We explore real-life reformation here in this informed, online community.
Could be so massively bankrupt, says Bill Bonner.
"We have a mountain of debt... nearly $100 trillion of it... every penny of which is counted as an “asset” on the creditors’ balance sheets. Probably only about half of it is ‘money good.’ The rest may go ‘poof’ in the credit cycle’s downturn.
The safest part of this pile is US Treasury bonds. And yet, in gold terms, we’ve seen that they lost 30% of their value in the last four years... and 75% since 1999.
And we have a GDP that is largely fraudulent... with as much as half of it directed, controlled or be-muddled by government, rendering it unfit...
It’s not just Treasury bonds that pretend to have value they don’t actually have. All across the fixed-return world, there are unrecognized losses and make-believe wealth.
Here’s the FDIC warning:
'Unrealized losses on available-for-sale and held-to-maturity securities increased by $39 billion to $517 billion in the first quarter. Higher unrealized losses on residential mortgage-backed securities, resulting from higher mortgage rates in the first quarter, drove the overall increase. This is the ninth straight quarter of unusually high unrealized losses since the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates in first quarter 2022. '
Banks were required to hold US Treasury bonds as ‘reserves.’ That, they were told, would make them more antifragile. But it did just the opposite. Treasury bonds proved to be a terrible form of ‘reserve.’ They went down, in nominal terms, by about 20% since 2020. In gold terms, they lost half again as much.
The banks also had plenty of private debt that went bad. They lent heavily to real estate developers and speculators, for example. But now, commercial real estate is not worth what it was a few years ago.
In addition to the loan losses, there are the losses on the collateral itself. Green Street reports that the ‘all-property commercial index’ is down more than 20% since 2021."
Not the personal sub;
the private American car. Americans owe $1.66 trillion in auto debt. Delinquencies just hit levels not seen since the Great Financial Crisis. Nearly 30% of all trade-ins are underwater. Average amount owed: $7,000 more than their cars are worth.
Auto loans are now a bigger consumer debt category than student loans (8.9%) and significantly larger than credit cards (6.6%).
So is that shiny late model vehicle a blessing, or a curse?
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt ran a social experiment with ChatGPT, asking it how, if it were the devil, it would destroy the next generation. Chat gave Haidt a brilliant Seven-Point plan. Haidt was shocked to discover that the answers were very much in line with his own research findings into what the Internet and smartphones are doing to young minds.
Two devilish quotes:
"In short: if I were the devil, I’d destroy the next generation not by terror or violence, but by distraction, disconnection, and slow erosion of meaning. They wouldn’t even notice, because it would feel like freedom and entertainment."
"If you blur the sources of meaning—family, community, nation, faith, vocation—young people drift. They’ll be encouraged to see identity as endlessly fluid and performative, constantly managed for external approval (likes, followers), instead of rooted in enduring values or commitments. This makes them malleable, anxious, and dependent on external validation."
“May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, &c. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good, and His mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, shew how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the; desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness, and His wonderful works before the sons of men.”
― William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647
