Northwestern Investigated Laura Kipnis Again for Violating Title IX with Her Opinions

KipnisThe forces of darkness really don’t want Prof. Laura Kipnis to criticize the campus sex bureaucracy—but they keep proving her right about it.

You will recall that Northwestern University investigated Kipnis after she wrote an essay about campus sex politics for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Students claimed her article had violated Title IX, the federal statute ostensibly dealing with gender equality on campus.

One of those students has also filed a defamation suit against Kipnis for her book Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus, which cast aspersions on the student’s sexual harassment claims against a former professor.

But that’s not all: Unbeknownst to the public, Kipnis has been dealing with another Title IX investigation. Several Northwestern graduate students—including the one who is suing Kipnis—filed a Title IX complaint against the professor last May. The details, according to The New Yorker‘s Jeannie Suk Gerson, are insane:

Kipnis told me that she was surprised when Northwestern once again launched a formal Title IX investigation of her writing. (A spokesperson from Northwestern did not respond to a request for comment by press time.) Kipnis said that investigators presented her with a spreadsheet laying out dozens of quotations from her book, along with at least eighty written questions, such as “What do you mean by this statement?,” “What is the source/are the sources for this information?,” and “How do you respond to the allegation that this detail is not necessary to your argument and that its inclusion is evidence of retaliatory intent on your part?” Kipnis chose not to answer any questions, following the standard advice of counsel defending the court case.

She did submit a statement saying that “these complaints seem like an attempt to bend the campus judicial system to punish someone whose work involves questioning the campus judicial system, just as bringing Title IX complaints over my first Chronicle essay attempted to do two years ago.” In other words, the process was the punishment. Possible evidence of retaliatory purpose, she learned, included statements in the book that aggressively staked out her refusal to keep quiet, expressed in her trademark hyperbole. Her prior Title IX investigation, she writes, “has made me a little mad and possibly a little dangerous….I mean, having been hauled up on complaints once, what do I have to lose? ‘Confidentiality’? ‘Conduct befitting a professor’? Kiss my ass. In other words, thank you to my accusers: unwitting collaborators, accidental muses.” Also presented as possible evidence was her Facebook post quoting a book review—”Kipnis doesn’t seem like the sort of enemy you’d want to attract, let alone help create”—on which Kipnis had commented, “I love that.”

As Ken White of Popehat tweeted in response to this news:

Keep in mind that the student who filed the lawsuit has based her defamation claim partly on the idea that Kipnis falsely misrepresented her as overly litigious—this, from a student who has filed a lawsuit and multiple Title IX claims against Kipnis.

In any case, it should be obvious that the text of Title IX does not empower university officials to investigate tenured professors for criticizing Title IX, nor was the law intended to weaponize students’ grievances. Kipnis’s ongoing ordeal is a testament to the pressing need for the Education Department to rein in the Obama-era guidance that spawned this madness, and a reminder that Secretary Betsy DeVos is wholly justified in doing just that.

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Climate Models Run Too Hot: Settled Science Again

GlobalWarmingHotColdPetarVeinovicDreamstimeClimate computer model projections of future man-made warming due to human emissions of carbon dioxide are running too hot, says a fascinating new study in Nature Geoscience. Consequently, researchers reckon that humanity has more time to prevent dangerous future climate change than had been suggested earlier by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

This is really good news. This new article shows that climate science is not yet “settled science.”

Of course, this is just one article among many thousands addressing aspects of man-made climate change. While its authors are members in good standing in the climate science establishment, they could be wrong. In fact, on the same day as the Nature Geoscience study was published, the United Kingdom’s Met Office issued a report that says this: “After a period during the early 2000’s when the rise in global mean temperature slowed…the long-term rate of global warming has now returned to the level seen in the second half of the 20th century.”

The Met Office attributes the temperature slowdown in the early 21st century to natural climate variations. Specifically, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation had flipped to its cool phase, thus masking ongoing man-made global warming between 1999 and 2014. If true, this would suggest that the climate models are right after all about the long-term temperature trends and that the carbon budget is smaller than the new study calculates.

So what did the Nature Geoscience researchers do? They began by calculating what the global carbon budget should be in order to keep future temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. Why that level? Because the signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change committed to “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.”

