I’m very happy with this one! Thanks, Tom.
As I’ve done before, below are some links referencing things I talked about in the podcast, if anyone’s curious. Maybe listen first, and then dig in.
The interview has been modestly edited - not by me - probably mostly to cut out my rambling - so if I skip abruptly from one thing to another, that’s why.
March 2019: Every single day I hear someone on TV or in the WSJ, or The FT, or whatever, say "We have no inflation," or "We need more inflation." It's insulting normal people, who take "inflation" to mean "cost of living," because that's been spiking up for a long time. Don't bullshit us.
"Having been robbed, the Germans became a nation of robbers." - Thomas Mann
"Inflation: The Witches Sabbath," a Thomas Mann lecture from 1942.
November 2023: “I suppose a flood of fentanyl, dystopian, crime-ridden cities, crazy 32-gender ideologies, and porous borders would make a lot of sense to someone who supported a One World Government®, and wanted to destroy the one nation on Earth most likely to fight against that.”
November 2023: “I just got called, quote, "a Marxist-Leninist at best, and an pusillanimous-ignoramus at worst," so that's pretty fun Overton Window!”
"In November, HarperCollins will be releasing my first book, which I describe as an economics book disguised as a love story...The book is called, Yellen."
- WSJ Fed Shill Jon Hilsenrath
Who is tough on the Fed in the MSM? No one. They all LOVE the Fed, otherwise they wouldn't be Fed reporters.
The Fed has immense power. This is a national disgrace.
"I knew that these more specialized reporters were best equipped to understand and then explain what we were doing and why. Other media would pick up on their reporting." - Ben Bernanke
Registered WSJ readers commenting on a Jon Hilsenrath article in June 2015, when official CPI was 0.17957%:
Harley Bassman, 2021
"You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It’s just grotesque." - Gore Vidal
I noticed something.
Confirmed by Wikipedia (I know, I know), there've been NO 'panics' since Congress abdicated monetary policy to the Fed. We've had depressions, crashes, financial crises, "black days" etc. - but no panics anymore!
I feel better now.
Q2 2023 Update:
"Corporate equities and mutual fund shares by wealth percentile group" As usual, the top 1% gained share in Q2 2023. These are Fed numbers, not mine.
Share of Total Net Worth Held by:
Top 1%
90th-99th Percentile
50th-90th Percentile
Bottom 50%
Bernanke, 2010: I think we would like to bring the balance sheet back to something...under a trillion dollars...
Paul: A trillion dollars?
Bernanke: Or less, yes.
The Fed is currently sitting at $7.8 trillion.
It turns out that "Occupy Wall Street" actually refers to ex and future central bankers.
Even if you make $500k a year and are worth 7-figures you are still far closer to the homeless person down the street than you are to David Tepper.
Deflation is an untaxed increase in your purchasing power. They can’t allow that.
“QE is no more than monetary policy for rich people.” - Steve Eisman, 2016
“In the next recession, QE will be — and should be — the Fed’s main line of defense.” - Noted goofball Noah Smith, Feb. 2020
"...when you look at the wealth disparity today, which by the way, in my opinion, the biggest accelerant of has been QE, it's not even debatable..." - Stan Druckenmiller on Realvision
“Janet [Yellen] was the strongest advocate for unlimited” quantitative easing.
- Betsy Duke, Fed Governor from 2008 to 2013, Quoted by Chris Leonard, in his great book, "The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy."
"Billionaire politics is about making human shields of the merely affluent."
- Steve Randy Waldman
Mike Taylor on the Fed Minutes
People must survive on price levels, not rate of change.
Someday everyone will be a billionaire.
"Think about it. If you own a bond, you've got a claim on money, but the claims are too much...You're either not gonna get back that money in full, or you're going to get back money that's worth less, because they print the money."
"Every single adjustment to CPI calculation has ended up with a lower CPI. No one has ever adjusted it and come up with a higher number. So, we, we know what the adjustments are there for."
- Grant Williams
"People hate inflation, hate it." - Powell
It was very lonely back in 2020 trying to point out the Fed’s insanity:
Average Inflation Targeting Is Despicable Policy:
THIS was a financial war crime, and NO ONE responsible will be accountable in any way for seriously harming hundreds of millions of Americans you don't see on CNBC every day:
"I can count on the fingers of one hand the members of Congress who actually understand finance and real estate, and even monetary policy, well enough that you could talk to them on camera. The rest of them, forget about it."
- Chris Whalen on Realvision
Check out the WEF’s appalling “leadership”, a who’s who of authoritarian grifters: Benioff, Fink, Freeland, Al Gore, Lagarde, Rubenstein…
"We penetrate the cabinets. Yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau, and I know that half of this cabinet or even more than half are actually our young global leaders of the World Economic Forum." - Klaus Schwab
Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Newt Gingrich, Klaus Schwab - all part of the Davos Crowd, going back at least 25 years in Gates' case…
1980
Leslie Wexner’s Young Global Leaders
The long-time director of CPL, who was likely chosen with direct input from Wexner, is David Gergen, an adviser to former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Gergen has also had a parallel career in journalism and, in the late 1980s, “he was chief editor of U.S. News & World Report, working with publisher Mort Zuckerman.” Zuckerman was a close associate of Epstein and bought the New York Daily News after the death of its previous owner, Robert Maxwell. Gergen is also a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, where Epstein also had memberships.
“The World Economic Forum is considered by many to be an elitist group of global financiers and multinational CEOs who meet annually to maintain their iron grip on the economic and regulatory policies that have elevated them into the rarefied world of the super rich while leaving the United States and other parts of the world with the greatest wealth and income inequality since the Great Depression.”
"Is there any good reason to believe that inflation hits low-income households especially hard?"
Paul Krugman, “Nobel” Prize winner and general dipshit
My definitely wide-ranging chat with Tom Bodrovics of Palisades Gold Radio.