for Bitcoin. Generally speaking it’s too late for any similar scheme by the time you know it’s not going to be a waste.

    People have been coming up with creative ways to get around regulations and laws against scams ever since such laws were invented. Sometimes that means actually, technically, not being a scam – but success is still dependent on getting in and out at the right time on the one of 50 or 100 schemes that actually turns real-world profits for investors.

    Yeah, if you had put 5 grand in BC at the beginning and pulled out mid last year, you’d be rolling in it. But you didn’t know that in 2009, and neither did I.

    Though if you do travel back to 2009 with that news, send me an e-mail.

  33. Merovign says:

    PS I’m not an “expert” but I’ve been watching “outsider” high-yield investment claims for several years.

    Oh and if you go back in time, bring me a couple of those programmable ASIC bitcoin miners, they weren’t around when BC started and the ROI would have been remarkable.

  34. Eingang Ausfahrt says:

    or is it better to invest in toilet paper and bottled water?

    A freighter worth of Spam and toilet paper – come the collapse, sail it to Hawaii, and you’ll be the new Kamehameha.

  35. McGehee says:

    Haven’t watched, but if I had I would almost certainly say this: the collapse of money means barter. No one will accept paper unless they’re hard up for paper. No one will accept ones and zeroes at all.

    Go long on barterable goods; precious metals may be part of an end-times portfolio, but only part. A small part.

  36. RI Red says:

    Jeff, I might be succumbing to normalcy bias, but adjustable rates are the tool of the devil. Relatively speaking, interest rates are at historic lows and the desire to save a point or two is meaningless if interest rates come unglued. And they eventually will.
    Once construction is done, lock in at a fixed rate. Adjustables have nowhere to go but up.

  37. newrouter says:

    fixed rate ditto for ri red. the only way tame the fed is 20% + rate to suck all the paper/1,0’s back.

  38. sdferr says:

    Breaking news in the ongoing saga of the mysteriously missing Calzone: CNN has ascertained that said Calzone was right there on the plate only moments before it disappeared to no one knows where. Shortly after someone noticed the tasty pastry was missing — and alerting the world! — another highly placed anonymous source found a wadded up and discarded paper napkin in the next room. More news at 10:00 pm.

  39. mattse001 says:

    1) This “presentation” is a scam. I sat for 10 minutes waiting for the guy to get to the point. He’s selling something…that’s probably how he’s “preparing” for the collapse.
    2) The “predictions” he makes are like shooting fish in a barrel. In other words, useless.
    3) Bitcoin won’t be allowed to succeed, if it ever had a chance in the first place.
    4) The amount of credit created in the world DWARFS the amount of money. In a crisis, that credit (which acts as a money substitute) will evaporate. Deflation will be the result.
    5) IMO, the crisis will start in China and spread to the rest of the world. Slightly less probable is that it starts near the end of the QE taper, when JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs post their first real losses in years.
    6) Farmland seems like a good idea, along with a bit of gold and a lot of guns/ammo.
    7) You want a real education? Spend a month reading ZeroHedge. You won’t be happier, but you’ll be wiser. Oh, also don’t invest based on his correct view of things…the market is rigged to do the opposite.

  40. newrouter says:

    mmm calzone. dinner tomorrow.

  41. geoffb says:

    Broadway will soon to be south of 8 mile, de facto. This is part of how Detroit became what it is.

  42. Ernst Schreiber says:

    If I had a hundred dollars a month to invest in something, I’d park my C note in .22 LR or .223 Rem. or 5.56 NATO or .308 Win. or 7.62 NATO or .30-06 Spr. or 9mm parabellum or .45 ACP etc.

    It’s important to diversify.

  43. John Bradley says:

    While I don’t doubt the inevitability of the man’s predictions, I question the short-term “July 2014” trigger. If this HRwhatever law does in fact require all banks everywhere to do whatever the IRS wants them to, I can only ask “or else…?”

    I don’t see what power the US government or the IRS have to make foreign banks do anything whatsoever, other than by asking nicely and being told “bite me” in a variety of foreigny languages.

    I mean, we’re already doing the same thing with respect to our Masters on various issues, and we live here.

  44. geoffb says:

    From that Forbes piece what the US government is doing to answer your “or else.”

    FATCA requires foreign institutions to tell the IRS about accounts held by U.S. taxpayers or foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold substantial ownership. To avoid withholding, a participating institution must enter into an agreement with the IRS to:

    Identify U.S. accounts;
    Report certain information to the IRS regarding U.S. accounts; and
    Withhold a 30% tax on certain payments to non-participating FFIs and account holders unwilling to provide the required information.

    Foreign institutions that don’t sign an agreement with the IRS face withholding on payments, including U.S. source interest and dividends, gross proceeds from the disposition of U.S. securities, and pass-through payments. How important is FATCA? Hugely. It has its own FATCA home page, distinct from IRS.gov home page.