The researchers next pointed out that the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, from 2013, estimated that cumulative carbon dioxide emissions since 1870 would have to remain less than 2,260 gigatons of carbon dioxide to stay below the 1.5 C threshold. But as of 2014, cumulative emissions stood at just over 2,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide. Since humanity is currently emitting about 36 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually, that implies that humanity would blow through the remaining IPCC carbon budget around 2021.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The average global temperature now stands at about 0.9 C above the pre-industrial baseline, which implies that global temperature would have to increase by 0.6 C between now and 2021 if the IPCC carbon budget calculations were right. This is highly implausible since such an increase would be about 10 times faster than than what has actually heretofore been observed.

“Taking an average across ESMs [Earth systems models] suggests that our cumulative emissions to date would correspond to about 0.3 C more than best estimates of human-caused warming so far,” lead author Richard Millar concludes at CarbonBrief. In the London Times another author of the paper—Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford—said, “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”

In other words, climate computer models projected the global average temperature should be about 1.2 C above the pre-industrial baseline for the 2,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide already emitted. Instead, global average temperature is only 0.9 C higher.

Running the models forward from a 2015 baseline yields a carbon budget of around 880 gigatons of additional carbon dioxide before passing through the 1.5 C threshold. That amounts to about 20 years of emissions.

Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway, draws out some additional implications from the study. “The updated 1.5 C is more like what we expected at 2 C, and thus the updated 2 C carbon budget is probably more like we expected for 2.5 C,” he notes. “Given the emissions pledges submitted to Parri Agreement are somewhat around 2.5 C to 3 C across most studies, then the new carbon budgets would imply that 2 C is roughly consistent with the current emission pledges.”

But why reuse the models that have already been shown to be off by 30 percent in their projections? Again, the difference between 0.9 C above the preindustrial baseline and the 1.5 C threshold is 0.6 C. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, global average temperature is rising at 0.17 C per decade, suggesting that the 1.5 C temperature threshold might not be passed for 30 years. The satellite temperature measurements find that the globe is warming at the rate of 0.13 C per decade, implying that the 1.5 C threshold might not be passed for 45 years or so.

These rough temperature increase calculations imply an even larger carbon budget. That might mean that humanity could burn significantly more carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels without necessarily crossing the 2 C above preindustrial average temperature threshold set out in the Paris Agreement.

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Apple Stock Slump Continues – Tests Key Technical Support

Apple share price continues to tumble since it unveiled the iPhone 8 and X, following yesterday's triple whammy of bad news.

Back at it lowest since August 1st's after-hours spike on earnings, AAPL is now testing the key 100-day moving average…

 

And as goes AAPL, so goes the Nasdaq.. again

 

"No brainer…"

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Embrace The Suck: Debt-Serdom and Our Neofuedal Status Quo

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Democracy (i.e. political influence) and ownership of productive assets are the exclusive domains of the New Aristocracy.

I have often used the words neoliberal, neocolonial and neofeudal to describe our socio-economic-political status quo. Here are my shorthand descriptions of each term:

1. Neoliberal: the commoditization / financialization of every asset, input (such as labor) and output of the economy; the privatization of the public commons, and the maximizing of private profits while costs and losses are socialized, i.e. transferred to the taxpayers.

2. Neocolonial: the exploitation of the domestic populace using the same debt-servitude model used to subjugate, control and extract profits from overseas populations.

3. Neofeudal: the indenturing of the workforce via debt and financial repression to a new Aristocracy; the disempowerment of the workforce into powerless debt-serfs.

Neofeudalism is a subtle control structure that is invisible to those who buy into the Mainstream Media portrayal of our society and economy. This portrayal includes an apparent contradiction: America is a meritocracy–the best and brightest rise to the top, if they have pluck and work hard– and America is all about identity politics: whomever doesn't make it is a victim of bias.

Both narratives neatly ignore the neofeudal structure which disempowers the workforce in the public sphere and limits the opportunities to build capital outside the control of the state-corporate duopoly.

The book The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 shed some light on the transition to a feudal society and economy. While the author is a fine writer, the subject matter doesn't lend itself to light reading. The transition from the Roman legacy of centralized governance (empire, monarchy, theocracy, etc.) to feudalism (governance by local lords / aristocracy) was complex and uneven, and the author takes pains to describe the process and many variations that arose in a highly fragmented post-Roman Europe.

(Note that the Eastern Roman Empire, a.k.a. Byzantine Empire, endured until 1453 AD. I've written often on both the western and eastern Roman empires: The "Secret Sauce" of the Byzantine Empire: Stable Currency, Social Mobility (September 1, 2016)

Don't Diss the Dark Ages (October 26, 2016)

In the Footsteps of Rome: Is Renewal Possible? (July 24, 2017)

Neofeudalism is not a re-run of feudalism. It's a new and improved, state-corporate version of indentured servitude. The process of devolving from central political power to feudalism required the erosion of peasants' rights to own productive assets, which in an agrarian economy meant ownership of land.

Ownership of land was replaced with various obligations to the local feudal lord or monastery–free labor for time periods ranging from a few days to months; a share of one's grain harvest, and so on.

The other key dynamic of feudalism was the removal of the peasantry from the public sphere. In the pre-feudal era (for example, the reign of Charlemagne), peasants could still attend public councils and make their voices heard, and there was a rough system of justice in which peasants could petition authorities for redress.

Of course peasants usually lost to the aristocracy and monasteries, but at least the avenue of redress was at least partially open. This presence in the public sphere was slammed shut in feudalism.

From the capitalist perspective, feudalism restricted serfs' access to cash markets where they could sell their labor or harvests. The key feature of capitalism isn't just markets– it's unrestricted ownership of productive assets–land, tools, workshops, and the social capital of skills, networks, trading associations, guilds, etc.

Our system is Neofeudal because the non-elites have no real voice in the public sphere, and ownership of productive capital is indirectly suppressed by the state-corporate duopoly. Various studies have found that politicians ignore the bottom 99.5% who don't contribute to their campaigns or crony-capitalist wealth (five quick speeches for $200,000 each is $1 million. Rinse and repeat.)

The vast majority of incumbents are re-elected, as they leverage their power to vacuum up enormous sums of campaign contributions that then buy the compliance of a cowed public.

As for ownership of assets— small business startups have been crushed by soaring costs, heavy regulations and the dominance of cartels and quasi-monopolies enforced by the state.

Income growth is now the exclusive domain of the Financial Aristocracy:

The so-called middle class owns little to no productive capital; what it "owns" is a house, which is ultimately a form of consumption. I say "owns" for two reasons: one, most households have a mortgage, so their ownership is still contingent on making monthly payments to a lender, and two, the government collects property taxes on the home regardless of the owner's income or ability to pay.

Compare this to taxes levied on business income: if the business has no net income, it owes no taxes. Not so with property taxes–they are the modern equivalent of "rent" paid to the feudal lord.

Note that the aristocracy owns productive assets while the serfs own housing and debt. This is not a flaw in the system, it's a feature of the system.

Democracy (i.e. political influence) and ownership of productive assets are the exclusive domains of the New Aristocracy. This is Neofeudalism in a nutshell.

"Under a scientific dictator, education will really work — with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution."

 

"The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective."

 

-Aldous Huxley

source of quotes (read the entire thread)

*  *  *

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How We Lost The Vietnam Syndrome and Why We Need It Back: New at Reason

The Vietnam War was the greatest U.S. military catastrophe of the 20th century. It left deep gashes in the American psyche. It instilled an aversion to wars of choice that became known as the Vietnam syndrome.

The allergy might have lasted for generations. It didn’t. In 2001, just 26 years after the fall of Saigon, the United States invaded Afghanistan. American troops have been fighting there twice as long as we fought in Vietnam.

How could we be repeating the mistakes of Vietnam already? It was not a one-step process, writes Steve Champan. It occurred through a succession of military interventions that convinced us we were clever enough to avoid the pitfalls that had brought us to such ruin in Southeast Asia.

View this article.

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To Prevent Rebellion, Spain Docks Cruise Ship Housing 16,000 Riot Police In Barcelona Port

Efforts by Madrid to stop a Catalonia independence vote, currently slated for October 1st, seem to be growing more hostile by the day.  Earlier this week Spanish police seized control of Catalonia’s finances, seeking to ensure that separatist politicians could not spend further public funds on the referendum, and conducted raids across Catalonia to confiscate ballots and campaign materials from printing shops and delivery companies.