    But reporting by the FFIs directly to the IRS is tough, even illegal some places. Thus, the U.S. developed intergovernmental agreements (IGAs). That way, the FFIs give all the tax dirt to their own governments, which in turn swap tax data with our IRS. See U.S. Is Doing FATCA Deals With 50 Countries!

    This may be the most important recent development. IGAs are favored by the OECD, G-8, and other organizations as the more palatable choice. So far, the U.S. has signed nine IGAs, and is engaged in discussions with over 80 other jurisdictions. Despite the delay, the first report of information under FATCA is due in 2015, covering 2014 accounts.

  45. DarthLevin says:

    The two biggest problems I have with bitcoin are summed up by McGehee, eCurmudgeon, and blake:

    1) It’s too hard to explain to the average person’s satisfaction
    2) It’s not barterable in a low-tech society because you need two people with
    a) electricity
    b) powerful computers
    c) an agreement that the bits on your machine are worth something of value I presently possess if you can move them to my machine

    If the excrement impacts the rotary cooling device, 2a and 2b aren’t guaranteed to be in abundance, and you aren’t likely to be around a sufficient number of people who possess 1 and 2c in useful quantities.

  46. Dave J says:

    I seriously doubt by ability to obtain something to eat with a bitcoin….I know for a fact that I can with a .22LR round.

  47. Dave J says:

    by=my

  48. Curmudgeon says:

    Wouldn’t it be easier to dust off the old book “How To Prosper During The Coming Bad Years”, update it for today, and do much the same, assuming the Obamunist is Jimmuh Carturd 2.0?

    Leftists have a way of devaluing and debauching currency.

    On the upside, my once battered real estate portfolio has bounced back with a vengeance.

  49. Curmudgeon says:

    Foreign countries are getting out of the dollar, and our piss-poor monetary policy will do us in.

    As much as the Obamunist Ohflationists are ruining the dollar:
    1. The Euro is no better, in fact is worse
    2. Ditto for the Yen and the Pound
    3. No one trusts the Red Chinese, quite rightly
    4. Switzerland is just too darn small

  50. Car in says:

    Cloward Piven by way of destroying the dollar standard. Which in turn will lead to an increase in commodity prices, soaring interest rates, and a set of regulations meant to keep ordinary citizens from protecting themselves by way of financial diversification

    Oh, and you don’t need that gun/ammo.

    What could go wrong?

  51. palaeomerus says:

    I’ve never understood the position of those betting on the fall selling what they’ll need during a fall.

    Why do you want to give me eternal fungible gold for my worthless dollars that will be wiped out in what is coming soon again? What’s in it for you?

  52. Curmudgeon says:

    I’ve never understood the position of those betting on the fall selling what they’ll need during a fall.

    Why do you want to give me eternal fungible gold for my worthless dollars that will be wiped out in what is coming soon again? What’s in it for you?

    They are betting on America making a comeback.

    After all, those who sold their (then) $800/ounce gold and $50/ounce silver in 1980, before Uncle Ron and enough Republicans took office, did very well as gold plunged to under $300/ounce and silver under $15/ounce.

    They turned around and bought bonds, when the lending rate was near 20% (jacked up in order to kill inflation), and thrived as interest rates declined when it became clear that the inflation monster was slain, or at least caged.

    Or they turned around and bought stocks when it was said the Dow could never break 1000, and watched it double (remember, this is 1982).

    The question is: Can America come back, or have the Obamunists broken us for good, like Labour governments did to the UK while Tory governments pre Thatcher went along to get along?

  53. IrateNate says:

    Not sure, but I imagine that the sales pitch is numismatic gold (pre-1933 gold coins) which are supposedly immune to government reach…anyone….Bueller?

  54. John Bradley says:

    Speaking of gold and worthless dollars, here’s a brief (6 min) video by Peter Schiff, “Government’s War on Living Standards (1947 to now) ” that raises some points that need raising.

    Hint: despite all the toys, we’re poorer now by measures that really matter. It used to be possible for an average man, without a HS diploma, to feed, house, and otherwise support a 5 person family with his single paycheck. And that was without the benefit of CostCo and Walmart.

  55. JWebb says:

    Please just Google Porter Stansbury, his S.E.C. fines and other criminal behavior, then take his “profound” predictions with a huge grain of salt. He’s a huckster, plain and simple, dribbling out bits of economic Armageddon truthiness, all skewed to sell his newletter(s). I recommend “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe published in 1997. Google that, too, but a fascinating, prescient read for exactly the condition our country (and world) is in at the moment.

  56. deadrody says:

    Look, gold is only useful if someone is willing to take it in trade for something you really want – food, water, guns, or ammunition. And if the things you want are food, water, guns, and ammunition, and as devil’s advocate, assume I have them… What the fuck use do you think I have for gold, exactly ?

    And if I already have the guns, I’m just going to come take your fucking gold by force.

    Furthermore, unless you have actually taken physical possession of said gold, it doesn’t exist anymore than the numbers on the piece of paper or your computer screen are real when the banks crash.

    You want to spend your money on something useful in the event of a financial collapse ? Skip the middle man and go straight to food, water, guns, and ammo.

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