Now, as the New York Times notes this morning, Spanish police have detained 14 people during operations conducted yesterday which included the secretary general of economic affairs, Josep Maria Jové.

The Spanish police detained more than a dozen people in the region of Catalonia on Wednesday, drastically escalating tensions between the national government and Catalan separatists. The episode occurred less than two weeks before a highly contentious referendum on independence that the government in Madrid has vowed to block.

 

The police raided the offices of the Catalan regional government early Wednesday and arrested at least 14 people, including Josep Maria Jové, secretary general of economic affairs. The arrests were not expected, but hundreds of mayors and other officials in Catalonia had been warned that they would be indicted if they helped organize a referendum in violation of Spanish law.

 

Hundreds of supporters of Catalan independence immediately took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the arrests. Jordi Sanchez, the leader of one of the region’s biggest separatist associations, used Twitter to urge Catalans to “resist peacefully,” but also to “come out and defend our institutions.”

According to Reuters, the increasingly hostile crackdown by the Spanish police has led Catalan leaders to acknowledge for the first time today that plans to hold a referendum on independence are now in doubt following the arrest of senior regional officials and the seizure of campaign material by national police.

“It is obvious that we won’t be able to vote as we would have liked,” Oriol Junqueras, deputy head and economy minister of the regional government, told local television TV3. “They have altered the rules.”

 

It was the first time the promoters of the referendum had acknowledged their plans were in doubt, although Junqueras said he said he was convinced voters would still turn out in numbers.

 

It is not yet clear whether the police operation would be enough to prevent the vote overall or if it could instead bring fresh momentum to the secession campaign.

 

Polls show about 40 percent of Catalans support independence although a majority want a referendum on the issue.

Rajoy

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain

Meanwhile, as a sign of the growing hostility and Madrid’s intentions to do all that is necessary to block a vote, Bloomberg notes that Spain has hired cruise liners specifically to mount a massive force of 16,000 police in a Catalan port.

Spain has discreetly hired ferries to be moored in the Port of Barcelona as temporary housing for possibly thousands of police specially deployed to keep order in rebel Catalonia and help suppress an illegal independence referendum.

 

The country’s interior ministry asked Catalan port authorities to provide a berth for one ship until Oct. 3 — two days after the planned vote — saying it was a matter of state, a spokeswoman for the port said by phone Wednesday. The vessel, known as “Rhapsody,” docked in the city about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, she said.

 

The aim is to amass more than 16,000 riot police and other security officers by the Oct. 1 referendum, El Correo newspaper reported on its website. That would exceed the number of Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, who serve both the Catalan and central governments.

Still, the Catalan government says it can hold the vote, and recently announced that it had stored about 6,000 ballot boxes in a secret location. “The referendum will be held and is already organized,” Mr. Romeva said. “Clearly the conditions in which it will be celebrated are not those that we wished for.”

Separatist leaders, however, have accused Mr. Rajoy of plunging Catalonia into a state of emergency rather than negotiating the terms of a referendum.

 

“The issue that is at stake today isn’t the independence — or not — of Catalonia,” Raül Romeva, Catalonia’s foreign affairs chief, told a group of foreign correspondents in Madrid on Wednesday, “but democracy in Spain and the European Union.”

 

Mr. Romeva said that Catalonia would hold the referendum as planned, and that Catalan lawmakers would act to honor the result within 48 hours — meaning they would declare independence unilaterally if people voted for it.

 

“There is no alternative, absolutely no alternative,” he said. “There are only two projects now on the table: a democratic project or repression.”

Now,why do we have a feeling that placing a riot police force of 16,000 in a Catalan port, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, will not help reduce the local push for independence… 

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Bill Blain: “Let’s Pretend”

Submitted by Bill Blain of Mint Partners

Blain’s Morning Porridge – Fed Acts, ECB Smoking – but what?

The Fed acts. Normalisation. Hints of a rate rise in December, confirmation of further “data-dependent” hikes to come next year, and ending the reinvestment of QE income. Exactly as expected – although some say three hikes in 2018 is a bit hostage to the global economy. The effect: Dollar up. Bonds down. Record Stocks. Yellen threw the bond market a crumb when she reminded us low inflation will require a “response.”

Relax. US markets will sweat, but not break. Dollar ascendant.. Yen collapses.. What about Yoorp?

Not quite as simples in Europe.

I’m indebted to my colleague Kevin Humphreys on BGC’s Money Market desk for pointing out yet another Northern European central banker with a smug self-satisfied smile on his face this morning.
Klass Knot (Holland) has been telling us the European reflationary environment is improving to the extent where the tail risk of a deflationary spiral is no longer imminent. He said “robust” economic developments have improved confidence inflation will rise in line with the ECB’s mandated aims. He added the appreciation of the Euro reflects an improving assessment of the EU’s economic success. And, he concludes the ECB should focus on the more important structural and institutional issues facing Europe, rather than the short-term stabilisation and crisis management – WHICH ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.

Christ on a bicycle.

Can I have please a couple of ounces of whatever he has been smoking. I reckon that ranks alongside Gordon Brown telling us the boom/bust cycle was over… Sadly it pretty much sums up how Central Bankers want to string the story these days…

Let’s pretend.

Let’s pretend there is not a storm of contradictory bluster and threats facing Europe – which central bankers should ignore at their peril.

Let us pretend this is a robust economic recovery, even though in reality it’s a bit sub-optimal and pretty vulnerable to global direction.

Let’s pretend the Euro is strong because markets have suddenly woken up to the hidden strength of the European Economic Miracle while ignoring the likelihood the Euro is up as a reflection of dollar weakness and expectations of the end of the Euro ZIRP phase.

Let’s pretend the world loves European stock markets (ignoring the ingrained red-tape, labour hassles, and incestuous markets, etc) and ignore the probable reality European stocks were briefly in vogue only because we were too tired and empty of ideas to justify further gains in US markets.. stocks always need the next new thing.. I know, let’s go gorge on EM stocks instead!

And, let’s completely ignore the fact that ending stabilisation and crisis management – ie ending QE – will simply trigger the next crisis. Which is probably to highlight Italy’s debt unstainability!

As I say.. can I please have a couple of ounces of whatever happy herbs they are using in Yoorp please..

Oh, hang on, here they are.. the ECB will continue to pump massive amounts of liquidity into the European banking system, the banks will be able to more than make up the limited effect of the ECB withdrawing its liquidity. Not a bad thought – the ECB continues to distort markets by proxy… Nothing to worry about then…

Argg! Pass me another Camberwell Carrot.. 

I do hope Draghi says something about “ongoing vigilance” when he speaks, and tells us “these are not the droids you are looking for” as he Jedi mind-wipes the disbelievers among us..

Meanwhile, I read Greece is considering a bond exchange of small illiquid bonds into a smaller number of more liquid benchmarks. It will build up their reserves ahead of the bailout exit next year, and sends signals to the markets about a continuing ability to raise debt to service its debt. Really? Think I need to check out which bonds they are considering getting rid of. Some Greek bonds remain more equal than others.

The Greek issue remains one of the gap between what domestic politicians, the ECB and the IMF are saying about Greek debt sustainability – and the brutal reality (which markets are well aware of) re the chances of Greece exiting the bailout smoothly next year. What a wonderful signal of pan-European success if a country they’ve brought to its knees in order to rebuild its economy can stand on its own two feet again…

Somewhere in Brussels it will be recorded in the financial histories of the Euro: “In order to save their country, we had to destroy it..” Somewhere in Greece will be a plinth: “Go tell Brussels, passerby, that here obedient to their laws we lie..” 

Back to the day job..

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Gold & Silver-Bearish reversal patterns this month!

picture of a bear for Chris kimble post

Gold & Silver long-term trends have been lower since highs back in 2011. Counter trend rallies have continued to frustrate metals bulls as they continue to fizzle out. Are current counter trend rallies in Gold & Silver about to fizzle out again?

Below looks at Gold and Silver on a monthly basis over the past decade-

Gold monthly

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE

Gold and Silver this month tested resistance lines that were based on old highs/lows at (1). As both were testing the underside of this resistance, both have created large bearish reversal patterns (bearish wicks) at each (1).

Metals bulls do not want to see this type of pattern at resistance, while in long-term downtrends. This could also be concerning news for metals bulls, as traders have established positions where historically Gold and Silver were closer to highs than lows.

The Power of the Pattern has been sharing this chart for the past few months with Premium and Metals members, preparing them for this key level. If patterns in the metals complex is of interest to you, we would be honored if you were a member.

 

 

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Trump To Make “Important Announcement” On North Korea Today, McMaster Says

Update: According to Bloomberg, Trump won’t be declaring war (yet), and instead the announcement is sanctions related.

  • TRUMP’S N. KOREA ANNOUNCEMENT TO BE SANCTIONS-RELATED: OFFICIAL

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Following yesterday’s anticlimatic Rex Tillerson press conference in which the Secretary of State was expected, by some, to make an important announcement only to disappoint, moments ago National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said on CNN that “the president will make an important announcement today about the continuation of our efforts to resolve this problem with North Korea short of war.”

McMaster added that Trump will “make that announcement as he meets with our very close allies South Korea and Japan.”

As Bloomberg reminds us, President Trump is set to meet with South Korea President Moon Jae-inat 11:30am and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at 12:15pm in New York.

McMaster said Trump has also made a decision about Iran deal. “I know what the decision is – but when the president reveals that, when he talks about it he’ll place it context of the broader approach to Iran” and what we have to do to keep Iran from continuing destabilizing efforts.

Separately, Vice President Mike Pence says on Fox “we don’t want a military option” on North Korea. “I met yesterday with the foreign minister of China and we made it very clear that we expect them to do more.”

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Rate Hike Cycles, Gold, And The “Rule Of Total Morons”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

In response to Janet Yellen’s "everything is OK" speech following today’s balance sheet reduction notice by the FOMC committee, I received an interesting set of comments from Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man Blog regarding rate hike cycles, gold, and stock market peaks.

“Rule of Total Morons”

A new bull market in gold started in late 2015 concurrently with the Fed’s first rate hike. That is no coincidence. The gold market is highly sensitive to future changes in liquidity. The more tightening moves the Fed undertakes (which it does in the face of collapsing money supply growth, because its decisions are based on lagging economic indicators), the more gold bullish and the more stock market bearish the fundamental backdrop becomes. Anyone long stocks should actually ask himself how it is possible that gold is up nearly 30% from its low, despite an ostensibly “gold bearish” rate hike cycle.

 

But they never do ask the right questions, which is why stocks peak with a big lag, particularly in major bubbles. Economic historians found out that the economy was technically very likely already in recession when the stock market peaked in 1929. In the 2007 to 2009 bust, NBER backdated the beginning of the recession to December 2007, but in May of 2008 Bernanke was still talking about how well the economy was doing and how the high oil price was “creating inflation” (thereafter he began to shut up about all that, but not before demonstrating for everyone to see how utterly clueless he was). And of course, stocks peaked in October of 2007, practically two seconds before the economy fell into recession.

 

In bubble regimes, the final stage is always characterized by the “rule of total morons”. That’s just how it is.

Missing Inflation

Central banks cannot see inflation because they are totally clueless how to measure it: Central Banks Puzzled as Global Inflation Hits Lowest Level Since 2009: Solving the Puzzle

How Much Gold Should the Common Man Own?

Understanding Bubbles

If you wish to understand the nature of the bubbles we are in, a few recent articles of mine will help.

  1. Bubblicious Debate: Greenspan Says “Bond Bubble About to Break”, No Stock Market Bubble
  2. Median Price-to-Revenue Ratio Higher in All Deciles vs 2007, 90% vs Dot-Com Bubble: THE Choice
  3. Debunking MMT, Keynesianism, Monetarism: Reader asks “What theories do you believe?” Mish Reading List

Gold vs. Faith in Central Banks

The above chart also shows the bottom in gold right as the Fed started hiking, in agreement with the analysis of Tenebrarum.

For additional images, please see my 38 slide powerpoint Venture Alliance Presentation on trends in sentiment, asset bubbles, and gold from June 24, 2017.

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